The leader of Hungary’s united democratic opposition, Péter Márki-Zay, pointed out Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s deafening silence on the invasion of its peaceful eastern neighbour by Vladimir Putin’s Russia. He added pointedly that Mr. Orbán would avoid condemning his ruthless Russian ally even if the Hungarian minority in western Ukraine were directly threatened by the current war. “In 1956, we […]
Congressman Theodore Eliot Deutch is representing Florida’s 22nd Congressional District since 2010. His district is the home of many Americans of Hungarian origin in the State of Florida. I called on the Congressman to condemn recent efforts of the Hungarian Government to promote WWII-era fascists in the United States. *** Dear Congressman Deutch, In 2015 you wrote a letter to Prime […]
On January 27, Yale University Library held a Zoom conference on “Art, Education, and Protest in Hungary: The Radical Vision of FreeSZFE.” In September 2020 the entire faculty and students of the Theater and Film University went on strike and occupied their building to protest the privatization of the University by the government, the transfer of national assets to a […]
Introduction At the start of the new year, Black Rose Books and the University of Chicago Press announced the world-wide release of a new volume of essays on a revolution that threatened to derail not only the emerging world order after World War I but irritates to this day one of the most sensitive nerve endings of a people’s collective […]
Éva S. Balogh, the singularly dedicated editor and main contributor of Hungarian Spectrum died on November 30th of cardiac arrest. For over a decade, she dedicated her life to reporting on and analysing politics, culture and society in Hungary for English-speaking readers, diplomats and civil servants throughout Europe and North America, and for many democratically-minded Hungarians too, especially in the […]
Viktor Orbán and most of his Fidesz party leaders started their careers as promising young Communist leaders. Today they are staunch anti-Communists and have rewritten their life stories. Now they have also rewritten the life story of pianist Georges (György) Cziffra. The piano virtuoso was born one hundred years ago in Budapest. Hungary allocated 500 million forints (EUR 1.4m) celebrating […]
Hungary started an unprecedented campaign in the United States to bring Orbán’s xenophobic, homophobic, racist and anti-Semitic message to US audiences. His government is isolated in the US due to Orbán’s pro-Putin and pro-China stand. No active American politician (republican or democrat) would support him publicly. Budapest now relies on a small, “fringe” group of conservative individuals and organizations to deliver […]
Sixty-five years ago Soviet troops crushed the Hungarian Revolution. The Soviet Union started a propaganda campaign blaming the West for the uprising and the bloodshed. Howard Norton, a journalist with the Baltimore Sun reported from Moscow that the Soviets had spread their version why Russian troops were fighting in Hungary. Not surprisingly, they put the blame unequivocally on the West […]
In spring 2o22, for the first time ever, Hungary’s strongman ruler Viktor Orbán will face a united opposition running a single slate of candidates spanning Jobbik on the right to the Democratic Coalition on the liberal left. This rainbow coalition, more disciplined in maintaining the united front needed to finally topple the rule of Viktor Orbán than ever before, will […]
One major goals of the Biden administration was to overhaul international tax rules and establish a 15 percent global minimum tax. The US wanted to reverse a decades-long race to the bottom of corporate tax rates after many major corporations shifted headquarters and profits to low-tax jurisdictions, depriving countries of much needed tax money to build new infrastructure, support education […]
