Hungarian Conservative

Perhaps few in Hungary know why a Hungarian Jew who helped Jews in Budapest during the Holocaust and was later executed by the British is so revered in Israel today.

Today marks the 496th anniversary of the Battle of Mohács. It is one of the most frequently mentioned events in Hungarian history. The reasons for the defeat are still the subject of historical debates.

If you are Hungarian, reside in Hungary, or are coming here for a longer stay this autumn, and you are adventurous enough to break with the routine of visiting famed tourist sights thronging with visitors, go to Alsópere, explore the Körös-torok – believe me, you will not be disappointed.

It is a fact that even between the two wars, what Hungarian Jews remembered about the Habsburgs between the two world wars was the inclusive liberalism of a bygone era, the period of the first Jewish minister, as well as Jewish emancipation and acceptance.

As our neighbour is fighting a homeland-defending war against Russia, let’s take a moment on this memorable day to pay tribute to the long-standing Hungarian-Ukrainian relations, which have been close and essentially positive throughout history.

The early twenties in Hungary brought about not only a fervent nationalist discussion about Trianon, the Romani or antisemitism, but also illusory concepts regarding the Eastern roots of the Hungarian people.

23 August is dedicated to the Victims of All Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes. Observing this day is particularly important when our societies’ collective memory about past oppression is fading away.

Left-wing Zionism is barely alive, while right-wing secular Zionism has been dominant until now, but the previous Israeli prime minister was already something Nordau could never have envisioned: a kippah-wearing ex-officer of the IDF, Naftali Bennett.

This chapter of the interwar system needs to be reckoned with, if only to illustrate the progress the Hungarian right has made since then: today, small neo-Protestant Christian churches are allies of the right in Hungary, and not treated as adversaries.

If one spends some time in Hungary, one may come to the opinion that the Serbs a ‘stubborn’ and ‘rather barbaric people’. This kind of anti-Serbian language dominated contemporary British reports.

The British were tallying all the myths and legends about Kun, and sometimes they even gave credence to them.

The “Jewish world conspiracy” behind the Jewish swindler from Baltavár sounds like a bad joke, even though Istóczy was not joking: he became the most decisive and perhaps the only truly famous antisemitic politician of Dualist Hungary.

The junior classes at Mathias Corvinus Collegium received a record number of applicants this year, the highest figure for the faculty in 26 years.

While in many neighbouring countries giving birth equals going bankrupt, sociological data show that in Hungary, most costs are affordable for the majority of families.

Sometimes post-war transformative justice did catch real war criminals, but sometimes completely innocent men like Antl were caught in its machine.

The question was posed as follows: was Hungary truly occupied, or did enough of Hungarian sovereignty remain to label the country “independent”?

Dov Gruner went on to become one of the finest examples of pre-state military heroism in Israeli history.

Few know that he spent his final years not battling Jews, but the Nazis, and most likely ended his life as an anti-Nazi resistance fighter, like his well-known friend, Endre Bajcsy-Zsilinszky.

Today, on 2 August we remember the victims of the Romani Genocide, the Porajmos.

During this period, both sides tried to quote the writings of the Budapest-born founder of political Zionism, Theodore Herzl, and both sides seemed to find their own version of Herzl that fit their arguments.

The report explicitly referred to Baltazár as an ‘enemy.’ The investigators were quite obviously not interested in identifying the real culprits.

In this two-part article we will explore the main reasons behind the conflict, which proved to be one of the most serious anti-Calvinist offenses of the period.

In order to better understand Machiavelli, one should not just read The Prince. One must examine all of his works, and do so specifically within the context of the socio-political times he lived in.

In this piece, we will present an interesting albeit largely forgotten debate that raged in the early ‘40s about Prohászka’s legacy and the expression Hungarianism.

Only his poems testified to his views, which were quoted by his admirers, opponents, relatives and former friends for the sake of different political strains.

Inflation and the lack of heating materials tend to go hand-in-hand with war and crises, and it is interesting–and sad–to see that Hungary is now facing the very same issues as it struggled with a hundred years ago.

Herzl was a national visionary, but in a sense he was also a strongly anti-liberal thinker and thus, it is the task of today’s Hungarian public life to further acquaint itself with him.

53 years after the Moon landing many still question the necessity of space exploration, but it is unquestionable that the desire to expand the boundaries of what we know has provided great benefits to our societies.

It is not only the architectural heritage of the capital city that the Fidesz government has been eager to preserve, but that of the countryside as well.

The issue of fiscal sustainability will determine both the economic and geopolitical future of the Western civilization. The status quo of welfare states might be a huge impediment to that.