I did not expect that my annual visit to Hungary would
coincide with a major political upheaval, which erupted when
the prime minister (Ferenc Gyurcsány) confessed to prolonged
lying about the state of the country and especially of its
economy. It is an additional coincidence that prior to this
visit I gave a paper in London at a conference on the
fiftieth anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution which
focused on the official mendacity as a major source of
the rejection of the communist system in Hungary (and
elsewhere) and the moral revulsion felt by ordinary people
confronting the daily lies in the official media.

I was born in Hungary and left it after the defeat of the
Revolution in 1956. I first returned in 1974. I visited
several times during the 1980s, and annually since the
collapse of the communist system in 1989. I still have
relatives and friends in Budapest, and I like the city where
I grew up; my Hungarian has remained fluent and unaccented.
I don’t have a love-hate relationship with Hungary
notwithstanding some rather unpleasant experiences during
both the Nazi and Communist period.

Even before the last visit I was struck by the apparent
political polarization of Hungarian society that resembles
current conditions in the United States but is probably
worse and deeper; there is no dialogue between the two major
parties and their leaders are held in great contempt by
their critics located on opposing sides of the political
spectrum. Hungarian liberals hate