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Available Now! Down Fell the Statue of Goliath - Hungarian Poets and Writers on the Revolution of 1956

Available Now! Nicholas T. Parsons: Civilisation and Its Malcontents - Essays on Our Times

Available Now! A Nation Dismembered - The 1920 Treaty of Trianon in Hungarian Poetry

Hungarian Review

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Charles Hebbert

Humour and Hardship in the Buda Hills and London – Review essay of the new English edition of the book by Mátyás Sárközi

"One of the recipients this March of Hungary’s highest award for contributions to the arts, the Kossuth Prize, was the writer Mátyás Sárközi. This was in recognition of his writings, including his depiction of Hungarian intellectual life in the first half of the 20th century through his family chronicles. The publication in English of his Letters from Zugliget offers non-Hungarian readers a chance to find out why. This is a most useful addition to the body of literature in English on Hungary, offering fascinating views of life in both Hungary and Britain in the 1950s and 1960s."

The EU and the US: Globalism Versus National Sovereignty

"Political correctness and identity politics are the two sides of the same postmodern coin. They both reject the idea that there is any truth claim that can command greater allegiance than the feelings or opinions of any individual or group, especially those that are deemed to be oppressed or disadvantaged. Reality itself is nothing more than what each individual or group feels it to be. Individual choice and group identity reign, and reality can and must be reshaped in the service of individual choice and group identity."

Europe: Does the Falconer Care?

"This is a strange world we live in. For the overwhelming majority, the coronavirus and the future of the economy constitute the central problems of the day. There will always be exceptions, though this exception does not prove any rule whatsoever. If anything, this exception erodes the rules of logic and rationality. The reference in this connection is to the European liberal left, the Euroleft. We know that over the last decade Hungary has evolved into a key target for left-liberal disapproval, there is no real need to rehearse the reasons, they are well known."

Sovereignty, Constitutional Identity and European Law

"The complex relationships between law and politics have undergone quite remarkable changes over the past few decades. Commentators and researchers have been particularly alerted to the twin phenomena of the politicisation of law and the legalisation of politics. During periods of constitutional legislative effort, the correlation between law and politics is thrust even further into the foreground. Constitutional lawyers and political scientists unanimously agree that erecting a constitution is, eminently, a political issue."

Lockdown Diary, Budapest – 20 April 2020

"'Ghost trains' and ghost buses are the most visible and oddly comforting -expression of Budapest’s lockdown. Because 'essential workers' still have to get to and from work, and the other city-dwellers may have good reasons to move around the city, the regular train and subway services are running as before, and even keeping to their regular schedules. In the case of the Number Two train, which runs alongside the Danube past such city sights as the “Whale” gallery and cultural center and Hungary’s magnificent 19th-century Parliament building, this means that between six and eight trains pass by every hour."

Making a Virtue of Nationalism

"Our own world on 1 January 2020 was not quite so turbulent as that, but it was a great deal more turbulent than it had been on the same date in 2000 before the Russo-Georgian war, the 2008 financial crash, the travails of the euro (launched that day), the emergence of “populism” in Europe and America, the refugee crisis of 2015, and not least Brexit and Trump. It was into this nervous and apprehensive world that the COVID-19 pandemic crashed in slow-motion in the first two months of the year as a Chinese New Year gift from the Communist Party. And fragmentation was further fragmented."

The Coronavirus – The Biology, the History, the Challenge and the Outlook

"In December 2019, a series of pneumonic cases of unknown cause emerged in Wuhan, a large city of 11 million in central China, with a clinical presentation resembling viral pneumonia. The number of cases increased rapidly. The overwhelming majority of the hospitalised patients had been exposed to the Huanan seafood market; therefore, it was first believed, as on many occasions in the past, that coronavirus was spread by animal-to-human virus transmission. By 9 January 2020, the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention succeeded in identifying the virus responsible for the outbreak as a novel coronavirus named COVID-19."

Only Nation States Can Beat The Pandemic

"The outbreak of COVID-19 in Europe has brought numerous political lessons. The first and most important of these is clearly that the European Union’s institutions were visibly at a loss as how to handle this unprecedented challenge. The situation bears many similarities to the migration crisis of 2015. The EU has shown its weakness; only nation states are capable of tackling such unexpected predicaments. The measures implemented by member states were well-received, and indeed explicitly supported by their citizens."

Nicholas T. Parsons: The Long March Through the Institutions – Douglas Murray’s Book on Our Civilization and Its Discontents

Our Authors

Hungarian Review: Our Authors

History

David A. J. Reynolds: The Roots of Communist Hungary in the Allied Occupation – The Allied Control Commission of Budapest – Part III

Literature and the Arts

Interview

Péter T. Pásztor: “Friendships stronger than the ties of belief” – A last interview from Roger Scruton

Trianon

Gyula Kodolányi: A NATION DISMEMBERED – Selected Poetry from the Anthology edited by CSILLA BERTHA and GYULA KODOLÁNYI – Part III