Opening Salvo

I greet the readers of this new blog while possibly welcoming back adherents of its predecessor, the Hungarian Spectrum.

Indeed, it is two years since the terse announcement appeared, on the 30^th of November, 2021, announcing the passing of Eva Balogh. It shocked everyone, who  read the blog and relied on it for swift, intelligent and reliable information about and from all things Hungarian. Some members of the Hungarian expatriate community were wondering, ”How are we to live now without it?”

By the time Eva’s death occurred, I had already been lobbying the Pulitzer Prize Committee for two years to grant her the award (unbeknownst to her), because I thought that her monumental accomplishments were pretty well unmatched by anything in the history of journalism – not just in quantity, but also in quality. Needless to say, my entreaties went unheeded, even unanswered. And that oversight shall not be corrected anymore. Unless…

Unless, I thought, that people so desperate for the continuation of the service she rendered would get up and continue it in their own best interest. So far, however, nothing of the sort has occurred; and as I was becoming increasingly impatient, my demand met fortuitously with one of my friends, who shared similar sentiments – about whom I never suspected such. And now here we are, determined and humbled by the occasion, trying to resuscitate the blog and its community.

It won’t be easy, and considering our age, it may not even be possible, given, or rather not given, the necessary perseverance and time to reach the same acceptance and penetration in the far greater noise of the internet that prevails today. But we feel this is a worthy enterprise and we are hopeful that many of the former contributors will continue to support us not only by comments, but the occasional articles. It is my personal feeling, and some of my acquaintances, likewise, that this present Hungarian government is on the verge of a slow, spectacular collapse. Witnessing and recording these slow, inexorable historical events and the concomitant  political and cultural detritus, is indeed very much crying out for sensitive, impassioned and sophisticated analysis and recording. Who else but us, those present in the midst of it all, should be discussing diligently the phenomena as they occur in front of our very eyes? //We are taking it upon ourselves to discuss as diligently as we can, the phenomena that are occurring before our eyes.//

As I was contemplating this enterprise, I went back to the list of old contributors of the Spectrum, hoping to invite them to join and contribute with the same elan and intelligence as they have before. My list was far from complete, only a couple dozen people – actually a tiny fraction of the over seven thousand subscribers of the Spectrum. It was a shocking revelation to find that more than half of them were deceased. Clearly, in view of this fact, we shall have to start from square one, and that is exactly what we are proposing to do. We are not planning to write the entire blog ourselves. We intend to invite and welcome the local and international community who have an eye on Hungary and its strange contortions in the world, to send their comments and articles to the Hungarian Perspective. We shall publish them and they will contribute to the understanding of what is happening around us.

The editorial personnel consists of three people: a conservative historian, a prominent lawyer and a superannuated investment broker. So, you can see that the success of the Hungarian Perspective is just about guaranteed – provided, of course, that you, the readers, will find it worthy to participate in that success. We hope that you will and we shall also do our best to achieve just that.

In a nutshell, welcome to the Hungarian Perspective, full steam ahead!

Kerekes Sándor