The Woolly Demons Cometh
Weekly briefings on the life of The New European Capital of Conservatism.
Events This Week
We've been trailing it for weeks - it's finally time for Budapest Global Dialogue. Gladden Pappin opens the show tonight at 6PM at the Hotel Corinthia, joined by Samir Saran, President of the Observer Research Foundation. Day Two starts at 9:30AM, ending around 4:30PM. The runners and riders to look out for: Graham Allison - Professor of Government at Harvard Balázs Orbán - the one & only... Sarah B. Rogers - US Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Péter Szijjártó - Hungary's Foreign Affairs minister Edward Luttwak - Author of Turbo Capitalism and Coup d'Etat: A Practical Manual (our bedside reading). Sohrab Ahmari - US Editor of UnHerd Maka Botschorishvili - the Georgian Foreign Affairs minister And many many more. See here.
The Minorities Conference is running consecutively (it starts Tuesday night, then all day on Wednesday). After all, the Middle East is no Arab monolith. 17 per cent of Kuwaitis are Christian. Even Egypt has 10-20 per cent (some 15 million people). The Danube Institute has teamed up with MCC to examine how the history of the region has been shaped by its smaller ethnic groups: from Assad’s Alawites to Saddam’s Kurds, to the pebbledash of Lebanon. The Tuesday reception requires an RSVP. Wednesday starts at 9AM. Register for both here.
That's more than enough events for one week, but there's still space to plug next week's Why Beautiful Cities Matter - Tuesday 17 Feb. For lovers of revivalist architecture and the urban planning movement, they'll be discussing the usual glazing bars and mansard roofs, but situating them in the light of the Haussmann Project in the Castle District: real existing retro-urbanism.
Around Town
Perspectives and people from the week
Carnival Of The Busó is a terrifying Hungarian spectacle, the deepest of folk cultures. Men dress like woolly demons and parade before a bonfire. Women are occasionally pelted with rubber chickens. It's like Brixton on a bad day. This is basically the Hungarian Mardi Gras. It takes place Thursday until Tuesday (the day before the start of Lent), in the town of Mohács, famous for its battle. Legend has it that the defeated inhabitants, hiding in a swamp, were visited one night by a spectral figure who told them not to be afraid - to wear scary masks, and they'd have their lands returned. So, uh, thanks spectral figure. Friday is the Kisfarsang (Little Farsang) carnival, with the biggest celebration two days later, on the seventh Sunday before Easter. If you go on Sunday, make sure you're ready for big crowds, and wear old clothes - the masked ones may sprinkle you with ash and flour.
Saturday is Valentine’s Day - a day that will live in infamy for those who don’t sort themselves out right now. Moszkva Tér is a charming Russian restaurant with a Michelin Guide listing just beneath the Castle Hill. They are offering dinner for two off a set menu for 40 000 Ft. Wine not included. Email them, pay an advance deposit, secure your spot, avoid infamy.
You may have been too young for Joy Division, but White Lies are an efficient précis. This Friday, they hit Dürer Kert.
So long and thanks for all the pish: Rod Dreher is in focused and ascerbic form as he takes on the recent job cuts at the Washington Post. Many are saying these cuts mark the end of the road for old school shoe leather journalism, but Rod charts a longer story of its decline and fall, dating back as far as 2005: Long before the Great Awokening, when I was at the Dallas Morning News, a black colleague went to our editor and accused me of “creating a hostile work environment” because I called a Pakistani mob that burned down a Danish consulate “savages.” I made it my business to stay as far away from that previously valued black colleague after that. He had my career in his hands, and he knew it. Many such cases.
Based in Budapest spent much of last week in Barcelona, at the On Think Tanks Winter School. In a web design group task, Director of Research Calum Nicholson drew this fetching logo for our team, but was cruelly down-voted by the lecturer, who said that he'd never heard of an attercop (an arcane English word for spider). Truly, liberal bias is everywhere.
Paper of the Week
Truth (And Faith) Prevails: An Archbishop Of Prague In A Godless Time
Archbishops of Prague never have it easy. Whether it's your defenestration leading directly to the Thirty Years War, or just trying to maintain the faith under Communism, the path is fraught. DI Visiting Fellow Stefano Arroque has profiled one of the 20th century's most under-appreciated anti-Communists. Archbishop František Tomášek (who died in 1992). A kind of V4 analogue of John Paul II, Tomášek's cautious but resolute opposition helped bring about the 1989 Velvet Revolution. Opens with a memorable digression on Milan Kundera, who once spent a whole chapter musing on the Czech word 'litost’: “a state of torment created by the sudden sight of one’s own misery”.
In many ways, the fact that the Church has even managed to survive to this day, let alone retain its respect and soft power within Czech society is due to the tireless work of Tomášek and all priests and bishops who joined him in resisting the regime. The history of the Czech church in the 20th century was one of resistance: against apathy, against oppression, against infiltration. Whenever it was led by men who followed the teachings of the Church, it prevailed. Whenever some of its clergymen chose political convenience over resistance, it faltered.
Comings & Goings
Coming: Bailey Uwe Schwab is 27 years old, and from Middlesborough. He once interviewed Margaret Thatcher's political enforcer, Norman Tebbit, for a university project. After telling Tebbit about his family background, the notoriously waspish peer replied: “So... you are English, Argentine, and German? You’re a right dog’s dinner, then, aren’t you!” Every dog has its day, and now Bailey is at MKI, to work on American foreign policy’s reconfiguration under Donald Trump, particularly in the western hemisphere. Likes? 'Civilisation-states, realism, his wife and daughter, football, boxing, Germany, steak, and beer'. Hates? 'I wouldn’t say I hate anything.' Let's hope that sentiment outlast his contract renewal.
Also coming to MKI: Stefan Antić, a former Senior Research Fellow at the Center for International Relations and Sustainable Development in Serbia. He’s the Managing Editor of Horizons, the international relations journal.
Law PhD Pierre Hugues-Barré is perhaps unique in that he has clerked for both the Cour administrative d'appel de Versailles, and the Florida Second District Court of Appeal. Something of a coming thing on the French new right, he is editor-in-chief of the Revue de philosophie du droit, author of one book, and midwife to another. His first concerned laicité, and whether we misunderstand it. His second will take that prospect even further, arguing that the state should actively fund religious organisations that agree with its goals - and defund those that do not. He will be with the DI till the end of July.
Dates For Your Diary
Munich Security Conference — 13 - 15 FebruaryCPAC Hungary — 21 March “Majd ha piros hó esik"— When the red snow will fall (Never)