Hungarian Conservative

At the library located in the centre of the city visitors will have a chance to create souvenir cards with Elvish script, learn the secrets of Elvish braiding, participate in quizzes and group singing, and browse through the products offered at the Middle-earth market.

Discussions will be held in foreign languages, with interpretation provided for the audience by the organizers. Books by the authors will also be available for purchase on the spot, with book signings.

In Scruton’s philosophy…the social practice of legislation and jurisdiction could not be realized outside the national framework, because—regardless to their origins—the interpretation and the enforcement of the set of legal rules and moral duties, even human rights, are bound to nation states…

‘There is something in our national anthem that makes it mean something important and inexplicable to every Hungarian. The hallmark of great pieces of art is that the reader or listener feels as if they express something very important that they cannot. As if they speak from their heart, expressing their innermost, most sincere desires and dreams. It is this mysterious quality that Hungarians feel when listening to the National Anthem: that it really comes from our hearts, it is our prayer, the prayer of every single Hungarian to the Creator.’

Stefánsson commenced his literary career with poetry. He ventured into novel writing in the ’90s, gaining international success. In 2005, his work Summer Light, and Then Comes the Night earned him the Icelandic Literary Award, followed by the Per Olov Enquist Literary Award in 2011. His novel The Fish Have No Feet was nominated for the International Man Booker Prize in 2017, and in 2022, it received the French Prix du livre étranger for the best foreign-language book of the year.

‘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’.

Magda Szabó is one of the most widely read authors in Hungarian literary history, with her writings translated to dozens of languages. Her perhaps best known work is the 1970 young adult novel Abigail. She passed away 16 years ago today.

The 1956ers were mostly young and eager to prove their worth…A child immigrant, George Szirtes is now a well-known British poet, winner of the T. S. Eliot Prize. A young medical student who was offered a place in Oxford’s famous Merton College after his arrival, later became one of the world’s leading molecular cardiologists. György Radda went on to head the British Medical Research Council, and on his retirement in 2000 the Queen made him a Knight of the British Empire.

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.

‘If a society is exhausted in immanence, if people are not aware of the finitude of their own life, knowledge, and power, and if every goal of the person, the state, and politics is directed towards material interests, then the state will be exactly that Civitas Terrena, which is also Civitas Diaboli. Everything is justified by the stronger interest (Hobbes), pragmatism and secular science serve the immanent power goals of the great Leviathan, while real wisdom, taste, and arts, that make life pleasant (or just bearable) start to decline, wither, dissolve into a gigantically increased bureaucracy called the state.’

The director of the Hungarian State Opera House, Szilveszter Ókovács, published a scathing response to the depiction by the Regensburg Theatre of a soon-to-premiere Péter Eötvös opera as a ‘bitter parable of the Orbán regime’.

Baron Bálint Balassi de Kékkő et Gyarmat is celebrated as the pioneer of Hungarian romantic poetry, a valiant soldier, a daring lover and an accomplished polyglot. His life and achievements embody the true spirit of the Renaissance, and read like a tale of romance, valour, and fighting spirit.

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.

‘J.R.R. Tolkien was an author, and Imre Makovecz was an architect. But while they may be divided by their crafts,

the two men were, I argue, united in spirit.

Both Tolkien and Makovecz saw in the modern world that something had gone awry; that something had been lost. Both figures knew that they could not resurrect the dead, or bring the long-lost past back to life, but they could reimagine it in a way particular to them and the unique talents they possessed.’

Celebrate the Day of Hungarian Poetry by reading the English translation of poems written by some of the greatest Hungarian poets, Attila József, Miklós Radnóti, Mihály Vörösmarty, Endre Ady, and Dániel Berzsenyi!

From the perspective of Europe, the Hungarians’ conversion to Christianity was by no means an unbroken continuation of their raids—the Hungarian people was still considered suspicious, barbaric, and prone to paganism for a long time.