Category: VOLUME XII, No. 2

WITHIN THE GRACE OF MEANING

The study of a national culture is, in essence, a search for beauty. To believe this we need not submit to romanticism or deny the cold realities with which history confronts us. Either in concert or isolation, mankind consistently contradicts utopia’s vainglory: our efforts are ever flawed. But beauty is

AUSTRIANS AND HUNGARIANS: ENEMIES, NEIGHBOURS, FRIENDS

Mosaic of an Ambivalent Relationship In 1909, an English artist named Adrian Stokes and his Styrian wife Marianne published an account of their travels and painting expeditions in Hungary, chiefly Transylvania and Upper Hungary (now Slovakia). The prose is vivid, if a little mannered and occasionally rhapsodic. On the last

HUNGARY AND IRELAND

Divergent Paths and the Sustainability of Representative Democracy in the EU As recently as a decade ago, Hungary and Ireland shared a broadly similar cultural domain. Both were (and are) small, open economies. Both had a predominantly Catholic culture, shaped by engagement with Europe extending back more than a millennium.

THE SCHUMAN DECLARATION: SEVENTY YEARS AGO AND TODAY

It was seventy years ago that the Schuman Declaration launched European integration, widely regarded as the most successful process in European history. At the same time, the story of integration was accompanied by challenges, dilemmas, and crises, which invariably necessitated reform. The basic challenges remain with us today. Examples include