“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
“‘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,
“This first issue of Hungarian Review for 2020 is published on the 100th Anniversary of the Trianon Conference. As no Hungarian needs to be told, Trianon was the last of the “little Versailles” conferences that settled the disposition of territory and peoples between existing and new states in Central Europe
“Hungary’s young revolutionaries had changed how the world saw Goliath. Yes, but more importantly they had changed how the world saw Hungary and Hungarians, not as bitter-sweet ironists, witty pessimists with a death-wish, compromised realists, but as ordinary people who were also gallants, gambling against great odds and turning their
“Which kind of age are we living in today in what is called the post-Cold War world or even the post-post-Cold War world (the former having ended with the 2008 financial crash)? It is not all that odd that we now date our ages from 1989 rather than Anno Domini.
“Democracy is a slow and cautious beast that sometimes acts decisively to change direction, but more often moves hesitantly to test a new course, then pauses for reflection, and finally decides whether to continue or stay put. It could hardly be otherwise since democracy is, among other things, a way
“My mind and editorial attention have been devoted in the last few weeks to attending a series of conferences in America, England, Croatia and Hungary on three large topics: immigration, the persecution of religious believers, especially Christians, and the forthcoming elections to the European Parliament. These topics stand independently of
It should be admitted from the start that this issue of Hungarian Review is a sombre one in which many of the articles are written in a minor key. To be sure, some of our authors offer a happy counterpoint – notes and themes of wit and charm and poetry
“European political debate at present centres around the rising popular resistance to Brussels, to its growing centralisation of power, and to particular policies it has pursued (such as relocating migrants), often with little or no consultation, across the continent. It seems likely, though not certain, that this resistance will mean
“Memory and culture are therefore the key themes running through this issue. We wrote in the previous Review that we would restore the balance between the cultural and the purely political in later issues. It is neither possible nor desirable, of course, to omit the purely political in any review
HUNGARIAN REVIEW is
published by BL Nonprofit Kft.
Editorial office: 24 Eötvös Street, Budapest, 1067, HUNGARY
E-mail: hungarianreview@hungarianreview.com
Publisher: Gergő Kereki
Editor-in-Chief: Tamás Magyarics
Deputy Editor-in-Chief: István Kiss
Editors-at-Large: Gyula Kodolányi, John O’Sullivan
Managing Editor: Ildikó Geiger
