Viktor Orbán, after emerging disheveled from four days of day and night negotiations, announced that he would sleep for two solid days. Unfortunately, after a couple of days he reemerged reinvigorated and delivered another monologue, disguised as an interview, on the early morning Magyar Rádió program. Well over half of the interview was about his successful handling of Hungary’s interests. It was here that he uttered the following sentences. “Hungary, actually I personally, was lucky because I did have military training and half of my life was spent in training camps and locker rooms. And although I am no longer my former self, I was still able to carry some of those libernyákok on my back.” Here “libernyákok” referred to Orbán’s fellow prime ministers who don’t share his politics.
Borrowed from István Ujhelyi’s website. Above, Orbán’s quotation and below, Mark Rutte, the “libernyák”
No sooner did Orbán use this word than the hunt was on to decipher the exact meaning of “libernyák.” Some literary types discovered the word in texts from the 1840s, meaning “cloak” or “cape,” which has since disappeared from the Hungarian vocabulary without a trace. Surely, Orbán’s libernyák was intended to be a slur, describing people who hold liberal views. I should add that one can look in vain for the exact meaning of libernyák in dictionaries. The word belongs to the category of gutter language, which, it seems, the Hungarian prime minister has adopted along with an extremist right-wing ideology.
After a considerable search, I found the word in a slang dictionary, according to which “it describes a 21st-century follower of the post-communist (neo-liberal, neo-Marxist) doctrines; a former communist or someone educated in communist surroundings; a person who only seemingly broke with Marxism; an ex-communist.” Surely, Orbán’s opponents — Mark Rutte, Sebastian Kurz, Mette Frederiksen, and Stefan Löfven — cannot be properly described as ex-Marxists or ex-communists. So, instead of relying on the slang dictionary, let’s see how the word has actually been used in the living language.
László Kálmán, a linguist, called attention on Facebook to a scandal that came to light in 2013. HÖK (Hallgatói Önkormányzat, student unions) became an unfortunate feature of Hungarian universities after 1990. HÖK secretaries still have considerable power over housing and scholarships in all Hungarian universities. There are some places, such as the University of Szeged, where the university was unable to get rid of a student leader who had held the position for over ten years.
In the early years of the 21st century, at ELTE’s Faculty of Arts, HÖK became a hatchery for the far-right Jobbik. It was here that a shocking practice came to light. At the beginning of every year, HÖK organized a weekend camp for freshmen, for which the HÖK officials interviewed those who were interested in attending. While they were at it, they started compiling a list of their “potentials.” It was here that most people first encountered the word, in “LMP libernyák,” right next to such derogatory comments as “has an ugly Jewish head,” “The girl must be half-breed and on all the photos looks like a slut,” “Out of the Old Testament,” “From Kürt Foundation School with many Jewish teachers,” “Downtown Jewish c..t,” “Little libero fag,” etc.
So, says Kálmán, Orbán, in using this kind of language, has placed himself at the very bottom of the dregs of society. Certain words, maintains Kálmán, become unacceptable because they are associated with certain types of people, like these racist, anti-Semitic youngsters who were running ELTE’s student union. And ever since, only people with Nazi tendencies use the word “libernyák.”
It didn’t take long before Fidesz hacks found Orbán’s use of the word liberating. Ottó Gajdics wrote an opinion piece in today’s Magyar Nemzet titled “Libernyákok.” Who are they? Clearly, the Hungarian liberals, like “Mrs. Gyurcsány,” who, as Gajdics subtly tries to convey, are not “our kind.” Another editorial on the internet site 9900.hu praises Orbán “for sticking it to the libsik.” A few years ago, an opinion piece appeared in 24.hu in which the author included the word “libsi” or “bibsi” on the list of the ten most disgusting expressions in Hungarian politics. He explained that the kinds of people who resort to this word are cowards who don’t dare to use the word “zsidó” because they are worried about possible legal consequences.
Following this lead, let’s see what Tibor Szanyi, a former MSZP politician, had to say on the subject. He claims that the origin of the word is “buzérnyák,” which used to be a crude description of homosexuals before 1990. After that date, liberal politicians were called “libernyákok,” meaning “Jewish faggots” (buzi zsidók) by the anti-Semitic right-wing rabble. So, says Szanyi, Orbán was “Jew-baiting a bit for domestic use, hoping to attract little attention from the rest of the world.” I can’t imagine that Orbán truly believes that these horrendous gestures to the Hungarian right can be hidden from foreigners. I suspect that he doesn’t care about his “reputation,” the little he has left of it. He has only one goal: to remain in power as long as possible. If this is one way to achieve his objective, so be it.
