Tag Archives: Donbas

Is Hungary finally moving on from the ‘illiberalism’ and ‘Christian Nationalism’ of the Orbán Years of 2010-2025?

Preface – A Time for Turning? 1989-2009: Above and below are photos, taken between 1989 and 2009, by Lobenwein Tamás. In June 1989, Viktor Orbán returned to Hungary from his Soros-sponsored sojourn at Oxford to secure his leadership of Fidesz, then a radical liberal youth party, in advance of the first free elections in 1990.Continue reading “Is Hungary finally moving on from the ‘illiberalism’ and ‘Christian Nationalism’ of the Orbán Years of 2010-2025?”

The Illusion of ‘Illiberal’ Democracy in Hungary & Russia’s Imperial War in Ukraine, 2010-23.

Welcome Back, Comrades! ‘Farewell, comrades!’ A poster from the first Hungarian free elections in 1990. When I returned to Hungary in 2011 to live after a gap of fifteen years in the UK (including a year in the South of France), it was as a husband to a Hungarian citizen with family responsibilities back homeContinue reading “The Illusion of ‘Illiberal’ Democracy in Hungary & Russia’s Imperial War in Ukraine, 2010-23.”

Ukraine from Askold to Zelensky: Language, Culture, Art & Architecture, 862-2022.

“The British have not forgotten how the Nazis wiped out Coventry, … bombed forty-one times. They have not forgotten the Luftwaffe’s so-called ‘Moonlight Sonata’, in which the city was under contant air-raids for eleven hours. They have not forgotten how Coventry’s historic centre, how its factories, how St Michael’s Cathedral were destroyed. When they see the missiles hit Kharkiv and damage its historic centre, its factories and the Assumption Cathedral, they remember. … when they recall how Birmingham was bombed, and they see its sister city Zaporizhia under attack, they remember.”

Orbán’s Hungary – a member of NATO or Putin’s Fifth Column?: Hungarian Foreign Policy and Euro-Atlantic Integration, 1989-2019.

Springtime in Brussels and Budapest, 1999: In 1999, during the first government of Viktor Orbán, when Hungary became a member of NATO, his foreign minister, János Martonyi wrote of the change in the country’s system of government that had begun with the mandate received from the first free elections, which had replaced the one-party-state system.Continue reading “Orbán’s Hungary – a member of NATO or Putin’s Fifth Column?: Hungarian Foreign Policy and Euro-Atlantic Integration, 1989-2019.”

Who are the Ukrainians? Mythology & History, Part II: 1801-2001 – From Napoleon’s Empire to end of Empires?

Putin’s Perverse & Very Unorthodox History: In a letter of 10th March, H.H. Patriarch Kirill ‘of Moscow and all Russia’ replied to a letter sent on 2nd March by World Council of Churches (WCC) acting general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca asking the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church to mediate so that theContinue reading “Who are the Ukrainians? Mythology & History, Part II: 1801-2001 – From Napoleon’s Empire to end of Empires?”