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Whither Jobbik?
I have a strong suspicion that Jobbik, Hungary’s extreme right-wing party, which has been experiencing unprecedented growth in the last year or so, may undergo some internal turmoil soon. The reason...
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Is Viktor Orbán’s foreign policy Jobbik inspired?
In the interview Gábor Vona gave to Magyar Nemzet yesterday, the chairman of Jobbik talked about the foreign policy strategies of the party. He said: “I have been repeating ever since 2010 that Hungary...
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Jobbik’s program: A tragic future would await Hungary
The growth of Jobbik, considered by many to be a neo-Nazi party, has been quite successful at attracting disappointed Fidesz voters, a fact that at last frightened the government party to the point...
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Kim Lane Scheppele: Hungary and the State of American Democracy
Professor Kim Lane Scheppele of Princeton University doesn’t need an introduction to the readers of Hungarian Spectrum or to anyone who is interested in Hungarian constitutional law or politics. Here...
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“Son of Saul” and its reception by the Hungarian right
A month ago Medián conducted a survey on the current state of anti-Semitism in Hungary. This was Medián’s fourth such survey since 2006, and the results are not exactly heartwarming. During this period...
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A compulsory course on the Holocaust at the Hungarian Catholic University
While the world is preoccupied with Greece and Viktor Orbán’s preparations to erect a fence along the Hungarian border with Serbia, I decided to focus today on the debate over Péter Pázmány Catholic...
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The first stop in the European Union: Refugees keep arriving in Hungary
The refugees keep coming despite the fact that the Hungarian parliament passed amendments to the law on refugees, making it a great deal more stringent. The government is so eager to have this piece of...
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Fidesz and the Horthy regime: Statue for the anti-Semite Bálint Hóman?
On March 6, 2015, the Budapest municipal court rehabilitated Bálint Hóman, who had been sentenced to life imprisonment by the post-war People’s Court in 1946. The charge was that he, as a member of the...
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Viktor Orbán and the “Christian-National Idea”
“Christian and national.” These two concepts are frequently bandied about by Viktor Orbán. Every time I hear him talking about these concepts in such glowing terms I wonder whether he is aware of the...
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Zsolt Németh’s advice to the U.S. State Department
This is what happens if you go away for three days. You come back to find that the U.S. government has a simple binary choice as far as the refugee question in Europe is concerned. Either the White...
View ArticleA foiled attempt on Viktor Orbán’s life? Unlikely
János Hajdu, head of the anti-terrorist center (TEK) created by Viktor Orbán, spent Tuesday visiting the more important TV stations to announce his crack police force’s discovery of a terrorist...
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Jewish conspiracy theories in the wake of the refugee crisis
István Gusztos, who often writes opinion pieces for gepnarancs.hu, pointed out a few days ago that, although one cannot equate Fidesz with its media empire “mostly financed from taxpayers’ money,” one...
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The case of the Bálint Hóman statue from a different angle
You may find it strange that I am starting a post about the controversial statue of an anti-Semitic minister of education and culture, Bálint Hóman, with a quotation from an opinion piece on Viktor...
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Viktor Orbán, the man responsible for the statue honoring the anti-Semitic...
After several false starts, perhaps today I will finally be able to write the real story behind the ill-fated Hóman statue intended to adorn a relatively small square in downtown Székesfehérvár. I...
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Another attempt to erect a statue honoring an anti-Semitic racist
Here we go again–another statue, another controversy. The figure being honored this time is György Donáth, whose name is not exactly a household word in Hungary. Although high school textbooks may have...
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The afterlife of György Donáth’s bust
I would like to return to the topic of the György Donáth case I wrote about a couple of days ago in a post titled “Another attempt to erect a statue honoring an anti-Semitic racist.” There are at least...
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Zsolt Bayer: It’s all the Jews’ fault
I have been waiting ever since February 27 for Zsolt Bayer to finish his magnum opus titled “Intolerable,” a series of articles railing against the “fact” that Jews tell the Hungarian people how to...
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Medián poll on Hungarian anti-Semitism
A while back Medián conducted a survey on anti-Semitism in Hungary. It just made its findings public. The document is almost forty pages long, full of tables and graphs, and defies being summarized in...
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Gábor Vona of Jobbik cleans house
Something momentous happened today in Hungarian party politics. Gábor Vona, chairman of Jobbik, got rid of three of his most radical deputies: Előd Novák, István Szávay, and István Apáti. In addition,...
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József Mindszenty: An inveterate anti-Semite or a national hero?
Today I will take a step back from everyday politics and write about a controversial historical figure, József Mindszenty (1892-1975), Prince Primate and Archbishop of Esztergom between 1945 and 1973....
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