Volume IX., No. 6.
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Subject Index 2010 - 2018
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Book Launch: Down Fell the Statue of Goliath - 10th May 2017
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Janus Pannonius Translation Prize for Gyula Kodolányi
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Hungarian Review annual subscriptions for six issues, including postage (choose one):
Géza Jeszenszky
What the European Union Could Do - Open Letter to Claude Juncker
"On 23 October 2018, the very day when Hungarians and many others remembered the 1956 uprising of the Hungarians against the Communist dictatorship, you called the unification of Transylvania, a province which had belonged to the Crown of Hungary for a thousand years, with the Kingdom of Romania 'a great moment in Romanian history and a great moment in European history'."
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Gordon McKechnie
Prague Revisited – Part I
"Historians have taken the 1618 Defenestration of Prague as marking the beginning of the Thirty Years’ War, a conflict that raged ferociously, mostly across Bohemia and other parts of the Holy Roman Empire, from 1618 to 1648, drawing in the armies of most of the European powers of the day. It was the most murderous war that Europe had known, and the Thirty Years’ War continued to hold that dubious honour until the even more deadly wars of the twentieth century."
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David A. J. Reynolds
Invasion 1968 – The Intentions of Intervention and the Shadow of 1956 – Part I
"Through Kádár, therefore, Brezhnev was still attempting to make Dubcek the Kádár of 1968; a dynamic and popular Party head implicated in “excessive” reforms but nevertheless co-opted as the face of a Soviet-imposed 'domestic' alternative. This had clearly also been Brezhnev’s hope in his astonishing phone call with Dubcek on 13 August, in which the Czechoslovak leader fluctuated between aggravated defiance and despair."
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Orsolya Pacsay-Tomassich
Freedom and Integrity – Denmark and Povl Bang-Jensen, the Danish Hero of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution
"Exceptional gratitude and honour, however, is due to a Danish martyr of the Hungarian Revolution, UN diplomat Povl Bang-Jensen, who gave his life for “the Hungarian cause”. He truly was a man who felt obliged to reveal the truth to the world, attempting to arouse the conscience of statesmen and decision-makers at the highest international forums. For several years this Danish diplomat showed implacable resolve in dealing with the delicate international issues surrounding the Hungarian Revolution and of the brutal Soviet military intervention which crushed it."
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György Csóti
The Spirit of Ceauşescu in Romania – Unprecedented Show Trial in Szeklerland, in 21st Century Europe
"The Romanian secret service however has resorted to the methods of its predecessor, the infamous Securitate, by leaving no stone unturned in its pursuit of real or perceived reasons to strong-arm Hungarians who dare to stand up for their rights. Their aim is to generate fear, in order to intimidate those struggling for the respect of minority rights. In the case of István Beke and Zoltán Szőcs, they believed they had found proof justifying a possible reprisal, but after discovering that the evidence was too thin, began fabricating a Communist-style show trial, complete with doctored evidence."
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György Schöpflin
What if?
"The European Parliament has decided, Hungary has been referred to Council under Article 7 of the TEU and the left is celebrating. We can leave to one side the questions over the voting procedure, given that politically the weight of the voting is what counts. The joy unconfined on the left is understandable. After all, the left has long regarded Hungary as the seat of everything that it detests – it has devised a narrative that includes no rule of law, no judicial independence, no free media, no free anything really and presumably a nation of sheep who will vote for Fidesz because they are sheep. Quite some narrative. And those who contest it are automatically disregarded."
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Ryszard Legutko
The European Union’s Democratic Deficit – After the Strasbourg Vote on Hungary
"The European Parliament (EP)’s decision to censure Hungary illustrates a larger process that has been unfolding in Europe. We knew – at least some of us did – that the European elites that for several decades have been ruling over the souls and the minds of people have lost the ability – assuming they ever had it – to listen to and understand points of view different from their own. We knew – at least some of us did – that they do not tolerate any form of dissent and treat all dissenters as enemies to be silenced and marginalised. What we did not know was how far they could go in their ideological fervour."
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John O’Sullivan
Remembrance, All Souls and Heroes – Editorial Note
"Memory and culture are therefore the key themes running through this issue. We wrote in the previous Review that we would restore the balance between the cultural and the purely political in later issues. It is neither possible nor desirable, of course, to omit the purely political in any review of contemporary European life. Later pages will show that we give politics its due: György Schöpflin and Ryszard Legutko examine the malice, ideology and bad faith that lay behind the criticism of Hungary (and the empty threat to punish the country by removing its vote in European Union institutions) by a progressive majority in the European Parliament."
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