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. His most recent book is The New Authoritarianism: Trump, Populism, and the Tyranny of Experts (Polity, 2018), which The Wall Street Journal named “Best on Politics 2018”.
OLGA GRANASZTÓI completed her degree in Hungarian and French at Eötvös Loránd University in 1997. In 2006 she completed her doctorate at the University of Szeged on 18th century French and Hungarian literature and cultural history. Her dissertation, “Francia könyvek magyar olvasói – a tiltott irodalom fogadtatása Magyarországon” [The Hungarian Readers of French Books – The Reception of Forbidden Literature in Hungary], was published in 2009. She is presently working as a member of the Classic Hungarian Textology Research Group at Debrecen University on the manuscripts of Ferenc Kazinczy.
LAURA IANCU (Podu Turcului, Romania, 1978) is a Hungarian poet and ethnographer. She received her degree in ethnography from the University of Szeged and her PhD from the University of Pécs in 2009. Since 2011 she has been a research fellow at the Institute of Ethnology at the Research Centre for the Humanities of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Her main field of research includes the Hungarian-speaking Csango minority, its folklore, religion and traditions. She has been publishing prose and poetry since 2000. Ms Iancu received the József Attila Prize in 2012 and the Jankó János Prize in 2013. She is an active member of numerous organisations, such as the Hungarian Writers’ Association, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the Transylvanian Hungarian Writers’ League.
GYULA KODOLÁNYI (Budapest, 1942), Editor-in-Chief of Hungarian Review is the author of sixteen collections of poetry, scholarly and literary essays and poetry translations. He taught English and American Literature at Eötvös Loránd University, 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– 1985) 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 1990–1994, he served as Senior Foreign Policy Adviser to the Prime Minister. In 2000–2005 he was an Adviser 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.
RT HON PETER LILLEY worked several years as a development economist in underdeveloped countries and specialised in the energy industries. Elected to Parliament in 1983, he became a Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1987, joined Mrs Thatcher’s cabinet as Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and subsequently became Secretary of State for Social Security under John Major. He was Shadow Chancellor, then Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party responsible for policy renewal until 2000. Author of works on many topical issues, he was appointed Chair of the Globalisation and Global Poverty Commission by David Cameron. He served as a member of the Select Committees on Energy and Climate Change. He left the House of Commons in 2017 and became a member of the House of Lords in 2018.
IAIN LINDSAY, OBE (Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire), was appointed Her Majesty’s Ambassador to Hungary on 30 March 2016. He previously held the position of Her Majesty’s Ambassador in Manama from 2011 to 2015. Mr Lindsay has spent much of his career in the Asia Pacific region, serving in Tokyo (twice), Hong Kong and Canberra. He was Deputy Head of Mission and Political Counsellor in Bucharest 2003–2007, working on Romania’s accession to NATO and the EU. Prior to that, he served as a Foreign Policy Adviser to the Romanian Foreign Minister. He was Deputy Head of Mission and Director of Trade and Investment at the British Consulate General in Hong Kong 2007–2011. The Queen awarded him an OBE in 2002.
GORDON McKECHNIE (Detroit, 1951) was educated at the International School of Geneva and at the University of Oxford. After a career in banking (working in the then emerging markets of Central and Eastern Europe from 1989), he became a Partner of Deloitte and subsequently worked for the UK Treasury. Among his current positions, he is Chairman of the OECD’s Infrastructure and PPP Network and member of the International Committee of Tearfund.
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 Adviser to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in Downing Street and later assisted her in the writing of her two volumes of memoirs. He has held a wide variety of senior editorial positions in the media on both sides of the Atlantic. He is the founder and co- chairman of the Atlantic Initiative, an international bipartisan organisation dedicated to reinvigorating and expanding the Atlantic community of democracies, launched at the Congress of Prague in May 1996 by President Vaclav Havel and Lady Thatcher. His book, The President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister (on Pope John Paul II, President Reagan and Prime Minister Thatcher), was published in Hungarian, too, in 2010. Until 2011, he was the Executive Editor of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty in Prague. Currently he is the President of the Danube Institute, Budapest. John O’Sullivan is a Commander of the British Empire (CBE), and he received the Middle Cross of Hungary on 12 February this year.
GEORGE SCHÖPFLIN (Budapest, 1939) graduated M.A., LL.B. from the University of Glasgow and pursued postgraduate studies at the College of Europe in Bruges. He worked at the Royal Institute of International Affairs and the BBC before taking up university lecturing at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London (1976–2004), including latterly as Jean Monnet Professor of Politics and Director of the Centre for the Study of Nationalism. Professor Schöpflin was elected a Member of the European Parliament for Fidesz–Hungarian Civic Union, a member of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) in 2004, re-elected in 2009 and in 2014.
ÉVA ESZTER SZABÓ, historian, Americanist and Latin Americanist, is assistant professor at the Department of American Studies, School of English and American Studies, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. Her courses and research have focused on inter- American relations, U.S. immigration history and immigration policies, and global migration issues in global politics. Her most significant work is entitled US Foreign and Immigration Policies in the Caribbean Basin (Savaria University Press, 2007). Her recent research targets the history and current developments of a growing US American diaspora, and border studies.
GÉZA SZŐCS (Marosvásárhely/Târgu Mureș, 1953) is a Transylvanian poet and politician distinguished with the Kossuth and József Attila Awards. He studied at the Hungarian–Russian Department of the Babeș-Bolyai University, Kolozsvár/Cluj-Napoca. After working in the scientific literature seminar of the University, he went into political exile in Switzerland, where he worked in Geneva as a journalist. Between 1989 and 1990 he conducted the Budapest studio of Radio Free Europe. In 1989, he joined the staff of the magazine Magyar Napló of the Hungarian Writers’ Association. In 1990, Szőcs returned to Kolozsvár/ Cluj-Napoca and was active in the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania (RMDSZ). From 1993 to 2010, he was editor of the magazine A Dunánál. He served as Secretary of State for Culture of the Ministry of National Resources in Hungary from 2010 to 2012. In 2011, he was elected President of the Hungarian Pen Club. Szőcs became an adviser to Prime Minister Orbán in 2012.
PÉTER SZTÁRAY (Budapest, 1967) is Ambassador of Hungary to NATO and Minister of State for Security Policy. He graduated from Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, at the Faculty of Law in 1993. He pursued his studies at the Vienna Diplomatic Academy between 1993–1994. He began his career at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and became the Head of the NATO Section in 2002. He held the position of Director for Security Policy between 2009–2010 and became Deputy State Secretary in 2010. Since 2013 he has been a Permanent Representative of Hungary to NATO.
SÁNDOR REMÉNYIK (Kolozsvár/ Cluj-Napoca 1890 – Kolozsvár/Cluj-Napoca 1941) was a Hungarian poet. After graduating from high school in Kolozsvár, he began studying to become a lawyer until an eye disease ended his aspirations. He continued his studies at the Royal Hungarian Franz Joseph University in Kolozsvár, but did not pursue a degree. From 1921 on he was the Editor-in-Chief of Pásztortűz, a significant journal of Transylvanian prose and poetry. His first collections of poetry Fagyöngyök [Mistletoes], Mindhalálig [Until Death] and Végvári versek [Végvári poems] were published between 1918 and 1921. He received the Baumgarten Award in 1937 and in 1941, and the Corvin Chain Award in 1940. His poems were translated into English, French, Croatian, German, Italian, Swedish and Czech.