Does Hungary have a new hero?

„Had Horthy ever called for mass resistance – as happened in Denmark and Bulgaria – many more Hungarian Jews might have survived. The fact that he was able to prevent the deportations of the Jews of Budapest shows that he could have tried to stop the deportations from the countryside. Some even argue that Horthy only took action in Budapest as he was warned through intermediaries that if the deportations continued he would be tried for war crimes.

Nor is the disquiet confined to liberal and left-wingers. Many young thinkers on the right are critical of the growing nostalgia for the 1930s and the Horthy cult. Tamas Novak, writing in mandiner.hu, an influential conservative blog, said that statues should not be erected to either Miklós Horthy or János Kádár, Hungary’s long-serving communist leader, and squares should not be renamed in their honour. »Both deserve contempt, and their main goal was their political survival.«

Horthy era-writers are also being rehabilitated. Three far-right novelists will be reintroduced into the national curriculum this autumn, including József Nyirő, who was an open admirer of the Nazis. A commemoration was recently held in Nyírő’s honour at a Budapest cultural centre. The centre is named after Miklós Radnóti, a Jewish writer and one of Hungary’s greatest poets, who was killed by Hungarian Nazis.

George Szirtes, a Hungarian-born British poet, wrote about the event: »It is a significant gesture and there is no chance it is carelessness. What it says is: You think it’s your house. Well we’re taking it over.« Others argue that T.S Eliot and Ezra Pound have been accused of anti-Semitism and are still studied and admired. For them the question is one of context. Either way, the Horthy revival comes at a time of growing anti-Semitism.”