Hungarian Studies in London
On Thursday 28 May, London-based journalist Vali Tóth will give a talk at UCL-SSEES entitled ‘One click away from the truth?’, on how the internet has transformed Hungarian media, and in particular, news language. Modern technology has changed both form and content of the news, and Vali will discuss these changes and characteristics of language used [...]
Andrea Talabér recently presented the work of Hungarian historian and Open Society Archives director István Rév, together with articles from Népszabadság covering the official 15 March celebrations of 1967 and 1974. Andrea outlined Rév’s focus on the function of show trials, and the manipulation of personal histories (not to mention historical dates), within the context [...]
In her recent talk on the subject of her research in progress (nationalism in Hungarian popular culture), Jenny Rasell addressed a number of matters. Remarking on the sudden proliferation of nationalist symbols, and with reference to recent opinion polls and academic research on xenophobia, antisemitism, racism and homophobia in Hungary, Jenny presented a number of texts [...]
We discussed the interwar népi-urbánus vita, with a view to understanding its context, semantics and contemporary articulation. Commonly referred to in English as the dispute between (agrarian) populists and urbanists (or ‘metropolitans’), and undoubtedly a major component of public political discourse since 1989, we began by reaching consensus on what it was not: a clash [...]
On 5 July, the thirteenth annual Gay Dignity march (Meleg Méltóság Menet, or melegfelvonulás) took place in Budapest. On the same day in London, around half a million people celebrated Gay Pride; even Boris Johnson wore a pink cowboy hat on the procession. In Budapest, around one thousand people marched in between metal barriers, accompanied [...]
Two new links have been added to the Links page, which are worth mentioning here:
Hogymondom.hu, a dictionary of contemporary slang to which readers can contribute. Lots of fun, expect profanity.
Hungarian Spectrum, an excellent English-language blog on current affairs, written by Éva Balogh, which features intelligent and insightful posts on politics, media and history.
Readers familiar with Hungarian politics may be dismayed, but perhaps not particularly surprised, to learn of the trouble surrounding the competition for the Hungarian Pavilion at this year’s Venice Biennale. The jury selected Csaba Nemes’s project Remake, which deals with the public disturbances in Budapest last autumn, only to have their choice overruled by [...]