VIKTOR ORBÁN (Alcsútdoboz, 1963), Prime Minister of Hungary in 1998–2002 and since May 2010; graduated in Law at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, in 1987. In 1983, as a student he was a founding member of Bibó College, a circle for the study of democratic politics. A year later, with his fellow students, he created Századvég, a journal of social sciences, and became one of its editors. In 1989–1990, he studied the history of British liberal political philosophy in Pembroke College, Oxford. In 1988 he was one of the founders of Fidesz (Alliance of Young Democrats), one of the decisive parties of the Democratic opposition to the Communist system and one of the engines of the peaceful revolution of 1988–90. In summer 1989 he had a major role at the national Round Table Talks on Hungary’s peaceful transition to democracy, and he gave a famous speech at the reburial of the martyrs of 1956 on Heroes Square in Budapest, on 16 June 1989. In the mid-nineties, several liberal figureheads left Fidesz as the party became a national centre right force with Orbán at the helm, and has remained so to this day. Orbán, a committed democrat, is a charismatic orator and a powerful political strategist.
SALVATORE BABONES (New York, 1969) earned his PhD in sociology from the Johns Hopkins University (2003). An American citizen, he is now an associate professor of sociology at the University of Sydney. His research takes a longue durée approach to elucidating the macro-level structure of the world economy, with a particular focus on China’s global economic integration. He is the author most recently of American Tianxia: Chinese Money, American Power, and the End of History, which will be published in July by Policy Press.
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. Between 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 Budapest Corvinus University. 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 [The Entrepreneurial State], 1987; A pénz világa [The World of Money], 2001; Gazdaságpolitika [Economic Policy], 2002; Közgazdaságtan [Economics], 2006.
FERENC BÓNIS (Miskolc, 1932), musicologist, university teacher. He received his degree from the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music in 1957. His main field of research focuses on the history of Hungarian music between the 16th and 20th century. He is the author of numerous books and series including Élet-Képek: Bartók Béla (2006) (Scenes from the life of B. B.), From Mozart to Bartók (2000), Hungarian Musicology, a series collecting the works of classical masters of Hungarian music from 1959, and Hungarian Studies in Musicology from 1968.
VIRÁG CSEJDY is a Budapest-born media designer and project manager. She received her MA degree in Visual Communication in 1997 at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design (MOME), Budapest and a second MA degree in Interactive Multi Media in 1999 at the Utrecht School of Arts (HKU), the Netherlands. She is the founder and director of the non-profit Hudec Cultural Foundation in Budapest since 2008. The Foundation’s activities focus on organising cultural and educational projects based on the life and work of László Hudec, a Hungarian–Slovak architect who rose to fame in Shanghai in the interwar period. As the Hudec family archives researcher she was invited to give lectures at the 13th World Congress on Art Deco in Shanghai (2015). She was the initiator and organiser of the Art Deco Budapest Symposium programme in January 2017.
GYULA KODOLÁNYI (Budapest, 1942), Editor-in-Chief of Hungarian Review and of Magyar Szemle, is the author of eleven collections of poetry, scholarly and literary essays and poetry translations. He taught English and American Literature at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest in 1970–1989. He received research and teaching fellowships from the British Council, the American Council of Learned Societies, CIES and The German Marshall Fund of the US. He taught at the University of California in Santa Barbara (1984–85) and at Emory University in Atlanta (2004–2009), and read his poetry in English widely in the US. In 1987, he was a founding member of the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF). In 1990–94, he served as Senior Foreign Policy Advisor to the Prime Minister. In 2000– 2005 he was an Advisor to President Ferenc Mádl. In 2012, he received Hungary’s Middle Cross with the Star and in 2005 the President’s Medal of Honour for his public and literary achievements. With Magyar Szemle, he received a Prima Prize in 2003. In 2015, he was Prima Primissima Prize winner in literature. In 2016, he received the Hungarian PEN Club’s Janus Pannonius Prize for Poetry Translation.
DÁNIEL KOVÁCS (Dunaújváros,1983), architecture historian, writer. In 2007-2013 he was editor and editor-in-chief of the architecture and design magazine hg.hu. From 2013 he worked in the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts, and in 2014-2015 at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design. Since 2015 he has been working as programme director at the Collegium Hungaricum in Berlin. He published several articles on historical and contemporary architecture, and two monographs: Budapest Art Nouveau (2012) and Budapest Art Deco (2015).
JOHN O’SULLIVAN (Liverpool, 1942) is editor-at-large of National Review in New York where he served as Editor-in-Chief for ten years. He was a Special Advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in Downing Street and