Prime Minister Viktor Orbán last sat next to an American president in the Oval Office 21 years ago, in 1998. At the time, the 35 year old Mr. Orbán, serving his first four year term at the helm of the Hungarian government, sat in the company of President Bill Clinton. Mr. Orbán had then just completed his transformation from an […]
Historians will credit Prime Minister Viktor Orbán with having been ahead of his time on the nature of political discourse and on the populist transformation of what was once called conservatism. Mr. Orbán has avoided all debates with his political opponents since 2006 and finessed the tribal approach to politics that was only adopted by others in North America and […]
Ever since I read Jerzy Kosiński’s 1965 novel The Painted Bird, I was freed from any misconception that antisemitism in Hungary is unique or somehow more odious than that appearing elsewhere in Central Europe. In fact, in some ways, Poland’s religiosity may have contributed to a particularly fervid form of hatred. In The Painted Bird, we follow the story of a […]
It’s May Day in Hungary — a national holiday where major political parties hold picnics and rallies, Budapest’s Városliget (City Park) fills with families, games for children, barbecues and vendors, and the almost moribund Munkáspárt, the hard-line successor of the country’s pre-1989 Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party, shows signs of life by marching on Andrássy út and serving zsíróskenyér (bread with […]
Our publication has been critical in the past of close contacts and friendly relationships between the prior Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and representatives of Hungary’s Orbán regime. The Hungarian Free Press, its contributors and many of its readers have on numerous occasions informed different layers of the Canadian political establishment of the systemic rule of law violations […]
Fifteen Caucasian opera singers from the Hungarian State Opera signed a document claiming that they identify, in part, as being African American. Szilvester Ókovács, the Opera House’s director, asked those with roles in George Gershwin’s piece Porgy and Bess to identify as African-American in writing, in order to get around the fact that Ira Gershwin insisted that these roles only be filled […]
A public institution for the disabled in the southwestern Hungarian village of Mozsgó (population 1,000) is under scrutiny after a complaint detailed widespread abuse of the intellectually disabled residents by staff. Hungary’s Népszava daily reported on a detailed complaint and video evidence documenting the physical abuse and the overall inhumane treatment of residents. In one of the videos, produced with […]
In early February, we reported on how 2,000 Hungarian books were thrown out by the Foyer Hongrois retirement home and we shared an image showing a garbage container full of books. We can now report on a more positive development: earlier this month 60 boxes containing some 2,500 Hungarian-language books remaining at the Foyer were packed up and prepared for […]
Father Ferenc Deák (or Deák atya, in Hungarian) died yesterday. He served Our Lady of Hungary Parish in Montreal from 1975 to 2007 and played a truly formative role in the lives of those of us who grew up in the eighties and nineties. He baptised me in 1981, I had my first communion with him in 1988 and then […]
Despite Viktor Orbán’s half-hearted letters of apology to members of the European People’s about his most recent anti-Soros, anti-Juncker and anti-migrant campaigns, an expression of regret for employing the term “useful idiots” when referring to his Christian Democratic partners in the EU and a pledge to stop harassing Central European University, the EPP appears to have had enough and has […]
