Mickey Hargitay was probably the first Hungarian immigrant who became the quintessential Californian, the idol of an entire generation of bodybuilders. His determination helped to make the sport respectable in the United States, and Mickey also became a celebrity, one of the “beautiful people” of the Southern California crowd. Hargitay was born in 1926, into a poor family in the […]
Twentieth century Hungarian author István Örkény (1912-1979) was known for his bitingly sharp social commentary. As a Hungarian Jew, he survived the Holocaust and served in one of Hungary’s forced labour units during World War II, only to be captured by the Russians in 1943. István Örkény spent over two years in a Soviet labour camp, before being allowed to […]
Each year we spend a couple of weeks in Hungary. Generally we go in May to beat the heavy tourist crowds and the unbearable heat of the summer in the city. Just before we left, a friend called and told us that he was coming to Hungary to sing with his choir. Since we would be in Budapest he invited […]
Amidst all the kitsch, the tacky souvenir shops, the tourist traps and the overpriced “traditional Hungarian” restaurants along Váci utca, Budapest’s main pedestrian mall, there’s a little haunt called the Jégbüfé (Ice buffet), located just a block away, right near the foot of Elisabeth Bridge. When you go to the Jégbüfé, think more communist era retro, rather than old world […]
In 1949 when Sister Margit Slachta arrived to the United States and asked for temporary refuge, she had no idea that she would never return to Hungary. She died in Buffalo, New York, in 1974 and the local paper headline read, “Sister Margaret Slachta Dies; Champion of Rights.” Indeed, she was an uncompromising fighter of human rights. George Csicsery arrived […]
One of the culinary high-points of our vacation in Hungary this summer was the hamburger we had in Debrecen at Buri Buri, a hole-in-the-wall burger place which serves extraordinary “street food”. My wife and I were tired and hungry. It was an unusually hot June evening and we wanted to eat outside. “How about a hamburger?” – suggested my wife. […]
John Bátki’s 1997 anthology of translated Attila József poems is one of the many books that I bought in a small handful of English and foreign-language bookstores in Budapest’s city centre during the 1990’s. I always spoke Hungarian fluently, yet as a teenager born in Canada, but living within the relatively large expat community of Hungary’s capital, I found Hungarian […]
Budapest’s Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), Hungary’s largest institution of higher education, is prepared to introduce a course on anti-racism, and is also considering whether to make this mandatory for all students enrolled in the Institute for Art Theory and Media Studies. Péter György, the institute’s director, said that the course would include Holocaust studies and that while faculty planned to […]
The Hungarian Studies Association of Canada (HSAC) celebrated its 30th anniversary this year, at a conference held at the University of Ottawa from May 30th to June 1st, 2015. A member of the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, the 2015 HSAC conference was especially dynamic, with 29 presenters coming from across Canada, the United States, Hungary, Romania, […]
For the past several weeks, the story of a somewhat mysterious video produced by a Turkish foundation called Türkiye Diyanet surfaced on and off in the Hungarian press, suggesting that there were plans to erect a mega mosque, with four minarets, a restaurant and a hotel in the Kőbánya suburb of Budapest. Based on the released drawings and the video, the […]
