SHE'S AN OPTIMIST IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE; HUNGARIAN VIEWS TURBULENT CHANGES

Eva Vagvolgyine is an optimist in more ways than one.

A Hungarian university professor, Vagvolgyine is optimistic about the future of her nation's developing democracy. She also is president of the Optimist Club of Szeged, a city of 200,000 people near the border with Yugoslavia.

The club was formed in April and has more than 40 members. It has initiated a service project to assist refugees fleeing the fighting in Yugoslavia.

"I think it is a moral task for Hungarians," Vagvolgyine said during an interview Saturday afternoon in Cape Girardeau, where she was attending an Optimist International East Missouri District meeting.

About 130 people attended the meeting, held at the Drury Lodge.

Vagvolgyine said the Optimist Club of Szeged has collected clothes and raised some money for the refugees, many of them Croatians. There are a number of refugee camps in Hungary. In all, she said, about 300,000 Yugoslavians have sought refuge in Hungary since the outbreak of war.

"It is a very turbulent world," said Vagvolgyine. She said Szeged is about five kilometers from the Yugoslavian border.

Asked about the conflict in Yugoslavia, the university professor left no doubt as to which side she and other Hungarians favor in the civil war.

"We would sympathize with democracy and a liberal system," she stated.

She said the Serbs are identified with the old, communist regime in Yugoslavia. "They would like to exterminate all of them (the Croatians and others). So the Serbs are the terrorists," she said.

Serb warplanes, she added, have flown over Hungary.

Vagvolgyine said Yugoslavia is "the last strong, communist power in Europe."

With 30 percent inflation, Hungary's economy is still facing hard times, she said.

Vagvolgyine said Optimist clubs have been formed in Hungary since the collapse of communism. There are now 25 Optimist clubs in Hungary with a combined total of 600 members.

She said they fill an important need as the nation emerges from 40 years of communist rule. The clubs, she said, try to give people faith that life and living standards will improve.

Vagvolgyine arrived in the United States in late September. She spent five days visiting New York, before coming to St. Louis. She is visiting St. Louis through mid-November to learn more about the operation of Optimist clubs.

Optimist International has its headquarters in St. Louis. The organization has 170,000 members worldwide.

"Everybody was laughing at me because I came by Greyhound bus from New York to St. Louis," Vagvolgyine said with a laugh. But she said she enjoyed it because it allowed her to see the countryside.

Vagvolgyine is a professor at Szeged University, where she teaches both Hungarian and English. Her husband is a university sociology professor. Their son is a journalist in Budapest and a foreign policy adviser to parliament.