Hungarian Spectrum was a daily blog from 2007 to 2021, covering current political and social developments in Hungary. Created in 2007 by historian Eva S. Balogh, [1] [2] it came to an end with her death, on November 30, 2021. [3] [4] [5]
Hungarian Spectrum was published daily, seven days a week, starting June 27, 2007. [6] It has been permanently archived in the Library of Congress as of 2013 where it remains available online, [7] as well as in the Blinken Open Society Archives. [8] Balogh, who specialized in interwar Hungarian history, [9] [10] [11] [12] researched and wrote most of the articles. Based on primary sources in Hungarian, German and English, the articles analyzed current developments in Hungary for the nonspecialist reader from a historian's perspective.
The blog also occasionally included articles written by guest scholars such as Kim Lane Scheppele, [13] Johanna Laakso, [14] Charles Gati [15] and Randolph L. Braham. [16]
Hungarian Spectrum was supported by voluntary donations from its readers. Philanthropist George Soros, winner of the Ridenhour Prize for Courage in April 2019, donated his prize money to Hungarian Spectrum, describing it as a site that "renders an important service by exposing to the world what Prime Minister Orban is telling his own people." [17]
Following the death of Balogh, Hungarian Spectrum ceased publications. [4] [3]
Eva S. Balogh often wrote entries highly critical of the current government in power in Hungary, led by Viktor Orbán. She was described by Ference Kumin as having had close ties with the opposition to the government. [18] Balogh was a regular guest on ATV television programmes [19] [20] and published opinion pieces in Népszava , [21] [22] [23] a social-democratic newspaper. In November 2009, she gave a lecture for CIA officials at Langley, Virginia, where she characterized the imminent right-wing Fidesz victory in the 2010 Hungarian parliamentary election as a possible fascist breakthrough. [24] [25] [26]
The Constitutional Court of Hungary is a special court of Hungary, making judicial review of the acts of the Parliament of Hungary. The official seat of the Constitutional Court is Budapest. Until 2012 the seat was Esztergom.
Central European University is a private research university accredited in Hungary, Austria, and the United States, with campuses in Vienna, Budapest and New York. The university maintains graduate and undergraduate programs in the social sciences and humanities, as well as a low student-faculty ratio, and international student body. A central tenet of the university's mission is the promotion of open societies, a result of its close association with the Open Society Foundations.
Viktor Mihály Orbán is a Hungarian politician who has served as prime minister of Hungary since 2010, previously holding the office from 1998 to 2002. He has presided over Fidesz since 1993, with a brief break between 2000 and 2003.
The Democratic Coalition is a social-liberal and social-democratic political party in Hungary led by former Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány. Founded in 2010 as a faction within the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP), the Democratic Coalition split from the MSZP on 22 October 2011 and became a separate party. It has fifteen MPs in the National Assembly and four MEPs in the European Parliament.
John O'Sullivan, CBE is a British conservative political commentator and journalist. From 1987 to 1988, he was a senior policy writer and speechwriter in 10 Downing Street for Margaret Thatcher when she was British prime minister and remained close to her up to her death.
Lívia Járóka is a Hungarian politician. She is a Member of the European Parliament, first elected as part of the Fidesz list in 2004. Járóka is the second Romani ever elected to the European Parliament.
George Soros is a Hungarian-American businessman and philanthropist. As of March 2021, he had a net worth of US$8.6 billion, having donated more than $32 billion to the Open Society Foundations, of which $15 billion has already been distributed, representing 64% of his original fortune. Forbes called Soros the "most generous giver". He is a resident of New York.
The Ridenhour Prizes are awards in four categories given annually in recognition of those "who persevere in acts of truth-telling that protect the public interest, promote social justice or illuminate a more just vision of society".
Hungary–Russia relations are the bilateral foreign relations between the two countries, Hungary and Russia. During the Second World War, the Soviet army occupied Hungary, and in 1948 the Soviet Union took full control of the country. It became part of the Warsaw Pact military alliance and the Comecon economic union. Relations between the two countries were damaged in 1956 due to the Soviet military intervention in the revolution occurring in Hungary. Hungary expelled its communist government in 1989, and diplomatic relations with Russia were restored after the breakup of the USSR in 1991.
Sándor Pintér is a Hungarian politician and former top police officer. He served as Minister of the Interior from 1998 to 2002 and since 2010, in Viktor Orbán's cabinets.
László Kövér is a Hungarian politician and the current speaker of the National Assembly of Hungary. He was the acting president of Hungary from 2 April 2012 to 10 May 2012, after the resignation of Pál Schmitt.
Crime in Hungary is combated by the Hungarian police and other agencies.
The second government of Viktor Orbán or the Government of National Cooperation was the Government of Hungary from 29 May 2010 to 6 June 2014. Orbán formed his second cabinet after his party, Fidesz won the outright majority in the first round on April 11, with the Fidesz-KDNP alliance winning 206 seats, including 119 individual seats. In the final result, they won 263 seats, of which 173 are individual seats. Fidesz held 227 of these seats, giving it an outright majority in the National Assembly by itself.
Gergely Böszörményi-Nagy is an entrepreneur and former public servant who founded Brain Bar.
Kim Lane Scheppele is an American scholar of law and politics. She is the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Sociology and International Affairs in the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and in the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University. Scheppele joined the Princeton faculty in 2005, after nearly a decade as the John J. O'Brien Professor of Comparative Law and Professor of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she is still a faculty fellow. Scheppele was at the University of Michigan from 1984 to 1996, and was an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor from 1993 until her departure for Penn. She received her PhD in sociology from the University of Chicago (1985) and her A.B. in urban studies from Barnard College (1975).
An indirect presidential election was held in Hungary on 13 March 2017. János Áder was elected President of Hungary for a second term.
The Danube Institute is a conservative think tank founded in 2013 and based in Budapest, Hungary. The institute is financed through the Batthyány Foundation (BLA) and receives Hungarian state funding. According to its mission statement, the Danube Institute is dedicated to "a respectful conservatism in cultural, religious, and social life, the broad classical liberal tradition in economics, and a realistic Atlanticism in national security policy."
Zsolt Bayer is a Hungarian far-right journalist, whose views have been widely described as racist and antisemitic. He was a co-founder of the ruling Fidesz party and close confidant of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. He is the owner of the No. 5 party membership book.
Balázs Orbán is a Hungarian lawyer, political scientist, university lecturer, Member of Parliament, who has been serving as Political Director of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán since 2021. From 2018 to 2022, Orbán was deputy minister, and parliamentary and strategic state secretary.
The Hungarian conservative party Fidesz has been accused of exhibiting anti-democratic and authoritarian tendencies since their return to leading the Hungarian government in 2010 under the leadership of Viktor Orbán in his second premiership. The Fidesz-led government has been accused of severely restricting media freedom, undermining the independence of the courts, subjugating and politicising independent and non-governmental institutions, surveilling political opponents, engaging in electoral engineering, and assailing critical NGOs. The Fidesz-led government has been accused of engaging in cronyism and corruption. Fidesz has been accused of antisemitism, and the Fidesz-led government has been accused of passing legislation that violates the rights of LGBT persons. Due to its controversial actions, Fidesz and its government have come in conflict with the EU on multiple occasions.
