Professor Veronika Schandl Interview

What do you remember about your student years in Piliscsaba?

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I am Veronica Schandl and I actually was one of the students of the very first year here in Pázmány, which wasn't here, but it was a Mina shoot. It's very close to here on Gellért Hill. It was a cloister of the Vincentine Sisters. And in this cloister building, there were the first two years of Pázmány.

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So, I was in the very first year and I do remember the building because it was really close. It was small and there was blue wallpaper on the walls with little white flowers on it and in Hungary we have these long benches in sports classes where we have to run or something and we had those, so these long benches and we were sitting there on the corridor. So, it was it was first very basic, and the the big lecture hall was also the dining room for the nuns. So, while we were listening to, I don't know the history of English literature, we could hear, you know, the how they cooked things, and it was cabbage smell coming from the kitchen. So, it was very funny, but it was a wonderful start because there were only 75 of us. I mean at the whole university, maybe the whole university was 125 people. And so, everyone knew everyone. We went to the pubs together, all the teachers and the professors all knew us by name. So,it was a very different kind of atmosphere and I really, really liked that.

And then we got the terrible news that we're going out to Piliscsaba and you know, Piliscsaba sounded like what we're in the middle of Buda. So, what we did, we got on the bus and went to the Piliscsaba campus in April and there was nothing, nothing. So, there was still a tank in one of the garages. So, we came back and told everyone we were not going anywhere, there's nothing there. So don't worry, we're staying here. We'll have all the pubs and everything. And then in September, we got the letter that we had to go to the police. So, at first, we actually hated Piliscsaba. 

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What do you think about our department?

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When I was a student and especially when I was starting out teaching I think one of the wonderful things about the English department is that we do care about one another. We professors as well but we also do care about the students. So it because it's never really was that big that we wouldn't know the people who are in our classes. You know it often happens that I can see someone having a bad day and I I don't mind just asking So what is going on? Because it's important that we keep this on that we are people and we try to form a community. Yeah. So if you ask me this, this is what I think about the department.

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What it was like to start working with your former professors? 

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So first it was dreadful because, you know, in Hungarian, we have two words for you, the friendly you and the formal you. I kept on magázni, so I kept on using the formal you. And then one day I was carrying, I was going into a language practice class, and I was carrying a huge boom Buster, you know, like a deck. And while taking it off the shelves, I crashed Professor Pinter's mug. I thought, okay, this is the end of the world. So, you know, he was still Professor Pinter to me half a year ago. I was his student. After my classes, I went to a tea shop. I bought an even nicer mug. And I put some tea in it, and I wrote I'm so sorry I crashed it. He was like, oh, it was just a mug. I had no attachment to it, so don't worry. But thanks for the new mug. This is actually much nicer. So, but I was always nervous.

And then there was Professor Kathleen Dobbs, who was an American professor moving here to Hungary. And she was, you know, a very strict person. And I always was a little bit scared of her in the beginning. And then she said she wanted to give a class with me. And I was terrified. And I asked all my friends, should I do this? Should I not do this?

So, we gave the class together. We agreed beforehand what we would be talking about and then she changed the course of the class to talk about something else. I could feel my pulse was getting and getting. In the end, she said:

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   - Okay, you passed all the tests I gave you

And I was like

   - You were testing me?

   - Of course, I was testing you to see how you react to a new situation, and whether you can still compose yourself.

 

So you know. It was also nice of her to to give me that boost that now I can fly free because sometimes challenge can be helpful actually.

 

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Why there are so many Shakespearean scholars in the faculty do you think?

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I think one of the reasons why many of us are Shakespeare scholars is because the leaders of the founders of the faculty were Shakespeare scholars. So, Professor Favini is a Shakespearean. So, he invited all his former students Professor Reuss, and that another hub of Hungarian Shakespeare studies was at ELTE and the head of the department was Professor Gayhad who was also a Shakespeare scholar. So those people who are not from the Fabini team, they are from the ELTE team of Professor Gayad who were Shakespeare scholars and we had wonderful Shakespeare classes. So, I remember for example with Professor Fabini, we were reading King Lear line by line all through the term and we loved him so much that we put on the, you know, the storm scene from King Lear. And I was playing King Lear. I had very, very long hair and we used a kilo of flour to pour it over me and there was a girl who was very good at makeup. So, I had all the wrinkles and everything and I went in, and Professor Fabini didn't recognize me. So, he was like who's playing? Yeah, who's playing? Only when I started to play then he realized, oh, it's Veronika. Unfortunately, there is no recording of that Oscar-winning performance of me.

 

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So, you already said the funny memories and the challenging memories. How about the wholesome memories? Is there any defining moment? 

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So 1994, before the Civil War era, we went out to Piliscsaba and it was a shock. First, because there were no roads. If you wanted to come back in the afternoon, you had to have a changing pair of shoes, because most of the time there was mud, and they were sinking in the mud all day. You couldn't actually enter civilization afterward. Many of us were commuting first and then we decided just to move out to Piliscsaba where there was nothing in the beginning. So, there was Piliscscaba the campus with two buildings and then one pizzeria and one very rundown pub where you don't want to go in. So, it was difficult, and I thought, OK, now we have to do something. And I actually invented the Christmas party and I had, we had a wonderful teacher called Julian Hall who was an Englishman living in Hungary at the time, and I asked Julian to help me. And so, I rewrote the Christmas Carol into a short play, and Julian Hall was acting in it. Many of my friends were acting in it and there was an auditorium building in the old Piliscsaba campus, which used to be the cinema for the soldiers. And we actually filled that cinema building with students and not only from the English faculty, but everyone who was around the campus just came. And that was wonderful.

 

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How do you see the branches future? What's next?

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You know many people complain about this building. I'm actually fine with this building if we fill it with life. And I think this year's been a big change that we accept that we are here. This is not temporary. We're probably staying here for a few more years. And I I think that that's what Barbie did with this corridor is wonderful. So if you fill it with us then it's not really the building that that counts. So I think I wish that that we would have a nice building which looks like a university and feels like university. But I think that it's more important to keep up the good things about this department. And I think if we keep it up, then everything is going to be fine. I do feel that there are going to be dwindling numbers of enthusiasts who would like to be learning humanities. But we should be happy of the people who are here and we should cater for them. This is what I think.