Hungary: the art of remembering

Budapest has always struck me as a city with a remarkably strong memory.

In 1981, when I first visited Hungary, it was still firmly behind the Iron Curtain. The city clearly possessed the bones of greatness. Grand boulevards, monumental bridges, cafés hinting at another age. Yet, everything seemed faded, exhausted, slightly abandoned by history. I remember standing in front of the Hungarian Parliament building and noticing broken windows in one of Europe’s most spectacular parliamentary palaces. Somehow, it felt symbolic: a magnificent civilization suspended in an awkward historical pause.

Even then, however, Budapest did not feel defeated. Dormant perhaps. Waiting.

I remember thinking that this once had been one of Europe’s most vibrant capitals and that perhaps one day it would be so again.

Returning over the years has felt like watching this intuition slowly materialize. Each visit revealed a city more confident, more polished, more cosmopolitan, more aware again of its own beauty. And now, with an enormous political shift following the general elections in April 2026, Budapest seems to be entering yet another chapter in its long habit of what looks like the perpetual cultural reinvention of itself.

Western European observers tend to describe recent developments in Hungary as unexpected. Yet, strolling through Budapest and especially through the magnificent Hungarian National Gallery (or HNG), one begins to suspect, that for Hungarians themselves, this moment may feel less like a rupture and more like the continuation of an old national rhythm.

Because Hungary has been here before. At many turns of history, Hungarians have lived through occupation, suppression, defeat, and national uncertainty; only to redefine themselves with impressive resilience. The 1848 Revolution against Austria was crushed militarily, yet within two decades, Hungary negotiated the Austro-Hungarian Double Monarchy, re-emerging as one half of a major European power, with the iconic Empress Sisi as the Queen of Hungary. The Hungarian Uprising of 1956 remains one of Europe’s great moral acts of resistance.

Loss, resilience, redefinition, resurgence: these are not exceptions in Hungarian history. They are practically a national art form. And nowhere is this more visible than at the HNG itself. Instead of separate art departments, the HNG feels like listening to one consistent conversation about Hungarian national identity, survival, and cultural self-understanding.

Perhaps the most striking local feature is how very emotionally direct Hungarian artists have been about national suffering and historical loss. Western European art often prefers triumph, victories, golden ages, and imperial confidence. Hungarian art, by contrast, seems perfectly comfortable acknowledging vulnerability, catastrophe, sacrifice, and endurance. Not in a self-pitying way. Quite the opposite, in fact. More as if loss and suffering themselves became proof of continuity.

There is something profoundly Hungarian in that stoic emotional register. And it ties in very well with the recurring theme of national survival.

For many centuries, Hungary stood at the crossroads of East and West, Latin Europe and the Ottoman Empire, Vienna and the Balkans, Germanic influence and Magyar identity. But political systems collapse. Borders change. Foreign and local powerhouses rise and fall. Yet something persists: language, memory, humour, pride, culture.

At the junction of so much interculturality, Hungarian artists kept returning to the question: amid ongoing change, what allows our nation to endure? This tension remains noticeably relevant today.

Against the backdrop of Hungary’s newest political transformation, it becomes clear that the story of Budapest as a capital and of Hungary as a country is not really about reinvention at all. It is about resurfacing.

Budapest in 1981 already carried the traces of resilience beneath its cracked facades. Today, those traces have returned to the fore. The city is once again becoming fully aware of itself: ambitious, expressive, culturally confident, slightly defiant, and unwilling to be sidelined. In fact, Budapest today is poised to repossess its historical role as a “cultural bridge city”; Central European yet distinctly Hungarian, deeply historical yet surprisingly youthful, elegant without losing its rough edges. An earlier catastrophe turned into memory. And memory turned into strong identity.

For outsiders dealing professionally with Hungarians, this historical sensitivity can easily be misunderstood. Of course, modern Hungary is very diverse on the inside. But this diversity does not affect the larger picture: what may appear as caution, distance, or excessive attachment to national identity is rooted in the much older historical experience of preserving continuity under external pressure.

Intercultural awareness begins precisely here: recognizing when we interpret another society through our own cultural assumptions rather than theirs. At OEF!, we work to uncover these one-sided, biased perceptions and create a deep appreciation of the other’s perspective.  

In doing so, we understand better why Budapest feels so contagiously alive nowadays. Not because Hungary suddenly discovered itself. But because Hungary remembered itself. Once again.

ON EQUAL FOOTING takeaway: "Remember that the Hungarian Central European mindset represents a distinct historical and cultural identity and should not be automatically equated with Western European."

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