Bálint Magyar gave a presentation at the University of California at Berkeley entitled: Parallel System Narratives: Polish and Hungarian Regime Formations Compared. The event took place in one of the older buildings at the Wildavsky Conference Room; the place was packed, standing room only. Mr. Magyar is a sociologist and a former Hungarian Minister of Education. (See invitation here.) In […]
A Catholic memorial service for George Oláh, Nobel Prize Winning Hungarian-American chemist was held on September 19 at the Fiumei Road Cemetery. His final wish was to bring his ashes to Budapest and the eulogy was given by Viktor Orbán, Prime Minister of Hungary. I had been in contact with Oláh for a decade or so. To my surprise on […]
On the evening of July 7 2017, 35-year-old William Charles Morva was executed by lethal injection in the State of Virginia. Although Morva was a Hungarian citizen and the Hungarian Embassy asked for clemency, Virginia’s Democratic governor Terry McAuliffe did not spare his life. Morva’s lawyers claimed that he was delusional when he killed two men during a prison escape […]
On June 21, 2017, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that the Hungarian nation was able to survive in the 1920s and 1930s due to “some exceptional statesmen like Regent Miklós Horthy.” Never before did the Hungarian Prime Minister identify pro-Hitler Horthy, who served as Hungarian head of state from 1920 to 1944, as an “exceptional statesman.” The attempt to […]
The newly appointed Hungarian Ambassador, László Szabó, has put the blame squarely on the US State Department for the poor relations between the two countries. According to Ambassador Szabó the State Department has a major problem: “The vast majority of the staff members of the US State Department, where tens of thousands of people work, still have ties to the […]
This is admittedly a lighter story, fitting perhaps for an August weekend. Hungarians celebrate St. Stephen’s Day on Sunday, and the founding of the first Hungarian state. Many Hungarians have turned this into a long weekend and are relaxing on the shores of Lake Balaton. Here’s a story that binds two countries and two communities–literally. And it all focuses on […]
There is a suspicion that the Orbán government played a role in building a “bridge” between Russian President Putin and President elect Trump. At this point, we don’t know whether this “bridge building” effort is significant enough to register on the radar screen of the ongoing US Congressional and Senate investigations in Washington DC. According to the European Council on […]
Professor Christopher Ball teaches at the Business School of Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. In 2013 he was handpicked by then Hungarian Ambassador György Szapáry, an Orbán confidant, to serve as Honorary Consul. Professor Ball, Director of the Central European Institute and István Széchenyi Chair in International Economics, lived in Hungary for a couple of years but does not speak […]
Most Californians do not know that the picturesque city of San Juan Capistrano, south of Los Angeles close to the Pacific Coast, has an intriguing Hungarian connection. The town is a popular tourist destination with palm trees, lots of sunshine and gorgeous architecture. If you visit Budapest, and walk around in the Castle district you’ll bump into a small square, […]
Viktor Orbán thinks that Muslim immigrants are a threat to Europe because they are unable “to integrate into Western societies.” He has said that Muslim immigration is “the Trojan horse of terrorism” and has issued a stark warning that Western civilization and “Christian identity” is in danger. Hungary won’t let in Muslim immigrants at all. *** I heard the shocking […]
