A country of grumblers? Hungarian values and how to misunderstand them

Photo: Raketir/Shutterstock

An expedited march through the institutions

Shortly after Viktor Orbán’s political party, Fidesz, come to power in 2010, the 1990 constitution was replaced by a Basic Law that was consulted with no living soul. The electoral system was redesigned to gerrymander districts, fragment the already weak opposition and benefit the largest winner. A new media law instated an authority directly appointed and controlled by the government, paving the way for Fidesz’s current overwhelming dominance of the national media. The labour code was gutted to match international investors’ interests and the social safety net, there to support the have nots, was transformed into a 21st century workhouse system that allows the perpetual exploitation of the jobless poor.

By 2016 Hungary had seen its biggest mass protests since the fall of the Soviet era and rising tensions on the European Union level, but Fidesz managed to renew its supermajority in 2014, and Orbán started to gradually shed his old guard, replacing the founding generation of his party with those he trusted to have no autonomous will. The ridiculously named Regime of National Co-operation (Nemzeti Együttműködés Rendszere, NER) was thickening like cement in the summer sun.

Fidesz had fixed the race and made sure to undercut any contender who may rise to challenge them, legally and economically. However, it is hard to ignore the fact that they still do secure over 40 per cent of the votes cast in national elections, which, in such a disproportionate and unfair electoral system, provides them with over two-thirds of mandates in parliament. Even after acknowledging all the voter suppression and the unfair allocation of decisive power, their ability to mobilise such a proportion of the electorate poses the question: do Hungarians actually like what Orbán is doing?

According to several sources conducting research on values in Hungary, it would seem otherwise. While the self-proclaimed illiberals are practicing textbook neoliberalism, research suggests that the public preference in economic matters is overwhelmingly social democratic: Hungarian voters long for a strong welfare state. This was true even almost a decade into Fidesz’s rule, with most major sectors of care and support collapsing, from public education to health care. In a 2016 survey, for instance, a majority of participants agreed that it should be the state’s responsibility to tackle inequality; most  supported a wealth tax and progressive taxation. Ninety per cent refuse dismantling universal health care and 86 per cent believe that the gender pay gap needs to be closed (even among 80 per cent of Fidesz voters).

Cultural pessimism

The countries of the former Eastern Bloc are often alleged to be under a communist curse, carrying authoritarian baggage, which justifies their democratic failures. Such defeatism is not only culturalist, but also evaluates these states with a different lens than their western counterparts, who now also seem to have produced their own painful fiascos. So much so that illiberals like Orbán use those examples to justify their own rule.

The Curse of Kádár[1] is still often quoted as an explanation for Hungarians’ striking political disengagement and their insistence of state assistance. Zoltán Pogátsa, a Hungarian political economist, rightfully points out that earlier research materials themselves often bear the marks of strong ideological stances, where the scholars evaluating the results identify basic demands for a welfare state as favouring statism and as a lacking culture of self-sufficiency. However, it has never been realistic to demand that a society “grow up” to meet the democratic ideals of western states with public welfare being consistently cut and inequalities steeply rising, leaving eight out of ten Hungarians without any savings and four out of ten under the poverty line, Pogátsa argues.

So, what keeps Fidesz in power if Hungarians overwhelmingly want a welfare state? Well, xenophobia and racism are a good place to start. In a 2018 research, participants largely support welfare measures, yet blame the poor for their own poverty, and the vast majority do not want incoming migration and believe the Roma will never be properly integrated. However, the research found that half of participants would not be ashamed to have a gay relative – a recent development in LGBTQ+ acceptance, despite violent homophobic rhetoric on the rise in public discourse. There are certain ambivalences towards authority as well: eight out of ten believe the main goals of parenting are discipline and the authority – a quite disheartening result. Only a third would refuse to hit their kids, and over a half would support the return of capital punishment.

It may be surprising that 77 per cent think every authority can be questioned. The latter may be less of a freedom loving statement than a survival strategy in a culture where rules are set without public involvement or consultation. When it comes to following norms, one should take into consideration the heritage of the odd intermarriage between the Habsburg Monarchy’s establishment straight from Kafka’s nightmares, and the folktale inspiringly cruel meanderings of the Soviet style administration. Hungarian bureaucracy often even leaves my Austrian colleagues bewildered.

Vox populi

Being a Hungarian, I decided to ask my neighbours on the matter since one should never fully trust the wise folks with their charts and spectacles. I posed the following question on social media: What are the most typical values of Hungarians. Of course, this is nowhere near a representative focus group, but still helped map some topoi. The conversation became all the more fruitful by the imprecise wording: “a magyarok legjellemzőbb értékei” – both the most typical values of Hungarians, but also their treasures, or the things they value. Among the one-word responses, pálinka (Schnapps) was the absolute winner – also referring to Orbán’s renowned “freedom fight” against the EU for tax-free home distilling. On a related note, many raised our legendary alcohol consumption, placing us among the top alcoholic nations in the EU. But the good part of almost 400 comments and private messages drew an image well beyond this spiritual health hazard.

Our language seemed to be a shared platform for a lot of commenters. Multiple translators and writers brought up our gender-neutral pronouns; despite German-inspired 19th century initiatives, gender signifiers have not found a grip on our grammar. Others mentioned our famous vocabulary for verbal aggression, especially the long and intricately interwoven curses which can incorporate any number of relatives, contemplations of morals, mating and mortality as well as agricultural maxims, depending on demand.

Hungarian is often believed to be an isolated language “within a sea of Slavs” with no other Finno-Ugric relatives within thousands of miles, but in reality, it proudly bears the marks of our geography and history. The overwhelming majority of the loan-words in the Hungarian lexicon are borrowed from neighbouring Slavic languages, but Turkish, German and Latin contributions are significant as well, with even many old Iranian traces.

Compulsory bitter undertones

Although I do not wish to descend down the slippery slope of national characteristics, what Hungarians mention about themselves is intriguing – and occasionally saddening. Since conservative and far-right politics have monopolised national sentiment, many who do not identify with them find it hard to even consider themselves part of the nation or society – pretty much as the political tactics intended. The respondents were Hungarian, both from within the country’s borders and beyond, yet many talked about “them” and fewer about “us”.

Many traits mentioned can be paired up, and most have bitter tones: sarcasm-cynicism, defiance-stubbornness, resilience-cunning, ambition-antagonism, and adaptivity-avoidance. These characteristics are coded in the culture and can guide one’s moral compass or put it to sleep, depending on individual choice. The same context that urges one to innovate can lead the other to make questionable compromises.

As the saying goes: “the Hungarian makes merry by weeping”. The literary canon doubles down on this with the national anthem written in the 19th century by an unsuccessful progressive national politician and ever-so-gloomy poet Ferenc Kölcsey; and its twin poem, the Szózat (Appeal, by Mihály Vörösmarty) enlisting all the suffering and injustice this nation has had to muddle through and sketching the possibility of its potential diminishing.

Are Hungarians, then, ill-fated and determined to be incapable of overcoming their historical baggage? Well, some of them seem to think so. Some researchers who were terrified to see Hungary on a value map, neighbouring Bulgaria and Moldova, did not even bother to hide their prejudices against other eastern countries. They were often surprised by the fact that “Hungary is more secular than its development would deem reasonable, and more closed than the median values of western culture”.

Yet, it is worth remembering that political trajectories do not follow pre-drawn patterns, even though modernist theorists liked to think so. At this point there is no evidence for the existence of national fate, so we may as well look at the circumstances which can hold societies back in their democratisation. Pogátsa draws attention to the ever-diminishing social safety net which has sent the large parts of society on a downward spiral toward impoverishment and extreme economic polarisation which, by now, shows its effects in political choices and capacities. This is to a large extent the result of the post-Soviet economic shock therapy and decades of dogmatic neoliberalism, which cut down on the very circumstances which should enable societies to develop their democratic norms and values.

Changing course

And yet, the more open political repression has become in the past decade, the more deliberate resistance has grown. At the moment of writing this piece, members of the University of Theatre and Film in Budapest have been occupying their institution for almost two months to keep the new government-appointed leadership from taking over. After the biggest online news site, Index.hu, fell this summer to political pressure, the staff members who quit in unison have already launched a new medium –Telex – with the support of private donations, in a country where this level of popular support was hard to imagine a few years ago. Joke party representatives are digging up corruption cases in municipalities; politician turned journalists are using their investigative skills as new majors. Orbán’s opposition is still extremely fragmented and clearly incapable of turning Fidesz’s unfair supermajority for now, but innovation in politics and the media are on the rise and minds, will and mighty determination[2] are enlisted in a struggle for a fairer society.

What is missing, then? Well, trust, above all. The variable that all relevant research, and the people who bothered to comment on my question, agree on, is a lack of trust, both in institutions and with each other. When asking where the ideals and values of pre-1990 dissent went, it is worth noting that some figureheads of these dissidents became political leaders in the rising, young democracy. Many of them either forced an anti-social, neoliberal agenda, hoping for some miracle cure for a struggling society. Others openly betrayed their old ideals and are now maintaining an openly repressive regime. Those who still have moral credibility are often side-lined or deliberately maligned. The vision of Ottilia Solt and her peers for a social reckoning and a welfare state, which focuses on equality and equity, was delegated to the NGO sphere and is still in a desperate search of political representation. Hungarians may unequivocally want a social democracy, but they do not see these values represented in national institutional politics.

Réka Kinga Papp is the editor in chief of Eurozine. As a journalist she specialises in environmental, social and human rights issues.

[1] A colloquial term for the political and cultural legacy of János Kádár, the de facto leader of Communist Hungary after beating down the 1956 revolution until his death in 1989.

[2] The iconic line from Mihály Vörösmarty’s abovementioned Szózat: “Az nem lehet, hogy ész, erő, / És oly szent akarat / Hiába sorvadozzanak / Egy átoksúly alatt.” (It cannot be that mind and strength /and consecrated will /are wasted in a hopeless cause /beneath a curse of ill).

Central Europe, Europe, Hungary, sociology, values