Hungarian Conservative

During the Kádár era, it was forbidden to drink alcohol on the streets and sometimes people were even searched and checked in pubs. In contrast, at house parties, young people had the opportunity to meet and flirt, and they only had to worry that their parents would come home earlier or that annoying neighbours would call the police on them on the landline phone.

‘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.’

‘If everyone agrees on everything, it presents a strange vision of a democratic society,’ remarked German journalist Ralf Schuler during the launch event of his latest book, published in Hungarian by the Center for Fundamental Rights. The book delves into the themes and perils of the herd mentality that is increasingly prevalent in Western societies, drawing comparisons with the era of socialism.

Is 1 May is a communist holiday, a Catholic feast, a folk tradition, or a universal celebration of labour? Whichever way we look at it, what is certain is that all those who work deserve respect and a break from work on a beautiful spring day.

Refugee groups started trickling in after the catastrophic defeat of the Austro–Hungarian empire in the First World War and the dismembering of the historical Hungarian Kingdom, resulting in the loss of many ethnically Hungarian territories for Hungary. The destruction of the war and the discriminative policies of the new states prompted many Hungarians to seek a better life beyond the sea. Latin America soon became an important emigration target, as the United States started to severely restrict immigration from Eastern Europe in the 1920s.

We have moved from our absolute fertility low in 2011, last in the EU, to sixth in 2022, with the highest growth in 2022. According to the latest Eurostat data, we moved up five places in 2022, the first year of the Russian-Ukrainian war, even though we had fewer children that year than in 2021. This fall was much smaller than in other EU countries.

‘Reality does not seem to bother some journalists, politicians and influencers. They are not interested in offering solutions, for instance by exerting pressure on the Palestinians to hand over those responsible for terrorism; all they are interested in is condemning Israel’s actions.’

92 years ago today, Hungary’s first freely elected prime minister in the post-communist era, József Antall, was born. His legacy continues to wield significant influence in Hungarian politics today.

Roger Scruton had a special interest in and affection for Central Europe, cultivating a symbiotic relationship with the region. His work influenced the political, cultural, and social dynamics of many CEE countries just as profoundly as they shaped his own work and worldview. In tribute to the British conservative philosopher, a conference was held in Budapest, with a specific focus on Scruton’s ties to Central Europe.

A sustained and substantial improvement in earnings started in 2013 in Hungary. In that year the country managed to repay its previous IMF loan, giving the government more freedom to reform and restructure the tax system, including reducing taxes on labour. The six-year minimum wage agreement launched in 2017 doubled the minimum wage for jobs requiring qualifications by 2022 and increased the overall minimum wage by 80 per cent.

‘On 10 March this year, the author of these lines has only one wish: that a miracle may happen in the modern, so-called democratic Romania, and it may become like it was in the 1950s, or even like in the medieval Kingdom of Hungary, in the 13th and 16th centuries. Because, if that happened, it would give freedom and autonomy to Szeklerland as in a true 21st-century European—and a European Union—country…’

‘Communist-inspired wokeness, under the pretension to promote ‘anti-racism’, has not only captivated university campuses and social media, but it has also infiltrated the mindset in the workplace, in both the public and private sectors. This has given birth to cancel culture, which, like the National Socialists, both censors or restricts free speech and erases or reconstructs history to befit whims.’

Whatever the original plan or idea behind promoting, supporting, and organizing uncontrolled migration to Europe (and to the United States) was, social engineering has miserably failed again just as in the case of communism. For once again it failed to take into account nothing less than human nature.

On 6 February 2024, the documentary Some Kind of Liberating Effect was screened with the participation of the film’s director Dr Valerio Severino in the Danube Institute. Several different aspects of science and religion were discussed both in the film itself and after the screening in a panel discussion.

Among other programmes, between 20 and 23 February the museum’s historians will hold presentations for secondary school students interested in history. During these sessions, students will be able to learn about the Sovietization in the Hungarian countryside after 1945, Communist propaganda posters, and the terror of the ÁVO (the State Protection Authority) between 1945 and 1956.

One simply cannot put something as complexly different as the Chinese intellectual field onto either the American left–right axis or the West-European ideological taxonomy. Ultimately, the Chinese field is a different world, albeit one that bears affinities with, and shows much interest in, us Western conservatives.

While the supposed freedom of a materialistic culture will tend to undermine any sense of the sacred, we can be aware of the false idols and choose to tend to our souls. Scruton, indeed, left us a final work on this very topic.

During the oppression by the Communists, which specifically targeted Catholic churchmen, such as the Venerable Cardinal József Mindszenty, many priests were coerced to flee the country. Blessed Brenner, however, chose to stay, saying: ‘I’m not afraid. I’m happy to stay.’ He was murdered on 17 December 1957.

Publication of the latest work by Attila Futaki, a comic book artist of international fame, is an important domestic event: it presents the life and career of Ferenc Puskás.

‘What better explains the atrocities committed: coercion or the individual’s capacity or inclination for cruelty? Perhaps both, but to varying proportions.’ Author and historian László Borhi points out in his 2022 book The Strategies of Survival that, in his research, it was not always possible to draw a clear line between the different roles. ‘Several were convicted of collaborating with the Nazis and collaborating in atrocities, while other witnesses claimed that the person in question saved their lives’.

The events of the 1956 Revolution are quite well-known, at least in Hungary, as far as the beginning of it and the period of its brief triumph are concerned. What is less known is that the revolution was not fully suppressed on the day of the Soviet invasion on 4 November. Active, armed resistance lasted until 11 November, and civil disobedience, as well as sporadic outbursts of rebellion kept the Soviets from stabilizing their rule until the late spring of the next year.

‘I thought, there is communism at home, half of the world is godless, they don’t know God or don’t consider Him important, and nobody wants to be a priest anymore… Thus, out of some kind of Hungarian defiance, I decided that I would become a priest.’

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.’

Over 30 years after the regime change, there are still hundreds of public places in Hungary named after people involved in the introduction and maintenance of 20th-century totalitarian regimes.

Faludy, one of the greatest Hungarian poets and literary translators of the 20th century, never really found his place in any system; he sooner or later became a nuisance to everyone, and even if sometimes made compromises, always did so provocatively, originally and with talent.

Blue sky above, turquoise lake below, and between them, on the horizon, plenty of white sails gleaming in the distance. This is the image of Lake Balaton that millions of Hungarians have seen for generations, and which always draws them back to the shores of the ‘Hungarian Sea’.

‘Indeed, things are getting so difficult for Xi’s authoritarian directives…China’s economy actually fell into deflation in July, while factory-gate prices also extended declines—its debt is three times its GDP in 2022. Beijing’s consumer price index, the main gauge of inflation, fell 0.3 per cent in July, the National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBS) said, after having flatlined in June.’

The life and works of Sándor Márai, a prolific Hungarian writer and intellectual, serve as an example for conservatives everywhere, urging them to protect their nationhood and oppose totalitarian ideologies.

Hyper-democracy is already here, it will grow stronger, and we are only starting to understand its profound effects. Some of them will be detrimental, others will open up new opportunities. This might appear overwhelming and unprecedented to some, but in truth, that was the case with all great technological or political upheavals…

Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya, former Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary, died in exile in Portugal in 1957 and was buried there. One of his last wishes, however, was for his ashes to be brought home once his beloved country was liberated from Soviet occupation.