Skip to main content
Anna Lengyel

In Memoriam Anna Lengyel

Last farewell to Anna Lengyel, the late lecturer of Istvan Bibo Free University. We are grateful to have known her.

“Anna Lengyel could fight and debate exquisitely, but during the past decade, as she had found or rather created her own theatrical domain, instead of fighting with people she fought increasingly for people and for the kind of truth that she never stopped believing in. Somewhere else, on distant continents, or perhaps already at her parental home she got saturated with an air that always seemed fresh. Anna got the knowledge and will to make a better world for the oppressed, for women, for Roma, for cancer patients. No one had such a deeply transformative impact on the way cancer is approached in Hungary, as Anna did: besides openly discussing her disease she also showed people how to live without stigma, search healing and participate in it, identify credible sources, and remain active till the very end. She taught us that when there is nothing more left, one can still be an active agent in finding one's own peace.” (excerpt from Andrea Tompa's obituary)

Her lecture at the Bibo Free University covered the topic of sorrow (in Hungarian):

Video URL

Anna Lengyel, the award-winning dramaturg, translator, director and founder of the PanoDrama, an independent creative production company and the only documentary theatre in Hungary, has worked with Pina Bausch, Robert Wilson and Declan Donnellan, and collaborated closely with renowned Hungarian directors internationally. She was a lecturer at theatre academies in Budapest and Vilnius, and published in German, English and Hungarian regularly.

She passed away at the age 52.

Partnerships: