Category: VOLUME III, No. 3

MIRACLES ON THE DANUBE

As this, May 2012 edition of the Hungarian Review goes to press, the Hungarian Parliament is electing a new President. In his inaugural address, János Áder shed his party shoes to appeal to his fellow countrymen and countrywomen to turn their backs on what he called “sterile, selfish, egotistical discord…

SELF-EUROPE

Experts on terrorism have recently begun speaking of a phenomenon they term “self Islam”. This refers to the fact that many dangerous extremists act not out of loyalty to a religious or a radical political movement, but rather justify their actions by picking and choosing among the elements of various

DOOMSDAY IN HUNGARY?

Since Christmas several reports and opinions have appeared in the international media painting a bleak picture of the state of democracy in Hungary, heaping heavy criticism on the government. The objects of the concern and the attacks are the new Constitution passed by the National Assembly in 2011, the media law of

‘HISTORY DOES NOT REPEAT ITSELF’

The House of Terror at Ten – Director Mária Schmidt in conversation with Nick Thorpe NT: Let’s start at the very beginning. You opened ten years ago, amidst great controversy: about the establishment of your museum, about its name, about the rather dramatic outward appearance, and about the combination in one

THE STATE AS SENTINEL PART II

Catch-up Strategies in the Far East South Korea: Miracle on the Han River As a result of its almost unparalleled economic growth, today South Korea is one of the leading players in the global marketplace and one of the wealthiest countries in the world. The Republic of South Korea is

THE GREENING OF THE DANUBE

Restoring Oxbows in Austria and Germany Up to the middle of the 19th century, the Danube was a free-flowing wild river in most parts. Maps, pictures and travel reports from that time show a varied river landscape with narrow gorges and wide basins. The Danube consisted, apart from the largest

HAVEL NA HRAD – OR, HAVEL TO THE CASTLE

The Road to a Presidency “I’ll never forget that taxi driver in Munich, who drove me home from Radio Free Europe headquarters not long after Havel moved into his new residence in the Castle of Prague. As soon as he learned that I was from Czechoslovakia, he began to speak

JÓZSEF ANTALL AND KONRAD ADENAUER

The name József Antall has become almost emblematic of the change of regimes that took place in Hungary in 1990. He has become an important figure of history, with all the consequences this status involves. Historians have already begun to assess his significance, though little of this ever becomes part

HISTORICAL FORGIVENESS IN QUESTION

The Recent emergence of the notion of historical repentance and the accompanying requests for forgiveness pose troubling questions. It is something of a novelty in political and international life. Justifications are not given, and it installs itself in our attitudes quite naturally, as if its rationale were self-evident. As it

MOTION PICTURE AS THE ‘MUSICAL PLAY OF THE FUTURE’

Lajtha, Höllering and Eliot “Les trois grands Hongrois” – the “Three Great Hungarians”: this is how the French referred to the three preeminent Hungarian composers of the first half of the 20th century, Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály and, a decade their junior, László Lajtha (1892–1963). Like his elders, Lajtha was