How did the authoritarian government of Viktor Orbán try to rewrite Hungary’s troubled past?
It may seem like a historian’s dream come true: history is now a priority of the government in Hungary. A committee of the Historical Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences decides which street names should be changed. The government led by Viktor Orbán recently established its own historical research institute, Veritas. It is so keen to erect a statue commemorating the German invasion of Hungary on 19 March 1944 by its 70th anniversary that no costs are to be spared. The new penal code, in effect since July 2013, makes it punishable by up to a year in prison to say anything insulting about a medieval crown, turned into the symbol of the Hungarian republic. Yet this is no cause for celebration; historians need to object, as many in Hungary already do. The government is trying to manipulate history in order to establish continuity with the interwar authoritarian regime of Miklós Horthy and thereby gain popularity.