Perhaps it is the novel The Neverending Story that best shows how important it is to name and so even personify the constructs of our imagination.
Although the heroic deed of the protagonist of Michael Ende’s fantasy novel only consisted of giving a new name to the Queen of Fantastica, it saved her and her country from the threat of Nothing, because people were beginning to abandon their imagination, and so forgetting her too. Fortunately, there is no danger of this in Veszprém; the case of the Korsós Girl, Zsuzsi, is a good example of this.
The bronze girl hidden behind the trees next to the City Hall, tirelessly pouring water from her jug into the fountain, was brought to life in 1961 in the studio of sculptor Lenke R. Kiss as Girl with a Jug, and then took her place as a true bourgeois lady in the historic city centre, not far from the entrance of the castle. She stood there for decades, greeting the crowds of people every Sunday as they headed to the castle for Mass, or after a busy weekday, the people sitting in what was then a coffee bar but is now a local council building.
It was said that Zsuzsi exuded feminine grace, while holding a heavy jug full of water with a firm and strong hand. She stood in a busy part of the square for 30 years, until being moved in the early 1990s to a somewhat quieter spot in the shade of the trees near the City Hall. Nobody and nothing in this world is perfect, not even Zsuzsi, as was once pointed out by more critical members of the art-loving community in Veszprém, when they remarked that Zsuzsi’s legs were perhaps a little thickset. However, just as the cobblestones of Óváros Square are not appreciated individually, no work of art should be considered based on every little detail! Particularly not when the statue has a name and personality of its own given to it by the locals.
