ATTILA BALÁZS (Novi Sad/Újvidék, 1955), writer, translator, journalist. Author of twelve books of prose. Founder of the cultural magazine Ex Symposion. He worked as editor for the YU Radio- Television, moved to Budapest in late 1991. For a time he worked as war correspondent, then as political correspondent for the newspaper Pesti Hírlap. His works have been published at home and abroad. 1994–2012 he was editor of the cultural programmes of the Hungarian Radio. Among many distinctions, he has received the Attila József Prize for Literature and the Book of the Year Prize 1999.
PÉTER ÁKOS BOD (Szigetvár, 1951) economist, university professor. He worked in economic research at the Institute of Planning, Budapest, taught economics in Budapest and in the US before 1989. He was Minister of Industry and Trade between 1990 and 1991, and Governor of the Hungarian National Bank between 1991 and 1994. In 1995-1998, he was member of the Board at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (London), representing East Central European countries. At present, he is director of the Institute of Economics at Corvinus University of Budapest. He is vice chairman of the Hungarian Economic Society, sits on editorial boards of Hungarian journals (incl. this Review). His major publications include A vállalkozó állam (Entrepreneurial State) 1987; A pénz világa (The World of Money) 2001; Gazdaságpolitika (Economic Policy) 2002; Közgazdaságtan (Economics) 2006.
CHRISTIE DAVIES is a graduate of Cambridge University MA (Double first in Economics) PhD (Social and Political Science). He was for seventeen years full Professor at the University of Reading UK and has been a visiting scholar or lecturer in India, Poland and the United States. His most recent books are Jokes and Targets 2011, The Strange Death of Moral Britain 2004, and The Mirth of Nations 2002. He has been a radio producer and appeared on radio and TV in many countries and has published a large number of articles in the press, in magazines and online in UK, US, Europe and Asia as well as a collection of humorous magical-science fiction short stories.
JÁNOS HORVÁTH (Cece, 1921) is an MP for Fidesz-MPP, and Distinguished Professor of Economics at Corvinus University, Budapest. He earned his MA in economics at the József Nádor Polytechnics, Budapest, and his PhD at Columbia University, New York. During 1943–1944 he was active in the Free Life Student Movement of the underground Hungarian Independence Alliance against Nazi influence and the occupation. In 1945 he took roles in post-War reconstruction, was a Smallholders’ Party MP and served as Economic Advisor to Premier Ferenc Nagy. In 1947 he was imprisoned for four years in the Communist staged “Conspiracy against the Republic” trial. In the Revolution of 1956 he was elected Executive President of the Economic Reconstruction Council and Chair of the Smallholders in the 13th district, Budapest. As a political émigré who fled Hungary after the Soviet invasion, he participated in Hungarian exile politics in Strasbourg, New York and Washington. He taught and wrote on economics in the US for 35 years, and returned to Hungary in 1998. Among other distinctions, he received the Medal of Honour of the Hungarian President.
GÉZA JESZENSZKY (Budapest, 1941) D. Phil., historian, graduated from Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, teaching at Corvinus University, Budapest at present. He taught history of Central Europe at UC Santa Barbara in 1984–88, and has lectured at numerous universities and institutions in the US and Europe. He was Foreign Minister of Hungary in the first non-communist government (1990–94), and Ambassador to the United States of America in 1998–2002, and to the Kingdom of Norway and to the Republic of Iceland in 2011–2014. He is the author of numerous publications on history and foreign policy; his latest book in English is Post-Communist Europe and its National/ Ethnic Problems. He is an editorial adviser for Hungarian Review.
CLARK S. JUDGE is founder and managing director of the White House Writers Group, Inc. and an opinion journalist. He was a speechwriter in the Reagan White House. He served as Speechwriter and Special Assistant to both President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George Bush. A Harvard MBA, Mr Judge had administration assignments involving assessing the management of the government, urban policy and international economic policy before joining the White House staff. As an opinion journalist, he has written extensively on US politics, the international financial crisis, health care reform, the current state of the US, and global economies and global security issues. Among the publications in which his work has appeared are the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Policy Review, National Review Online and Claremont Review of Books.
ÁRPÁD KADARKAY (Kesztölc, 1934) Conscripted into the Hungarian Army, 1954–56, he deserted in November 1956 and joined the Revolution. After the Soviet invasion, he emigrated to Vancouver, British Columbia, in March 1957. While working the graveyard shifts at Eburne Saw Mills, Vancouver, he earned Double Honours at the University of British Columbia, 1958–1963, and on a fellowship, an MA in Political Science at UC Los Angeles, 1963–65, and a PhD in Political Philosophy, UC Santa Barbara, 1965–1971. He is Emeritus Professor of Politics and Government at the University of Puget Sound, and lives in Tacoma, Washington. His publications include Georg Lukacs: Life, Thought, and Politics (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), The Lukacs Reader (Blackwell, 1995), Human Rights in American and Russian Political Thought (University Press of America, 1982), and an English translation of Journey in North America, 1831, by Sándor Bölöni Farkas (Santa Barbara, 1978).
MÁRIA KURDI (Mezőcsát, 1947) is professor at the University of Pécs, Hungary. Her main research areas are modern Irish literature, English-speaking drama, and comparative literary studies. Her books include Representations of Gender and Female Subjectivity in Contemporary Irish Drama by Women (Edwin Mellen Press, 2010) and the edited volume Literary and Cultural Relations: Ireland, Hungary, and Central and Eastern Europe (Dublin: Carysfort Press, 2009). She has also published a book in Hungarian about the representation of Hungarian and East European immigrants in Irish literature (Lucidus, 2011).Currently she is co-editing with Irish scholar Miriam Haughton the collection Radical Contemporary Theatre Practices by Women in Ireland to be published with Carysfort Press, and the 2014 issue of Irish Theatre International titled “Perform, or Else!”
MIHÁLY NAGY (Kaba, 1957) holds a degree in archaeology from Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, and a PhD in History from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. In 1983 he joined the Hungarian National Museum, where he later worked as Head of the Department of Roman Antiquities and Scientific Secretary to the General Director. He curated exhibitions of the Hungarian National Museum, among others The First Chinese Emperor’s Terracotta Army, the most successful exhibition of its kind, and Lapidarium, a permanent exhibition of Roman stones. He has represented the Hungarian Government as an expert witness in the Sevso trial. From 1998 he participated in the setting up of the Department of Monuments and Sites in the newly created Ministry of National Cultural Heritage. He also worked at the European Commission’s Directorate- General for Education and Culture in Brussels as a policy officer managing the European Year of Creativity and Innovation. He writes and lectures widely on the above subjects.
MAGDA NÉMETH (Budapest, 1931), eldest daughter of writer László Németh and Ella Démusz, studied chemical engineering in Budapest. Her studies were disrupted by the Hungarian Revolution of October 1956, in which her husband Ferenc Némethy took an active part. They emigrated to Canada, where their two children were born. Magda graduated there and taught at high schools in Toronto. They also lived in India where Némethy worked for a while. Since 1990, she has divided her time between Toronto and Budapest. She has published her correspondence with her father, and a memoir in Hungarian.
TED TOGHIA (Budapest, 1953) immigrated to the US in 1957, where he studied and choreographed Hungarian dances under Andor Czompó’s guidance and direction, and with Sándor Tímár, who was the former artistic director of the Bartók Dance Ensemble as well as the Hungarian State Folk Ensemble. He has done extensive field research in Hungary and Transylvania. He became the artistic director and the general director for the Kárpátok Hungarian Folk Ensemble of Los Angeles in 1970. He received several grants from The California Arts Council, as well as The National Endowment for the Arts, and has choreographed for other Hungarian and international dancegroups around the United States since 1977. In 1982 he founded the Kárpátok Orchestra, which at the time was totally comprised of American musicians. He toured Hungary twice with Kárpátok.