Magda Szabó is one of the most widely read authors in Hungarian literary history, with her writings translated to dozens of languages. Her perhaps best known work is the 1970 young adult novel Abigail. She passed away 16 years ago today.
As Budapest commemorates its 150th birthday this year, a grand celebration awaits all who join in the festivities.
With the Advent period nearing, the traditional series of programmes at the Várkert Bazaar will make sure that visitors, adults and children alike, get into the Christmas spirit while also learning about traditional Hungarian customs and cuisine.
On September 29, the Újbuda local government honoured Tibor Bodor, an actor known in Hungary for his roles in numerous plays and films, who recorded almost 9000 hours of audiobooks that help the studies of the visually impaired to this day.
‘The rapport between the governments of the world and Iran cannot be limited to the financial sector; they must address Iran’s brutal crackdowns of its own population, its sponsorship of global terrorism, its setting up a parallel-state within Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen, its militia forces in Iraq, which with the assistance of the Badr Organization occupy government posts imposing their sharia-based tenets, and its delivery of weapons to Russia to use against Ukraine.’
The rhetoric of spiritual mobilization, of Russia’s responsibility for the fate of the world, and of the ‘burden of the Russian people’ is becoming dominant once again as it was many times before during tragic periods in Russian history. Economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation as the punishment for the annexation of Crimea and the war in Ukraine are interpreted by the Russian regime and the majority of Russians as confirmation of progressing Anomia in the West, and will strengthen the Katechonic argument.
In the third and fourth decades of the 21st century, national–conservative forces will have a chance to end the left-liberal cultural hegemony that has been dominating for a hundred years now. This is where the natural alliance between right-wing party politics and the national intelligentsia takes on historic significance.
‘Lajos Gulácsy had a very peculiar personality, producing a type of art that is difficult to classify. He really cannot be included in any of the major trends of the early 20th century, but he may not even need to be.’
It remains to be seen, however, if this desperate craving for attention, and the aggressive and violent actions that some of the opposition forces engage in are appealing to the Hungarian electorate. It is more likely that meaningful, constructive actions, and a comprehensive and relevant political agenda would benefit these opposition parties more than any of the stunts they have been recently engaging in.
Exactly 200 years ago, on 1 January 1823, Sándor Petőfi, perhaps the most famous Hungarian poet, was born. To this day, he is such a dominant figure in Hungarian literature that his name is almost synonymous with the art of poetry.
Hungarian Conservative is a quarterly magazine on contemporary political, philosophical and cultural issues from a conservative perspective.
