Hungarian Conservative

The Festival of Lights is traditionally one of Berlin’s most spectacular community events in autumn. This year marks the 19th edition of the ten-day festival, with nightly projections taking place at 43 locations, including several iconic landmarks. The Hungarian Cultural Institute is participating with a partly AI-generated video animation based on the most popular poems of iconic 19th century poet Sándor Petőfi.

The Canadian TV network Global TV has recently premiered their new drama series Robyn Hood (their choice of spelling) where the titular character is played by black female actress Jessye Romeo. This is just the latest example of historically white characters being played by actors of colour in Western entertainment.

The anti-Zionist Orthodox Jews demonstrating in New York are therefore not necessarily a curiosity. They are representatives of an old and historically legitimate school of thought, albeit completely marginalized and despised in their own religious milieu as well. Their presence simply demonstrates that Judaism is diverse, that there are all kinds of trends within it, and that it is not possible to treat this community as a single monolith.

Paprika is more than just a spice – it is part of how Hungary is perceived, it is part of what Hungary is.

The Wondrous Stag that, according to the legend, led Hungarians to the Carpathian Basin is one of the most significant animals in the before-Christ Hungarian worldview. As in many other ancient myths of origin, the Magyars believed their ancestors had either been animals or turned into animals after their passing—a common trope among probably all world cultures, somehow deeply ingrained into our psyche. As recorded in the Gesta Hungarorum, the Turul was believed to be the Árpád dynasty’s totemic ancestor.

On 15 October 1944, Horthy made an unsuccessful attempt to exit the Second World War. The operation failed due to a number of reasons: the resistance of some officers of the Royal Hungarian Army, organisational mistakes and pre-emptive actions by the Nazi secret service. Horthy was soon forced to resign.

Popular for its oriental gastronomy and classic café atmosphere, this busy spot of the capital has become a real cultic public space over the past years. It is open every day of the year, from morning till night, and is always full of students, writers, actors, journalists, artists, freelancers from the creative professions, and anyone else who wants to be part of one of the most, if not the most, chic meeting places on the bustling Bartók Béla Boulevard.

The Kopp Mária Institute for Demography and Families (KINCS) held a conference to mark World Mental Health Day on 10 October, unveiling a survey that found that the happiest individuals in Hungary are those living in a marriage or raising children.

At the discussion Russia expert David Satter expressed scepticism about Russia being trustworthy regarding keeping the terms of a potential ceasefire, while Attila Demkó argued that Ukraine has already secured a great victory against Russia: it has not become a puppet state of Moscow.

According to the Kieselbach Gallery’s statement, this artwork, which evokes the spirit of the Paris School, Cézanne’s blues, the antique sculptures of the Louvre, and Henri Matisse’s nude painting, is one of the most beautiful still lives in modern Hungarian painting.

The Mariazell Basilica dedicated to the Virgin Mary is one of Austria’s most popular tourist attractions and a national pilgrimage site. Its foundation dates back to the mid-12th century, yet the construction and re-foundation of the present church in the 1370s was due to a generous donation from King Louis the Great of Hungary.

The opening film of the festival is Kim Hee-jung’s 2023 work titled Where Would You Like to Go? which, like the director’s previous films, deals with a profound life event and, more specifically, the altered perception of reality resulting from it.

The first documented piece of Hungarian music dates back to the 11th century, thus recorded melodies have been an important part of Hungarians’ lives for a thousand years.

From Cat Catcher to The Witness and Son of Saul, the list of the ten best Hungarian films offered by The Budapester is a subjective, but very convincing one.

We are familiar with the phenomenon of Westerners embracing Eastern fighting traditions such as Wushu, Aikido, Japanese fencing, Filipino martial arts, and more. These people seek some rich traditions to connect to, and oftentimes romanticize them as being spiritually superior to the Western martial arts. Whereas there is nothing wrong with getting acquainted with other cultures, there’s no necessity to travel half of the globe in search of intricate, deep, and time-tested martial traditions spanning centuries.

Recently, the Danube Institute co-hosted an event with Helena History Press where Danish author Jaap Scholten talked about his personal experiences while travelling throughout Ukraine in the first six months of the war.

As an article by Premier Christian highlighted, for Armenians, leaving Nagorno-Karabakh is not just a geographical relocation, but also the act of severing ties with their deeply engrained cultural and religious heritage.

The history of the palace in Dég, Hungary is not only intertwined with that of the Festetics family, but also with Freemasonry in Hungary, as the palace’s builder, Antal Festetics, was the right-hand man of the movement’s Master Chief in the country. Magyar Krónika paid a visit to the newly renovated Festetics Palace in Dég.

The Afghanistan War started exactly 22 years ago. Two years after it came to an end, our analysis looks back at the invasion and the botched nation-building, attempting to pinpoint the reasons of the ambitious project’s failure.

The brand new edition of our magazine features articles by famous American columnist Rod Dreher, advisor to the European Parliament and Ludovika University of Public Service researcher Lénárd Sándor, and Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business professor Ray Kinsella; as well as an interview with French historian of philosophy Professor Rémi Brague. You can pick up the latest edition of Hungarian Conservative magazine at your local bookstore or newspaper stand; or, you can subscribe to our quarterly magazine on our website to make sure you never miss an issue.

With two Hungarians being recognized with a Nobel prize this year, it is worth remembering that the two scientists join a long list of Hungarian academics. Hungary in fact occupies a prestigious place on the list of countries with the most Nobel laureates.

On September 29, the Újbuda local government honoured Tibor Bodor, an actor known in Hungary for his roles in numerous plays and films, who recorded almost 9000 hours of audiobooks that help the studies of the visually impaired to this day.

The Italian-born sportsman received his Certificate of Citizenship from President Katalin Novák at the Sándor Palace. With Rossi’s leadership, the National Team has achieved outstanding results, such as beating England 4–0 in the Nations League.

The 13 martyrs of the 1848–49 Hungarian War of Independence are commemorated on 6 October every year. However, the struggle for independence had other, forgotten heroes, too, like General János Lenkey, the ‘14th martyr of Arad’.

Ferenc Krausz, one of the recipients of this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics, credits his enduring passion for physics to his early education in Hungary. His journey from those early physics classes to receiving the Nobel Prize has been marked by groundbreaking achievements in laser physics and ultrarapid measurement techniques, including the recent exploration of medical diagnostic applications for detecting diseases at the molecular level.

Péter Pázmány, Cardinal Archbishop of Esztergom, was born on this day in 1570. Despite being born into a Protestant family, he became the leading figure in the Counter-Reformation, and had a major impact on the development of the Hungarian language and the establishment of higher education in Hungary.

The work of Gombos, both as a writer and a literary historian, is still undeservedly understudied. As one of his admirers quite aptly wrote of him: ‘His place in the hierarchy of “populist” thinkers and writers is not in the second, but in the first rank, in the company of those whose intellectual and creative achievements can be considered particularly valuable and significant.’

Fundamental rights and their supplementary responsibilities are essential parts of our culture and heritage, the speakers at the Mathias Corvinus Collegium’s (MCC) conference on human rights agreed. The event examined the process of the distortion of the idea of human rights as well as the vital role of sovereignty and subsidiarity in enforcing them.

Among the physics Nobel laureates, we can now welcome another Hungarian-born scientist, Ferenc Krausz. The researcher, holding both Hungarian and Austrian citizenship, resides in Germany, where he serves as the Director of the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics. Additionally, he is an external member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman have been awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their development of mRNA-based vaccine technology, which has been successfully used in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.