The number of Hungarians deciding to emigrate increased by 46% in 2014, compared to numbers compiled for the previous year by Hungary’s Central Statistical Office (KSH). A total of 31,500 Hungarians left Hungary for a minimum of one year, to find work elsewhere. The KSH notes that the ‘real’ number of emigrants is likely higher than this, as statisticians can […]
A Budapest demonstration in support of autonomy for Romania’s Hungarian-majority Székelyföld (Szeklerland) counties of Kovászna, Hargita and parts of Maros county has caused a political storm, when organizers called Romania “the Islamic State of Europe.” Bogdan Aurescu, Romania’s foreign affairs ministere, telephone his Hungarian counterpart, Péter Szijjártó, to officially protest the accusation made by Árpád György Mózes, the president of […]
For the past years, Canada has been the target of an unusually high volume of senior level Fidesz political visitations, all travelling on taxpayers’ money, to work over the pro-Fidesz Hungarian diaspora. (The Hungarian governmental visits to Canada outnumber the number of such visits by Canadian governmental officials to Hungary, on a scale of roughly 100 to 1.) Virtually every […]
I was saddened when I learned about the untimely death of Ildikó Zentai. In the last decade I saw Ildikó at various Hungarian events around the San Francisco Bay Area, said hello, we briefly talked, but we didn’t really know each other. Ildikó was a wife, a mother and a devout Catholic. She moved to the US from Budapest in […]
Shoah Foundation founder and Academy Award-winning director Steven Spielberg recently travelled from Los Angeles to Krakow to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the death camp Auschwitz where over one million Jews lost their lives in World War II. In his passionate remarks Spielberg warned of the global rise of anti-Semitism. Today he can find anti-Semitism in his […]
On February 20, 2015, the New York Hungarian House (213 East 82nd Street) will stage a reading of works by Mr. Albert Wass, the late Transylvanian writer, who was convicted of war crimes after World War II. The event is being organized by a New York-based, Hungarian émigré group, Széchenyi István Társaság, led by Hungarian-American Mr. Ákos Felsővályi. It is […]
The National Alliance of Hungarians in Canada (NAHC), an openly pro-regime group founded in 2012 to defend the actions of Hungary’s authoritarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his government, wrote a letter to the editor to the Globe and Mail earlier this month, after London-based correspondent Mark MacKinnon wrote two pieces in which he was critical of the governing party, and of […]
A whole-figure statue of Ferenc Liszt has been inaugurated at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. Jeff Embleton the Manager of Public Relations mailed me the photo of the 7 feet (2.25m) tall sculpture which was generously donated by Mr. Tamás Fekete, a Canadian with Hungarian roots, who arrived to Canada after 1956. Mr. Fekete already donated a similarly […]
On November 17, there was a demonstration in New York City at the Hungarian Consulate. As part of „The Day of Public Outrage” young people staged an orderly protest with signs saying “Orbán-free Hungary” at the Consulate building. As it turns out, Hungarian diplomats viewed these anti-government protesters as a major security threat. First, they sent out an employee to take photos […]
An open letter to: Mr. Maximilian Teleki President Hungarian American Coalition Mr. Frank Koszorús, Jr. President The American Hungarian Federation Mr. Eugene Megyesy Senior Advisor to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán Former Honorary Consul General of Hungary in Colorado Budapest, December 4, 2014 Dear Messrs. Presidents, Dear Max, Frank and Gene, As you are aware several senior Hungarian individuals have recently […]
