Let’s try to keep the illusion awake in ourselves that we can cross to Nagyvárad or drop by to Nagyszalonta and then run from Makó to Arad, as it used to be – so natural, so self-evident. And then all of a sudden, we realise it was no longer possible.

As a consequence of the treaty, four million Hungarians became overnight the citizens of foreign countries, some of them newly formed.

The kind of honest, pure, original shock and indignation of when we are cast into this world, start to become familiar with it, and find ourselves facing an injustice on a disproportionately large scale, which we would like to fix, but simply cannot: the pain and loss of which still lingers.  

In its entirety, Scitovszky’s memoirs are a compelling and eloquent retelling of many of the obscure events at and after Trianon, written by a man of a sophisticated age, hardened by insurmountable challenges and driven by a sense
of duty and responsibility.

‘I’ve often said that if Donald Trump had had even half the intelligence and the focus of Viktor Orbán, America would be a very different place.’