From the Editors

From the Editors

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

‘We are proud’ – state the opening words of the new Hungarian Constitution – of a long list of attributes, including those forebears who fought for national survival, freedom and independence, the intellectual achievements of Hungarians, and Hungary’s role as ‘a talented and diligent defender of the common values of

FIRST BIRTHDAY EDITION

With this edition of Hungarian Review we celebrate one year of our journal’s existence, and look forward with hope to many more. We believe we have proved the need for a calm, measured, and conservative – in the best sense of the word – voice from Central Europe, and we extend special

LIKEABLE, LONG-SUFFERING HUNGARIANS

What did both Hitler and Stalin admire about Hungary? It sounds like the question in a university quiz show which no contestant can guess the right answer to. “The water-polo team?” hazards one contestant. “The women?” offers another. “Goulash?” asks another, desperately. The right answer, however unlikely this may sound,

THE HUNGARIAN REVIEW SEEMS TOO YOUNG

The Hungarian Review seems too young a publication to sustain losses on the battlefield, but on the eve of this, our fifth edition, we mark the passing of two staunch friends and allies, György Szabados and Ferenc Mádl. György Szabados was a pianist and “free music” composer in the footsteps of Béla

THE GREAT HUNGARIAN DEBATE

The adoption of a brand new constitution in Hungary has been met with celebrations from Fidesz and its supporters, groans of anguish and theatrical gestures from its opponents, and not a few glances of blank incomprehension from abroad. The argument boils down to this: the government argues that Hungary needs

THE COMMON GOOD (THE BAD AND THE UGLY)

„For three men… reads the poster for the classic western, ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ (1966), ‘the civil war wasn’t hell, it was practice.” “A bounty hunting scam joins two men in an uneasy alliance against a third in a race to find a fortune in gold buried

ONCE UPON A TIME…

Once upon a time, not so many months ago, there was something frighteningly boring about Hungary. She smiled at the right moments, imposed fierce austerity measures when she was supposed to, year after year, no matter how much her long-suffering people suffered under their weight, longed to be loved in

A POSTCARD FROM VISEGRÁD, ON THE DANUBE…

It is a bold, perhaps foolhardy venture, to launch a new ship in stormy waters, but the Hungarian Review is just that – a craft on the mainstream of the Danube, seaworthy enough for the Atlantic, elegant enough for the Black Sea or the Baltic, and all the myriad land