Hungary is at the centre of an unfolding refugee crisis, following Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Western Ukraine is also home to a community of more than 150,000 ethnic Hungarians, many of whom have close ties through family and friends to Hungary. While compassion always calls us to see beyond linguistic and national boundaries when it comes to […]
Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, traditionally an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has finally condemned Moscow’s ruthless invasion of Ukraine. The Hungarian leader also announced that the country is ready to accept refugees from Ukraine immediately. The first Ukrainian citizens to seek refuge in Hungary crossed the border at Beregsurány and Záhony on 24 February. The average wait times […]
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 […]
