Category: VOLUME VIII, No. 4

TRUTH, LIES AND 1956 – EDITORIAL NOTE

1956 is the pivotal event in modern Hungarian history, and it is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. The world recognises that as it relates to the world’s own history. Everyone can see that 1956 was the moment when the Soviet Union lost whatever small shred of decency and idealism it had retained after the Nazi–Soviet Pact,

BREXIT. BREXIT? – PART II

How then can the special relationship with the UK, the need to arrive at a fair, equitable and well-balanced solution which is neither a punishment, nor a reward, and the respect for the basic values, principles and interests of a European construction which will not stop with Brexit all be

RISING IN THE EAST

It was the summer of 1990 and I was on my way to Budapest, to take up a position as a junior diplomat in the Australian Embassy. The world had just tilted on its axis, sparked by the opening of the Hungarian border a year earlier and the ripples had travelled around the world. The Berlin Wall had fallen and old certainties had

ISLAM, ISLAMISM AND ISLAMOPHOBIA

Two Decades on from Samuel P. Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations Some Westerners, including President Bill Clinton, have argued that the West does not have problems with Islam but only with violent Islamist extremists. Fourteen hundred years of history demonstrate otherwise.Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations1 The concept of “human rights” does

REPORT FROM THE OTHER WORLD – POEM

There is pushing and shoving now at the railed gatesof Non-Being – the young mass-murderersare queuing up for their reward in heaven.Because they too in the end were blown apart,the question remains: can they be reassembledby the demons of the Prophet disguised as angelsor will their bodies go into orbitsomewhere

QUIETLY AND CLOSER

It is taking place quietly, without anyone noticing, nobody is talking about it, yet something is changing nonetheless. Not long ago I took part in two events organised by the Hungarian Institute in Pozsony (Bratislava) where representatives of cultures sat together who had not communicated much with one another before. The organisers invited a Hungarian university professor and me to discuss the

A CENTURY OF CHRISTIAN YOUTH MOVEMENTS IN HUNGARY

Youth movements are a new phenomenon in the history of Christianity. There were many movements with a goal, most often for reforming the Church and for returning to the roots, like the Gregorian movement of Saint Pope Gregory VII, the Cistercian movement, the conciliar movement or the Reformation itself. But all of those had a goal. Modern movements can also have a goal, but sometimes their aim is simply organising people, for the sake of community – as said in the English world,

THE CELEBRATION OF A TRAGEDY

May I begin by thanking you for inviting me to speak on this occasion. My credentials for doing so are slight. I am neither Hungarian, nor a poet, nor a novelist, nor a writer of imaginative and creative works, but a journalist and cold-blooded political analyst. So my only justification for being here is that I believe this book to be

THE BLOOD OF FALLING LEAVES

Even my vulcanised fibre suitcase was nervous as I got off the 61 tram and set off up the incline of Himfy Street. I had been more confident four years before in Tapolca in my first year in grammar school; now I was a freshman at university, standing in the unfamiliar gates of Eötvös College among strange room- and classmates. I put down

THEY PLAYED AT TRUTH…

When word came that they had been shot into a heap outside the Parliament building, in a bottomless moment – as if I myself were dying – I saw his life until then before me as a single, swirling image: he was twenty years old – or still is, if