{"id":9201,"date":"2026-01-04T09:20:22","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T09:20:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=9201"},"modified":"2026-01-04T09:20:22","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T09:20:22","slug":"it-has-become-difficult-to-live-hungarian-writers-bemoan-countrys-hostile-environment-hungary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=9201","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It has become difficult to live\u2019: Hungarian writers bemoan country\u2019s hostile environment | Hungary"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Gyula, a tranquil and picturesque town in the east of Hungary<\/a>, is best known for its sausages. It has no direct rail connection to Budapest, but it does have a library and a castle. Soon, it will also have an official copy of a Nobel medal.<\/p>\n

\u201cCongratulations to L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Krasznahorkai, the first Nobel winner from Gyula,\u201d proclaim billboards in the town, paying tribute to the 71-year-old writer who won this year\u2019s Nobel prize in literature<\/a> for \u201chis compelling and visionary oeuvre.\u201d.<\/p>\n

In December, as he accepted the medal at the Swedish Academy in Stockholm, many compatriots watched live, including an audience gathered in Gyula\u2019s wood-panelled library. The town marked the occasion with a week-long programme of readings, workshops and an exhibition dedicated to Hungarian Nobel laureates.<\/p>\n

The author himself was absent \u2013 and not just because he was accepting the award. Like many Hungarian artists and writers these days, Krasznahorkai no longer lives in his home country.<\/p>\n

As it prepares for its toughest re-election campaign since winning power in 2010, Viktor Orb\u00e1n\u2019s far-right Fidesz government is presiding over an increasingly hostile and repressive climate, say authors and rights groups. The state has taken control of one of the country\u2019s largest publishers, homophobic legislation has reshaped bookshops and writers complain of shrinking opportunities.<\/p>\n

In an interview with the Swedish broadcaster SVT to mark his Nobel prize, Krasznahorkai likened Hungary to an alcoholic parent. \u201cMy mother drinks, she loses her beauty, she fights,\u201d he said. \u201cStill, I love her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many Hungarian intellectuals have emigrated. Gergely P\u00e9terfy, an award-winning author, is among them: he moved to the south of Italy, where he set up an artists\u2019 community. The move, he said, was driven partly by curiosity and a love of the Mediterranean lifestyle, but also by politics. \u201cIn the past 15 years, it has become very difficult to live in Hungary because of Orb\u00e1n\u2019s anti-culture stance,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Since Fidesz came to power, governmental actors have gained control of universities, galleries and popular media outlets. The national cultural fund, chaired by the culture and innovation minister, has redirected money from independent unions and periodicals to pro-government journalists and writers.<\/p>\n

Those independent literary outlets that remain are struggling to survive amid growing state influence over advertisers, leaving publications with less revenue and unable to adequately pay contributors.<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>Csenge Enik? \u00c9l? says none of her fellow young Hungarian writers make a living<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know any young writer [in Hungary] who makes a living,\u201d said Csenge Enik? \u00c9l?, a 32-year-old author.<\/p>\n

\u00c9l? writes prose and poetry, and her first book was published last year by an independent publisher. She complains of the polarisation of literature: \u201cOne side is getting a disproportionately large amount of funding, and the other very little.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Fidesz government has also poured hundreds of billions of forints into Mathias Corvinus Collegium, a conservative educational institution chaired by Orb\u00e1n\u2019s political director, which has several international outposts and its own publishing house.<\/p>\n

In 2023<\/a>, MCC acquired 98.5% of the shares in Libri, Hungary\u2019s leading publisher and bookshop chain. The same summer, Libri\u2019s shops wrapped books in plastic<\/a> if they depicted same-sex relationships, corresponding to Fidesz\u2019s \u201cchild protection\u201d law, which prohibits the promotion and display of homosexuality and gender reassignment.<\/p>\n

\u201cA significant portion of literary works were effectively banned for the sake of a political campaign,\u201d said Kriszti\u00e1n Ny\u00e1ry, a writer and creative director of L\u00edra, the country\u2019s second-largest bookshop chain and publishing group. L\u00edra has been fined multiple times for defying the anti-LGBTQ law, and is contesting the penalties in national and international courts.<\/p>\n

While Ny\u00e1ry finds reassurance in the fact that Libri employs the same people as before MCC\u2019s acquisition, he is still wary. \u201cThere are Chekhovian rifles hanging on the wall here. No one has fired them yet, but we know that if there\u2019s a rifle on stage, sooner or later someone will fire it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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<\/svg><\/span>Protesters filled the Chain Bridge in Budapest on Saturday in a protest against Viktor Orb\u00e1n\u2019s government.<\/span> Photograph: J\u00e1nos Kummer\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Fidesz government has been criticised for favouring rightwing and controversial writers, incorporating them into the national curriculum and seeking their official recognition.<\/p>\n

In 2020, teaching unions expressed outrage when the state\u2019s list of mandatory texts included the work of J\u00f3zsef Ny\u00edr?, who was a member of Hungary\u2019s far-right government during the second world war, but excluded Imre Kert\u00e9sz, a Holocaust survivor and the country\u2019s first Nobel literature laureate.<\/p>\n

By contrast, the government had made little effort to promote Krasznahorkai internationally, said J\u00e1nos Szeg?, his editor. But although Krasznahorkai is critical of the government, describing it in a recent interview as \u201ca psychiatric case\u201d because of its ambivalent stance on Russian and Ukraine, his prize was celebrated all around the country, regardless of party lines.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes one\u2019s heart skip a beat when a person of Hungarian descent receives the Nobel,\u201d said Szeg?. \u201cIt\u2019s a great confirmation for a small language that\u2019s always wary of extinction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ern? G\u00f6rg\u00e9nyi, the Fidesz mayor of the writer\u2019s home town, said: \u201cFor us, as a community, the greatest recognition is that the books that feature locations and people from Gyula have now made their way on to the bookshelves around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

His administration will install a plaque on the house in which Krasznahorkai grew up, and name a school library after him. Eventually, it plans to organise Krasznahorkai-themed tours around the city, inspired by Dublin\u2019s Ulysses walk.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no need to bring politics into this,\u201d said M\u00e1rta Becsin\u00e9 Szab\u00f3, 75, a resident of Gyula who took part in the town\u2019s Nobel celebrations. \u201cThe important thing is that he is from Gyula, and that he is Hungarian.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

#difficult #live #Hungarian #writers #bemoan #countrys #hostile #environment #Hungary<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gyula, a tranquil and pictures… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9202,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9201"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}