On Sunday, news arrived that Csaba Varga reached the summit of Nanga Parbat, one of the highest peaks in the world. After that, there was no new information about him for a while, but it has now been revealed that he successfully descended from the summit and is doing well.
This piece provides an overview of the ‘Goulash communism’ times of Hungarian history, while attempting to answer the question: why do some Hungarians appear to be nostalgic about the Kádár era?
Notwithstanding his many political failures, such as the Crusade to Nicopolis in 1396, the involvement of Sigismund of Luxembourg in the short-lived, but nevertheless historical reunification of the Christian Churches cannot be discounted.
In 2017, the recent France riots were seemingly foreshadowed by the Foreign Minister of the UAE, who said: ‘There will come a day that we will see far more radical extremists and terrorists coming out of Europe because of lack of decision making, trying to be politically correct, or assuming that they know the Middle East and they know Islam and others far better than we do. I’m sorry, but that’s pure ignorance.’
It has been 174 years since Major Pál Vasvári and his Rákóczi Free Army were massacred near Havasnagyfalu (today Mărișel in Romania), on 6 July 1849. Despite all resistance forces, the memory of the young revolutionary and his fellow martyrs is a powerful cohesive force for the dwindling Hungarian community of the Kalotaszeg (Țara Călatei) region to this day.
Founding father and second US President John Adams, who also happened to pass away on 4 July, believed 2 July would be celebrated by generations to come, as The Resolution for Independence was adopted by the Continental Congress then. Only a handful of delegates signed the Declaration actually on 4 July 1776, and many of them did so as late as August 1776.
Marcela Szymanski of the charity Aid to the Church in Need also welcomed the announcement. ‘It is absolutely extraordinary that six years after Hungary created a department in charge of persecuted Christians, another country finally joins them in acknowledging this reality. Not one single other nation with a Christian majority has dared to do so.’
The most significant Hungarian Christian response to Pope Francis’ Economy of Francesco initiative and his peace mission has been the launching of the ‘Noon Bell – Pulsatio Meridiana, the Voice of Oikophilia’ regenerative economic platform (PM), which is planned to be listed on the Budapest Stock Exchange.
Burke’s work conveys a deep message for modern societies: ‘…it is with infinite caution that any man ought to venture upon pulling down an edifice which has answered in any tolerable degree for ages the common purposes of society.’
In the early 1920s, Fonó’s attention turned back to the unresolved problem of jet propulsion. By that time, it had become entirely evident that propeller-driven aircraft were unable to exceed a certain speed limit. In 1928, Fonó developed his invention called the ‘air jet engine.’
What is extraordinary about the image of Attila as a ‘Hungarian King’ is not that it has evolved, but rather that it has expanded into a system of arguments with daily political impact, and although it has undergone significant changes, it has survived the 21st century.
She founded her cosmetics company bearing her name, Estée Lauder, with her husband in 1946. Today, it is the second largest cosmetics company with a market cap of around $70 billion. Estée was the daughter of Jewish Hungarian immigrants who came to the US in 1898.
The Hungarian doctor was the first to introduce hand sanitation standards in a medical institution, which led to childbed mortality rate decreasing from 18 per cent to just two per cent at his Vienna obstetrical clinic. However, his ideas were tragically never accepted by his peers which led to his death in a mental ward.
Zsigmond Kisfaludi Strobl completed his magnum opus, the Liberty Statue of Budapest in 1947, in just two years. It was originally a monument dedicated to the ‘liberating’ Soviet forces at the end of World War II. However, elements of the composition alluding to its original purpose were removed, and it still stands tall on top of Gellért Hill as a beacon of Hungarian freedom today.
A large portion of the 15–39-year-olds polled by MCC’s Youth Research Institute shares their political opinions on the internet, and many of them had the experience of being banned for it on social media sites. Also, the majority of young people believe that the social media companies’ algorithms are politically biased.
The artists are recipients of over thirty significant domestic and international awards, with more than forty of their works currently exhibited in the most prestigious Hungarian, European, and overseas public collections.
‘Szekfű described “capitalism” as “having grown in size over time, becoming a more and more fearsome monster, creating factories and cramming hundreds of thousands and millions of people into the unhealthy, immoral air of smoky cities. And the longer the unrestricted freedom proclaimed by liberalism lasts, the more freely the capitalist big business devours the little ones, the more freely it exploits the economic weaklings, especially the workers.” Szekfű’s book Three Generations, in which he also called for extensive worker protection and the regulation of industrialists by law, bears a striking resemblance to the basic tenets of socialism.’
The purpose of Cum hiis superioribus annis, a papal bull issued by Pope Callixtus III in 1456, was to exhort Christians to pray, as the success of the Hungarian crusader army against the Turks was key for the future of Christian Europe at the time. To this day, the noon bell tolls every day to remind us that, as so many times in history, the Kingdom of Hungary stood up valiantly and proved itself one of the bulwarks of Christian Europe.
On 28 June 1914, 109 years ago today, at around 11 o’clock in the morning, a 20-year-old anarchist assassin, Gavrilo Princip, fired several shots at the Archduke of the Austro–Hungarian Empire and his wife. The Sarajevo assassination became the casus belli for the ‘Great War’, as it was called back then, i.e., the First World War.
‘Places that present imported ideas instead of independent cultural achievements, fish and champagne from far away instead of their own produce, and have a tourist industry instead of hospitality, will inevitably fall behind.’
Commemorating the canonisation of King Ladislas creates an opportunity to delve into the fascinating world of medieval art in Transylvania, with a particular focus on the narrative cycle depicting the legend of Saint Ladislas, an iconic figure in Hungarian history.
27 June is the Day of Hungarian Border Guards. The geographic location of our country and the very fact that it is the eastern bulwark of Western Christianity obliged it in the past and is still predestining it today to be one of the guardians of European civilisation and the peace of the continent.
In 1869, the new statistical office of the capital was created, headed by Kőrösy. A few years later, he started to teach statistics in Budapest, the very first person to do so in Hungary. In 1896, he became a doctor of the University of Kolozsvár (today, Cluj in Romania), and was awarded nobility and the title of szántói, as well as the right to spell his name with a ‘y’ (indicating noble ancestry). The family never converted to Christianity, though, and the Kőrösy coat of arms included two stars of David.
Karinthy is best remembered for his comedic masterpieces, such as the collection of literary parodies, Így írtok ti (That’s How You Write!), and the collection of sketches about secondary school life, Tanár úr, kérem! (Please, Sir!). Every year, the best comedian in Hungary is rewarded with the Karinthy Ring. However, the man himself was not the exuberant, fun-seeking personality his best-known works may suggest.
Hazony suggests that significant change can be brought about in states with a Christian, Jewish, or conservative majority by creating a public culture similar to that of Israel or Hungary, where the focus is on living within the Biblical framework, building a better future, having children, teaching religion as a cultural inheritance, and serving in the military.
The cogwheel railway, which is 149 years old today, is one of Budapest’s oldest means of public transportation. It is not only considered pioneering in domestic transportation, but also among similar mountain railways worldwide: it was the third to be completed in Europe.
St Ivan’s Night has always been considered magical by the Nordic and Slavic peoples, but it has special folk traditions linked to it in Hungary as well. Various practices are employed during this time, which are related to healing, purification, love, and fertility.
At the exhibition at the Benedictine Abbey Museum in Tihany, open until 31 August, visitors can not only see Hungary’s first surviving original written document from 1055, but also learn about the historical circumstances of the abbey’s founding and its former operation.
Beside serving as chief engineer during the construction of the Chain Bridge, Clark was also involved in the building of the tunnel under the Buda Castle, and was also a board member of the company building the first Hungarian steamer ship. Other projects that Clark supervised include the construction of the mental health institute of Lipótmező and the roofs of the Dohány street synagogue.
The Institute for Economics and Peace, headquartered in Sydney, Australia, released its latest Global Peace Index report, in which Hungary is ranked the 13th most peaceful out of 163 nations. In terms of militarisation, however, we are ranked even higher, at fourth place globally.