Category: History

ON THE USE AND ABUSE OF BORDERS

In the 2019 issues of the present journal several essays discussed the importance of borders and their protection. It is fitting to remember that most wars were not only started by violating borders but were about borders and the determination to change them. Since the Second World War European inter-state

IN SEARCH OF AN AMERICA – PART III

AN IN-LAW There are windows of freedom in life whose light one must not hesitate to take advantage of, for their shutters close again, slam shut, quickly. He often thought, smiled, and dreamt about a trip with his brother Miklós, retracing their steps that led into exile, revisiting all the

HUNGARY’S PATH TO TRIANON

“Hungary’s greedy and opportunistic neighbours – Romania, Czecho-Slovakia, Yugoslavia, and even Austria – finished carving up pre-war borders only when they got as much as they thought possible, taking full advantage of major power leniency stretched to the maximum. Then having exhausted their ability to expand, they reluctantly abandoned further

A NATION DISMEMBERED –THE 1920 TRIANON TREATY IN HUNGARIAN POETRY

“[…] between three to three and a half million Hungarians woke up the next morning to find themselves in a new, different, and mostly hostile nation with a distinctive new national language, history, and – quite often – a new state religion. […] Families were cut apart, children separated from

IN SEARCH OF AN AMERICA – PART II

FIRST TRIP HOME Seeing the world in the vacuous ways tourists do, maybe observing strange alien cultures from a cruise ship as an upscale variant of consumption, is one thing, but it is quite another and a lot more gratifying to be able to do it with a useful purpose

THAT SONS AND DAUGHTERS WILL UNDERSTAND: A REVIEW ESSAY ON STEEP PATH

There is an insistence about the memory of a poet. It is an irresistible and involuntary awareness, born of being a witness – one who perceives and then bears that perception upon his shoulders. Where can he carry it, and can others, like Simon of Cyrene, bear it also? This

THE PHOENIX LAND – PART III

CHAPTER THREE As soon as I returned I made my report to the Prime Minister. We had not taken any minutes of the Marienbad meetings as this was only done when some tangible results might be expected, which was not the case with preliminary talks. However, as is the usual