Whilst governments often claim to speak for their countries, the elites that constitute the majority of states’ political systems may take a more balanced approach. This is clear in the Visegrad states, where a recent survey has revealed many nuances regarding foreign policy.

Over the last decade, the natural gas market in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) has changed dramatically. Today, we are seeing more cross-border pipeline routes that are bi-directional and the possibility of greater liquified natural gas (LNG) imports. These changes will bring increased economic opportunities for the full market chain under EU rules. Hungary, Slovakia and Ukraine are emerging as key players in these developments.

Not long after the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, western policymakers began to think about how to reduce European reliance on Russian hydrocarbon resources by expanding Europe’s alternative sources. Much of the energy diplomacy undertaken since then has focused on building pipeline infrastructure designed to bring new sources of oil and gas to Europe that bypass Russia. Of course, this strategy has seen many large successes, with the development of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline and the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) perhaps the most notable examples.

The last decade has seen Belgrade and Beijing become close economic partners. Whilst this cooperation has brought many benefits to the Balkan state, its one-sided dependence on Chinese investment may cause issues in the future.

As China explores new strategic opportunities in Central and Eastern Europe, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán seeks his own advantages from the partnership. Despite the many limitations and lack of public support for closer Sino-Hungarian ties, threatening Brussels with the Chinese dragon yields some results.

How far along have we really come in tackling discrimination and ‘othering’ since the interwar period?

When the first three cases of COVID-19 were registered in Hungary in March 2020, the government instituted a state of emergency and imposed restrictions that could still be in place this summer. At that time the Hungarian authorities almost immediately followed other countries in their fight against the virus; first by purchasing, independent of the EU, personal protection gear and later, non-EU approved vaccines.

Hungary has used the pandemic to convince the European Union and its own citizens that in difficult situations there is no point counting on EU institutions. Only partners from the East (mainly China and Russia) are reliable. These are real friends indeed. The sequence of priority (China being first) is not accidental either. It was from China that Hungary received an almost uninterrupted supply of personal protective gear. Deliveries, which arrived on board WizzAir planes (Hungary’s low-cost airline), were welcomed by senior officials at Budapest’s airport, including the minister of foreign affairs, Péter Szijjártó.

Prejudice against foreigners runs deep in Hungarian society and this will require complex, large scale changes in order to solve. This includes bureaucratic reform, civil campaigns and better language and cultural education.

Are Hungarians ill-fated and determined to be incapable of overcoming their historical baggage? Some seem to think so, including some sociologists. Yet, it is worth remembering that political trajectories do not follow pre-drawn patterns, so we should look at the circumstances which can hold societies back in their democratisation.

Something is rotten in Hungary and the international media coverage seems quite keen on pointing this out. However, it offers very little explanation for why it is happening. International interest in Hungarian politics has increased, especially since the Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s election in 2016 – which illustrated how serious the far-right shift of mainstream politics has become. Yet, Hungary had already been under the illiberal supermajority for six years, and by then it was well past all the major battles in which its democratic institutions had faced.

The politics of today’s populist leaders is nearly always the eternal return to the past. 1989, however, represents a normative stop they would prefer to skip.

The past does not exist. It is what one makes of it. From a purely axiological point of view, every one of us is constructed of different pasts and we have different memories at our disposal. The non-existence of the past as a tangible point of reference is a subject of individual or collective creation and interpretation; it is the founding assumption of any sociological research devoted to mnemonic subjects.

The recent turmoil at the news outlet Index is yet another example of how the government led by Viktor Orbán has been changing the media landscape in Hungary.

Writers and artists have long been attracted to the strange and romantic landscape of Badacsony, with its sharp volcanic hills overlooking smooth Lake Balaton. Stories about the wines from vineyards around Lake Balaton in west central Hungary go back over 2,000 years.

The fourteenth-century Hungarian King Charles Robert once travelled to Veszprém on the north shore of Lake Balaton to visit a bishop. Before dinner, the king noticed a gigantic cup in the monastery treasury. “The monks used to drink from it long ago,” the bishop told him. As they sat down to eat, the king asked that the cup be placed at their table. The bishop announced that none of the canons at the table could possibly drain the massive tankard, with the possible exception of the formidable Father Eusebius. The king challenged Eusebius to take the cup and uphold the honour of the house, but the father declined and held his ground despite the needling and beseeching of the assemblage.

An interview with historians Marius Turda and Ferenc Laczó. Interviewers: Csaba Tibor Tóth and Gáspár Papp.