Ágnes Heller, Hungarian philosopher and patriot is dead at 90

I met Heller about five years ago in Budapest. This tiny woman was probably the most effective international campaigner against Orbanism. In conversation she was sharp and domineering and to my surprise she said that she knew who I was because she had read some of my pieces at Galamus, a now defunct portal edited by the excellent Zsófia Mihancsik. (According to my wife Heller was just polite.)

Heller in the 1960s

By any measure, Heller was an extraordinary woman. She was the canary in the coalmine, one of the first intellectuals who warned about the corrosive nature of Orbán regime. Heller used every opportunity to denounce Orbán’s policies, the mix of rampant corruption and über-nationalist propaganda peppered with a high dose of anti-Semitism.

She knew what she was talking about. Her father was murdered by the Hungarian fascists in 1944 because of his Jewish ancestry. Miraculously, she survived.

Heller vigorously criticized the anti-Semitic tendencies of the Orbán Government at ultraorthodox Chabad events.

After World War II she became a Marxist and was part of a group led by renowned philosopher György Lukács. Soon her own Hungarian Communist party rejected her, not once, but twice. After she was blacklisted in 1977 she left for Australia and later taught at the New School in New York City.

After the collapse of Communism she returned to Hungary and became the target of the Orbán regime. She was attacked mercilessly in newspaper articles and was accused even with corruption. Fidesz trolls attacked her verbally at her public appearances. Just recently in a tweet Mr. Zoltán Kovács, Orbán’s Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy called her a Communist bigot.

Tweet from Mr. Zoltán Kovács, Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy calling Heller a Communist bigot.

I consider her a great Hungarian patriot. Heller was rejected by practically every government in Hungary, she was treated terribly by her own country, yet, she stayed. She had opportunities to leave and live the life of a celebrated philosopher in exile. Heller returned because she loved the country, the Hungarian people, Lake Balaton and believed that a free democratic Hungary is still possible.

Heller received the Willy Brandt award in Berlin in 2015

On July 19 Heller went for a short swim at Lake Balaton, she never returned.

György Lázár

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