Hungarian Conservative

Mongol rule brought not only immense destruction and suffering to the peoples of the conquered territories but also peace, known in modern research as ‘pax Mongolica’. The period of the Mongol Empire (1206–1368) is unique in world history.

Although it must be acknowledged that King Rudolf of Germany owed his victory primarily to his perseverance and strategic talent, there is no doubt that the Hungarian auxiliaries compensated for the small size of his army and seriously confused the Bohemian King Ottokar II. It is highly probable that without the thousands of Hungarian auxiliaries, the German King would not have undertaken the clash at the time and place he did.

The campaign remembers the victims of 20th-century totalitarian regimes in Europe, on the 85th anniversary of the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union on 23 August 1939.

‘Families are the foundation for coherent political communities. Indeed, they are the foundation for nations. Nations are usually tied together by a set of common origins based on history, geography, traditions, and blood ties. A person’s ties to their nation are usually familial ties, primarily shaped by the home they grow up in.’

Following Hungary’s defeat in the First World War, the victors’ intentions were clear concerning our country: to impose punishments that would result, if not in the short term but in the long term, in the total disappearance of the former Central European superpower…The pain caused by Trianon and the desire to do something about it prompted Nándor Urmánczy, the ‘uncompromising Hungarian’ and a member of parliament of Transylvanian origin, to initiate and announce the National Flag Movement in 1925.

At first glance, today’s cinema culture in Budapest seems very bipolar. There seems to be a tension between those who believe that traditional screening venues are long out of date and those who doubt whether a multiplex experience can be called cinema at all. One thing is certain: the story of Budapest’s cinema culture continues to unfold every day, and the main protagonists are us, cinema lovers.

Two Hungarian American soldiers, both serving in the US Army, have received both the Purple Heart and the highest military award in the US, the Medal of Honor: Corporal Tibor ‘Ted’ Rubin for his service in the Korean War, and Staff Sergeant László Rábel for his service in the Vietnam War.

In the first US presidential election in 1788–1789, it was not the eventual winner that was in question, since George Washington ran unopposed. Rather, it was about the way the US Constitution would be put into practice, both during the election process and thereafter in Washington’s first term as President of the United States.

The Frankish–Moravian struggles that shattered the tranquillity of Pannonia, even before the arrival of the Hungarians, caused irreparable damage to the settlement structure and ecclesiastical institutions of the region, which were thus left in a state of collapse when the Hungarian conquest came. As a result, it took a good century for the new missions, with the birth of the Christian Kingdom of Hungary, to bring the region back into the Church once and for all.

The crusader army numbering tens of thousands that St John of Capistrano recruited played an important role in the successful defence of the Fortress of Nándorfehérvár and in the battle that ended the siege. John Hunyadi would have been defeated at the fortress walls if Capistrano had not attacked the Ottoman camp with his crusaders on 21 July.

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.

‘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.’

80 years after Native Americans became US citizens thanks to the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, the debate about the past treatment of native tribes by the US government is still ongoing, with some—typically on the left—going as far as characterizing it as ‘genocide’. With the 4th of July holiday coming up, these discussions may be flaring up on social media again.

With the 1960 US presidential race between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon being so close, many scholars and commentators believed at the time that it was the first ever televised presidential debate that decided the outcome of the election. As a result, most campaign strategists deemed debating too risky for the candidates, thus no presidential debate took place in the US until 1976, when incumbent Gerald Ford debated Jimmy Carter.

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 description of the Thucydides Trap is more a description of a spontaneous escalation rather than a well-calculated move towards changing the international order. Applied to the case of the US and China, the ‘Thucydides Trap’ is far removed from the reality and complexity of such power relations, beyond being a useful rhetorical tool.

Law professor and legal philosopher Jenő Szmodis appeared on the Glóbusz podcast hosted by Jonatán Nagy-Bato, where they discussed the changing concepts of humanity over the course of history, alternating between individualistic and community-centred ideas.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the idea of unification between the Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches came to the fore, and Protestants who sympathized with this idea tried to make it even more visible to the public by wearing clothing similar to the cassock worn by Roman Catholic priests.

To address the housing shortage, nearly 1 million dwellings were built under the housing programme between 1961 and 1975, 300,000 of them in Budapest; and a large part of the country’s population still lives in the apartments built during that period to this very day. Despite the difficulties and the negative aspects, anyone who has lived in or visited a prefab will never forget it. Public housing cannot be said to be entirely negative or positive, can be loved or disliked, but it is a legacy from the past that defines who we are.

Trading first started on the Budapest Stock Exchange on 18 January 1864, but the exchange was dismantled by the communist regime in 1948. After the regime change of 1989, securities trading restarted at last on 21 June 1990, exactly 34 years ago today.

Gergely Kovács, the newly elected Budapest 12th district mayor of the Two-Tailed Dog Party, has vowed to remove the statue of the mythical turul bird located in the vicinity of the mayor’s office. He cited the monument’s connection to Nazism as his reason—however, not many other people see that connection.

The documentary will be premiered to the public on 14 June at the MOZ.GO Hungarian Film Festival, and is also expected to be available on streaming platforms.

Galambóc (Golubac in today’s Serbia), still an imposing fortress on the banks of the lower Danube section, first appears in the annals of history when Turkish invasions approached and even reached the former borders of Hungary. King Sigismund, however, is not usually praised in military historical literature for the siege of Galambóc, although he acted with great foresight and care.

During the reign of King Stephen, the political aspect of the King’s devotion to Mary was only secondary and could be seen much more as the individual devotion of a fervent Christian believer to Mary. However, posterity took a different path and gave it national importance, being the basis for the Regnum Marianum idea of the 18th century.

Antal Horger famously vowed to never let Attila József, one of the most influential Hungarian poets of the 20th century, get his teaching certificate while teaching at the University of Szeged. For this decision, József went on to immortalize him as the cold-hearted, vindictive ‘overlord’ of the university in his 1937 poem Születésnapomra (For My Birthday), published just months before his suicide.

‘That Britain chose to join the EEC in 1975 was a tragedy. That it left the EU with the utmost incompetence in 2016 was a farce caused entirely by the Conservative Party’s inability to resolve the psychological trauma of three decades. In both instances, it is the British people who have suffered and they whose trust in politics to be a force for good has, as a consequence, been destroyed.’

The contrast between the brilliant achievements of King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary and the inertia of the kingdom of the Jagiellonians is almost a cliché in Hungarian history. To this day, many seek the causes of the 1526 Mohács tragedy in the damaging reign of the weak Jagiellonians. However, more recent Hungarian and international historical research has taken a much more positive view of the Dynasty’s performance.

Distinguished scholars, museum curators, and educators gathered at the Polish History Museum in Warsaw, Poland for the 12th European Remembrance Symposium organized by the ERNS to talk about ways to preserve history, the way to teach national history to the next generation, if there is a common European historical narrative, and what it means to be free in Europe in this day and age.

‘The ideological models that had emerged at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries…had transformed social thinking and humanity’s view of the world to such an extent that it was impossible to maintain and preserve the earlier, semi-feudal Europe. This in turn meant that ethnicity and nationality, previously considered less significant elements…became a determining factor, leading not only to an exploration of the historical past of a given community, in the search for national heroes, but also to a demand for political unification with ethnic or linguistic compatriots within a single country.’

The second volume of the publication titled Hungarian Rock History presents the stories of prominent figures in the domestic rock music scene, including Bikini, Kontroll Csoport, KFT, Edda, Karthago, Quimby, and Kispál és a Borz, uniquely depicted in comic book format.