Hungarian Review Publishes Sixth 2015 Issue

Washington, DC – The “Hungarian Review,” the English-language affiliate of the bi-monthly journal Magyar Szemle, edited by Gyula Kodolányi and John O’Sullivan, has published its sixth 2015 issue.

On the cover: Exhibition interior, seen through Time Spine by Ádám Farkas, 1999. Detail. Iron and chromium steel; diameter 200 cm; height 90 cm. All exhibition photos are by courtesy of Balázs Deim.

As the previous two issues, this one still focuses on the impact of migration and whether it is a problem or an opportunity for European countries.  As John O’Sullivan puts it in his editorial note entitled ‘Crossing the Frontier’, “unless these migration flows are reduced, halted, or even reversed, Europe risks becoming a truly different place, a fully borderless society, lacking not only national borders but also unifying national cultures, where the unifying European culture is not to permit one. It would be at best a marketplace, at worst a Lebanon or series of Lebanons.”

In his study entitled ‘Mass Immigration: Cost or Benefit?’, Erich Wede focuses on Germany but he notes that his conclusions apply more generally to ageing European societies and to the impact of migration from poor to rich countries. In his view “it is easy to imagine how immigration might solve the problems of ageing societies, like Germany. Our immigrants would be mostly highly qualified good Samaritans who earn a lot and happily pay their taxes and social insurance contributions. But are there enough highly qualified good Samaritans? If there are many of them, why should they come to rescue rich welfare states instead of fighting against hunger, disease and poverty in Africa, as Albert Schweitzer did or Bill Gates does? So far, the balance sheet of migration to Germany indeed looks quite different. According to an official government report, only 5.4% of German students, but 11.6% of foreign students do not finish secondary school (Hauptschule), 13.5% of young people (20–29 years old) in Germany have insufficient vocational training, but among foreigners the percentage rises to 30.5%.  Vocational training is one obvious determinant of job prospects, future income and tax contributions. Whereas among non-migrants the risk of poverty in Germany has been 12.3%, among migrants the risk is 26.8%. From 2008 to 2013, unemployment ratios among foreigners have been at least twice as high as among Germans.”

The ‘Current’ section includes other contributions from Ottó Hieronymi (Globalisation, Economic and Social Order; Human Rights and Humanitarian Action – Part I); Mikhail Krutikhin (Russian Gas in Europe: End of Dependence?); Norman Stone (Notes on the Modernisation of Turkey – The Hungarian Contribution) and Miklós Szánthó (“May There Be Peace, Freedom and Accord” – The Background, Adoption and Content of Hungary’s New Electoral System – Part II).

The next section is devoted to ‘1990’ and contains an article by Gyula Kodolányi (Power and Action – Between Better and Worse).

The periodical then continues with a ‘Histories’ section with contributions by Árpád Kadarkay (War and Art – Part IV); George Gömöri (Letters by John Maynard Keynes from Hungary and Vienna); and Csaba Lévai (“The Tokay is much more superior to what you sent me last year under that name” – Thomas Jefferson and His Hungarian Wines).

Finally, the ‘Arts and Letters’ section has articles by Nicholas T. Parsons (Commodification of Culture: Money, Aesthetics and the Contemporary Art Racket – Part II); Tibor Várady (Rudderless and Without Compromise); István Domonkos (Rudderless); Mario Fenyő (On György Ferdinandy’s Dig Deeper – Short Stories and Notes); György Ferdinandy (Two Stories) and Gyula Kodolányi (Spatial Curves and Crosstalk – The Exhibition of Ádám Farkas and His Students).

Currently, 29 issues of the Hungarian Review (from 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015) can be ordered from Amazon.com; or directly from the publisher; or by calling the Coalition office in Washington.

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