The Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his party Fidesz controls over two-thirds of the parliamentary seats. Now they are putting the country through a thorough makeover.
The Canadian-Hungarian historian Éva S Balogh, who runs the internationally acclaimed blog Hungarian Spectrum, describes the political landscape in Orbán‘s Hungary.
At the end of October the Associated Press reported that Christoph von Dohnanyi, well-known German conductor and grandson of Hungarian composer Ernő von Dohnányi (1877–1960), had cancelled a pair of appearances at the Hungarian State Opera because he didn’t want to “appear in a city whose mayor entrusted the direction of a theatre to two known, extreme right-wing anti-Semites.”
Theatre lovers of Budapest—and they are many in a city of ninety some theatres—staged a demonstration demanding a reversal of the mayor’s decision that was made against the recommendation of a panel of experts. The appointment of two extremist anti-Semites was a political decision, most likely dictated by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán himself. Orbán is willing to appease or even work with the extreme right if his political goals so dictate. As Al Kamen of The Washington Post wrote not long ago, “Viktor Orbán has no appetite for democracy.”
