Category: Essay

ON THE TRANSLATIONS OF FERENC RÁKÓCZI II’S CONFESSIO PECCATORIS AND MEMOIRES

ON THE TRANSLATIONS OF FERENC RÁKÓCZI II’S CONFESSIO PECCATORIS AND MEMOIRS* Bernard Adams’ English translation of Ferenc Rákóczi II’s two major literary works definitely fills a niche in research on 18th-century Central European literature as this is the first time that Rákóczi’s Confessio peccatoris and Memoirs (Mémoires) have become accessible

ON YORAM HAZONY’S THE VIRTUE OF NATIONALISM

Yoram Hazony’s book1 has found many sympathetic readers – myself among them – and has been deservedly praised by reviewers. I have a personal reason to think highly of the book. Over the last decades, we have been living in Europe in the grips of a political orthodoxy that brooks

GEOPOLITICS AND WORLD TRADE

Geopolitics and global commerce, otherwise referred to simply as “flag and trade” – these are what shape the world. The flag is in fact the sovereign state, the political power and military force that is mustered behind it, and which it embodies; this is why the term flag refers both

A RECKONING OF ACCOUNTS – THOUGHTS ON PÉTER ÁKOS BOD’S BOOK

A Reckoning of accounts* Thoughts on Péter Ákos Bod’s Book Péter Ákos Bod is undoubtedly one of the most diligent economists working in Hungary today. During a career of more than four decades to date, not once has he missed an opportunity – or the self-imposed duty – to share his thoughts, feelings, observations and suggestions

‘THE CAGE OF THE VISIBLE’: GYÖRGY SPIRÓ’S CAPTIVITY

“The cage of the visible”: György Spiró’s Captivity* Captivity’s captive is the son of a Jewish silk-importer in first-century Rome, and a freeborn Roman citizen. A petty bourgeois, in effect. His civil name is Gaius Theodorus, but he is known to intimates – and to us – by the Hebrew name

ROBERT CONQUEST AND THE UNDERSTANDING OF WORLD COMMUNISM

I first heard a poem by Robert Conquest when I was thirteen years old and an English master at my secondary school read out the “Excerpt of a Report to the Galactic Council”. It was rather an interesting science fiction type of poem. So I knew him as a poet