TONY ABBOTT (London, 1957) is an Australian politician who served as a member of the Australian House of Representatives (1994–2019), leader of the Liberal Party of Australia (2009–15), and Prime Minister of Australia (2013–15). Abbott attended the University of Sydney, where he earned a B.A. in economics (1979) and a law degree (1981). He next studied at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar, earning an M.A. in politics and philosophy. Abbott, by then a regular contributor to the Australian newsweekly The Bulletin, became a full-time journalist. He wrote for The Australian, one of the country’s top-circulating news dailies. Having viewed Australia’s political system from both inside and out, Abbott successfully campaigned for a parliamentary seat of his own in 1994. When Liberal Party leader John Howard was elected prime minister in 1996, Abbott was appointed parliamentary secretary to the minister for employment, education, training, and youth affairs in the new government. He changed portfolios in 1998, becoming minister for employment services. Abbott was named minister for health and aging in 2003. In 2009 he was elected leader of the Liberal Party of India and the Leader of the Opposition. In the 2013 elections, Abbott led the Liberal-National Coalition to victory and was named the 28th Prime Minister of Australia on 18 September 2013. He is the author of three books: The Minimal Monarchy (1995), How to Win the Constitutional War (1997), and Battlelines (2009).

EDWIN J. FUELNER (Chicago, 1941) graduated from Regis University with double majors in English and business, and received an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business in 1964. He later attended Georgetown University and the London School of Economics, and then earned a doctorate degree at the University of Edinburgh in 1981. Feulner began his Washington career as Public Affairs Fellow for the Center for Strategic Studies and at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. In 1973 he joined The Heritage Foundation as a founding Trustee and later became its President (1977–2013). He is the author of nine books: The American Spirit (2012), Getting America Right (2006), Leadership for America (2000), Intellectual Pilgrims (1999), The March of Freedom (1998), Conservatives Stalk the House (1983), Looking Back (1981), Congress and the New International Economic Order (1976), and Trading with the Communists (1968). The Daily Telegraph named him one of the 100 most influential conservatives in America in 2007 and 2010. He has been awarded eleven honorary degrees, and has received honours from the governments of Taiwan, South Korea and the Czech Republic.

DOROTTYA GULYÁS (Budapest, 1987) art historian, curator. She is a keeper at the Department of Sculptures and Medals at Hungarian National Gallery, and a board member of the Ferenczy Family Art Foundation. Her research focuses on Hungarian sculpture in the first half of the 20th century. Currently she is a PhD student at the Doctoral School of History at Pázmány Péter Catholic University. The topic of her dissertation is the oeuvre of the sculptor Béni Ferenczy.

MARK HIGGIE (Canberra, 1957) was Australia’s ambassador to the EU and NATO (2014–2017). He previously served (2010–2014) as international advisor to Australia’s opposition leader and then prime minister Tony Abbott. He was Australia’s representative to the British Joint Intelligence Committee 2006–2009 and ambassador in Budapest 1998–2001. He also served on diplomatic postings in Vienna and Belgrade. He has a PhD in Soviet and East European Politics from the Australian National University. Based in Budapest, he is Senior Fellow at the Danube Institute and is also Europe Correspondent for The Spectator Australia.

GERGELY KRISZTIÁN HORVÁTH (Ajka, 1974), D. Phil., is a social historian. He graduated from Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. From 2001 to 2017 he taught Social History of Hungary at ELTE. Between 2000–2008 was founder and general editor of Korall Társadalomtörténeti Folyóirat. Since 2014 he has been coordinating the work of the Rural History Research Group of the Research Centre for the Humanities of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA BTK) and the Committee of National Remembrance (NEB). His field of research is the history of the rural society in the Carpathian Basin between the 18th and 20th centuries. His main research focuses on the period after 1945, especially collectivisation. In 2019 he set up a research group at the Hungarian Academy of Science called Lendület Project. The project concentrates on the social history of the rural population in the Carpathian Basin from the 18th century up to the present.

BORIS KÁLNOKY was born in 1961 in Munich and grew up in Germany, the US, Holland and France. His family left Hungary in 1947. He studied politics and history in Hamburg and went on to work at the German daily Die Welt in 1987. In 1995, he became Balkans Correspondent for Die Welt, based in Budapest, and moved on in 2004 to become Middle East correspondent, based in Istanbul. He is the author of Ahnenland (Droemer Verlag, Munich, 2011), a book about what happened to his family and Hungary since 1952. He returned to Budapest in 2013, still for Die Welt. He also writes for a number other of media in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

GYULA KODOLÁNYI (Budapest, 1942) Editor-in-chief of Hungarian Review is the author of sixteen collections of poetry, scholarly and literary essays and poetry translations. He taught English and American Literature at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest in 1970–1989. He received research and teaching fellowships from the British Council, the American Council of Learned Societies, CIES and The German Marshall Fund of the US. He taught at the University of California in Santa Barbara (1984–1985) and at Emory University in Atlanta (2004–2009), and read his poetry in English widely in the US. In 1987, he was a founding member of the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF). In 1990–1994, he served as Senior Foreign Policy Advisor to the Prime Minister. In 1992–1996 he was the Vice President of the Hungária Televízió Foundation, which created the Duna Television, a cultural satellite channel. In 2000–2005 he was an Advisor to President Ferenc Mádl. In 2012, he received Hungary’s Middle Cross with the Star and in 2005 the President’s Medal of Honour for his public and literary achievements. With Magyar Szemle, he received a Prima Prize in 2003. In 2015, he was Prima Primissima Prize winner in literature. He is a member of the Hungarian Academy of the Arts. In 2016 he received the Janus Pannonius Prize for poetry translation.

LEVENTE MAGYAR (Budapest, 1987) obtained his degree in International Relations from Corvinus University, Budapest in 2010. He commenced his professional career in 2007 at the Foreign Affairs Cabinet of the Fidesz Party. In 2010 he became Head of the Department of Cross-Border Infrastructure Development at the Ministry of National Economy. Between July 2012 and July 2014 he served as Deputy State Secretary for Foreign Affairs at the Office of the Prime Minister. From July 2014, he has filled various high-level positions at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Currently, he is the Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade in Hungary.

JOHN O’SULLIVAN (Liverpool, 1942) is editor-at-large of National Review in New York where he served as editor-in-chief for ten years. He was a Special Adviser to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in Downing Street and later assisted her in the writing of her two volumes of memoirs. He has held a wide variety of senior editorial positions in the media on both sides of the Atlantic. He is the founder and co-chairman of the Atlantic Initiative, an international bipartisan organisation dedicated to reinvigorating and expanding the Atlantic community of democracies, launched at the Congress of Prague in May 1996 by President Vaclav Havel and Lady Thatcher. His book, The President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister (on Pope John Paul II, President Reagan and Prime Minister Thatcher), was published in Hungarian, too, in 2010. Until 2011, he was the Executive Editor of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty in Prague. Currently he is the President of the Danube Institute, Budapest.

DAVID A. J. REYNOLDS is a writer, teacher, and editor from England, who has lived and taught in Hungary, the Czech Republic, and the US. He is the author of Revising History in Communist Europe: Constructing Counter-Revolution in 1956 and 1968 (Anthem Press, January 2020).

GÁBOR TURI (Nyíregyháza, 1951), journalist, diplomat and politician. He completed his degree in English and history at the Lajos Kossuth University in 1975 and in journalism at the School for Journalism in 1977. He began his professional career as a journalist and editor in Debrecen. He took diplomatic assignments as cultural attaché in London (1992–1995) and press attaché in Washington, DC. (1998–2002). He served as Deputy Mayor of his former home city, Debrecen (2002–2006). As director of external relations of the University of Debrecen, he retired in 2013. A collection of his essays and articles, Perspectives, was published in 2011 by UD Press. He has also published three books on jazz: I Say: Jazz (Editio Musica, 1983), Time for Jazz (Osiris, 1999) and American Jazz Diary (Gramofon, 2019). He was awarded the András Pernye Prize by the Hungarian Jazz Federation for his lifetime achievements. He played an active role in the opposition movements in Debrecen from 1988 and was one of the organisers of the Pan-European Picnic in 1989.

ANDREAS UNTERBERGER (Vienna, 1949) received his law degree from the University of Vienna in 1972. He spent a year at the Institute for Advanced Studies of the Ford Institute and started working for the independent Austrian daily, Die Presse, where he was editor-in-chief between 1995–2004. He also lectured in political science and international relations at the University of Vienna between 1989–1998. From 2005 to 2009 he was editor-in-chief of Wiener Zeitung. Since 2009 Dr Unterberger has been an independent, conservative free-market blogger (andreas-unterberger.at). He is the author of numerous books and articles focusing on the topics of integration, minorities, security issues, and all aspects of neutrality.