Hungary Addresses EU Concerns Over Belarusian, Russian Worker Visas

Hungarian Interior Minister Sándor Pintér has addressed the European Commission’s concerns regarding the extension of the Hungarian National Cards programme to Russia and Belarus. In a letter sent to Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson, Pintér emphasized that Belarusian and Russian guest workers arriving in Hungary would undergo thorough screening to ensure compliance with EU regulations and would not pose a threat to the national security of Schengen member states.

Viktor Orbán delivers his speech in Tusnádfürdő, Transylvania on 27 July 2024. To his left, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Assembly Zsolt Németh, to his right László Tőkés, President of the Hungarian National Council of Transylvania (EMNT)

Lecture of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán at the 33rd Bálványos Summer Free University and Student Camp

‘The essence of the grand strategy for Hungary—and now I will use intellectual language—is connectivity. This means that we will not allow ourselves to be locked into only one of either of the two emerging hemispheres in the world economy. The world economy will not be exclusively Western or Eastern. We have to be in both, in the Western and in the Eastern. This will come with consequences. The first. We will not get involved in the war against the East. We will not join in the formation of a technological bloc opposing the East, and we will not join in the formation of a trade bloc opposing the East.’

A portrait of President Woodrow Wilson from 12 December 1912 (detail)

Woodrow Wilson and His Global Vision of Democracy

‘At times the only way to make the world safe for democracy, as Wilson envisioned, is to assume an amoral position, which may require a courtship of impure partners, even at the risk of tolerating their immoral policies. Yet notwithstanding the apparent Wilsonian recession in the U.S.-led West, and for that matter, the rest of the world, President Wilson’s vision is so heavily rooted in American political culture that its values shall continue to have a global appeal.’

Demography Connected to Family or Culture? — The Israeli Case

‘The Israeli case is evidence that cultural aspects, rather than “family policies”, are the crucial element in producing above-replacement birth rates among an educated and affluent population. It is therefore crucial, for those countries which regard such outcome as desirable, to invest efforts in fostering the cultural aspects of a familial outlook in their societies.’

Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint near the Gaza border fence on 7 April, exactly six months after the 7 October Hamas massacre.

Hungary Defends Israel Against ICJ’s Biased Advisory Opinion

In an official statement of the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Hungarian government expressed its disagreement with the recent findings of the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, according to which Israel’s presence in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem is ‘unlawful’, while Israel’s ‘policies and practices’ in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, including ‘the maintenance and expansion of settlements’, amount to the ‘annexation of large parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory.’

Meeting of Francis II Rákóczi and Tamás Esze

When the Hungarians Took Their Fate into Their Own Hands, Defying the Might of Europe — Rákóczi’s War of Independence

Two important events played a role in Rákóczi’s return to Hungary in 1703. On the one hand, the unfolding War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), which meant the withdrawal of most of the imperial regiments from the country, and on the other, the uprising of the serfs of Munkács, provided the perfect opportunity for Rákóczi to organize an armed rebellion. At the request of Tamás Esze, the leader of the uprising in the Tiszahát region, Francis II Rákóczi took the lead in the what developed into a War of Independence, issuing a proclamation calling on nobles and non-nobles alike to take up arms.

Saint Ladislaus, the Crusade Leader

‘The first units of the First Crusade, and then the main army led by Godfrey of Bouillon, did cross the Hungarian Kingdom, but by then King Coloman was on the throne, the successor of Ladislaus. It was also well known that the only Hungarian-led crusade to the Holy Land was launched in 1217 under King Andrew II. Yet Hungarian medieval narrative sources record one more. They tell an interesting and controversial story about King Saint Ladislaus…Given the fact that the Hungarian king died on 29 July 1095, almost half a year before the first Crusade was announced at the Council of Clermont in November 1095, modern scholarship quickly lost confidence in the historicity of the account.’

Postcard depicting the Joan of Arc celebrations in Paris. Camelots du Roi demonstrate in front of Notre-Dame de Paris, before 1914

The Fascist Temptation: Lessons from Thomas Molnar’s Bernanos

‘The lessons from Molnar’s book about Bernanos remain fresh today. The “fascist temptation” has not disappeared, but only appears in new forms…Bernanos’s prophecy is interesting because there are still today, and probably always will be, movements that call for a radical break with the past, and announce a return to the “pure source”, with the creation of an imagined future order or return to a past order and hierarchy that has not yet been corrupted.’