Lefteast
Hungary’s political climate is increasingly dominated by the tensions related to the coming elections in Spring 2022. While all oppositional parties from far-right to the left had joined forces to fight the ruling party Fidesz, a new player entered the political arena in December 2021. György Gattyán, one of the richest people in Hungary, announced […]
In passing measures against the pandemic, the Hungarian government took the opportunity given by the covid-19 pandemic to further centralize its power. This politics protected and expanded national capital’s space of maneuver. However, unlike in previous rounds of economic measures, recent anti-pandemic measures taken by the government are part of a wide-reaching preparation for a […]
Note from LeftEast editors: This is a slightly edited version of an earlier text published in Hungarian by Mérce. During July and August, Mérce conducted more than a dozen interviews and background discussions with Roma and non-Roma activists, educators, academics and journalists to build a picture of how the Roma community in Hungary has been […]
Note from the LeftEast editors: In an effort to circulate information about local events and initiatives, we invite the submission of other reports such as this one in the future. Critical, self-reflective, interactive, communal, free, and open – these were the promises of Replika Open University, the series of online sociological presentations and discussions between […]
Note from LeftEast editors: This book symposium took place on 21 May 2021 as part of the online conference ‘Thirty Years of Capitalist Transformations in Central and Eastern Europe: Inequalities and Social Resistance’ organised by the Faculty of Sociology and Social Work, Babes-Bolyai University from Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Four books were presented at the panel: The […]
Whereas most trade unions in Eastern Europe also commemorated 28 April because of the uneven effects and implications of Covid-19 on the loss of workers’ lives, in Hungary this was even more emphatic. In 2020, 1 May in Hungary seemed to especially overlap with events and statements made around Workers’ Memorial Day – a day […]
On June 10, 2021, the Hungarian parliament made public the contents of a proposed “Pedophilia Act,” to be voted on less than a week later, on June 15. The bill has caused general outrage among national and international human rights organizations. Considering the name under which that bill was circulated, it might sound surprising that […]
Recent Chinese investments in Hungary have made waves in the international liberal press as part of Transatlantic narratives of hegemonic anxiety. These see Hungary’s “democratic backslide” and “flirtation” with Russia and China in the context of a new Cold War imaginary, defined through Huntingtonian characteristics of politico-cultural belonging. These interpretations have recently found their perfect […]
This article was originally published in Mérce and was translated by Noémi Bíró. It is part of a series by ELMO (East Left Media Outlet). In honour of the international labor day, May 1st and May as a month dedicated to workers’ struggles, this article is part of an ELMO series titled “Gig work in […]
Surviving and dying are life chances in the most profound sense, a truism that the corona pandemic has powerfully underpinned. Already before the pandemic hit, the declining life expectancy in deindustrialized, rustbelt areas and the accompanying deepening of health inequalities have been signaling the existential crisis of contemporary economic arrangements. Recent research by Ann Case […]