November 23rd, 2007

Big Hungary still big hit with local nationalists

By

As one might expect, there is a reason opposition leader Viktor Orbán spent part of this week electioneering in a country other than Hungary: A significant minority of voters inside Hungary remain deeply attached to the large numbers of ethnic Hungarians living in areas that were part of history “big” Hungary. In fact, according to origo.hu, a recent study by pollster-with-nothing-better-to-do Medián found that 5% of Hungarian drivers have a Nagymagyarország sticker like the one pictured above on their cars, roughly the same percentage sporting stickers informing other motorists that there are children on board.

This may explain why right-wing weekly Demokrata recently decided to offer a free six-square-meter map of Nagymagyarország originally published in 1900 to anyone who signs up for a one-year subscription. Note that you don’t need to subscribe for a whole year to get your hands on one of these mammoth reminders of Hungary’s former geographical self. If you subscribe for six months, said map is available for an additional Ft 4,900 (around €50), while those opting for a three-month sub can have if for Ft 7,350. And no, they’re not giving out miniature ones for free.

Topics
Share
Comments
The All Hungary Media Group is firmly committed to freedom of expression and therefore applies a mostly "hands off" approach to comment moderation. Comments left by readers represent their own views and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or beliefs of the staff, editors or owner of the All Hungary Media Group, who nonetheless reserve the right to remove comments that are off-topic or which moderators consider to constitute "hate speech." Also note that in order to prevent spam we generally close entries off to comments several days after publication.

3 Comments

  1. Mariska says:
    November 26, 2007 at 3:04 pm

    Is it really fair to equate “being deeply attached to” the Hungarians stranded outside Hungary with far-right extremism? Those Hungarians are still Hungarians and have been through a lot of hardships in this past century…I certainly hope you don’t think, as the wording of this article somewhat implies, that to be concerned about the plight of the magyarok outside the current borders makes one an Arpad-flag-waving loony?

  2. Erik says:
    November 26, 2007 at 5:45 pm

    Not at all, though there obviously is an overlap between the groups. But here’s a good thought expermiment: what would you think if you saw a car with Austrian plates and a sticker with a big “A” sitting over the outline of historically Austrian-ruled lands, including Hungary?

  3. Mariska says:
    November 27, 2007 at 4:11 am

    I’d be pissed! :) Don’t get me wrong, I consider the Nagy-Magyarorszag stickers more the property of the nutter brigade…it was just the wording of that once sentence that hit me oddly. No hard feelings. :)