Our authors

ISTVÁN DOMONKOS was born in 1940 in Zmajevo (in Hungarian: Ókér). He studied in Subotica (Szabadka) and Novi Sad (Újvidék), worked as a jazz musician, and was an outstanding member of the generation of writers gathered around the periodical Új Symposion. One of the most prominent writers of the Hungarian minority in Serbia, István Domonkos earned a well established reputation in Hungary and in other countries as well. His best known poem Rudderless is considered to be one of the most powerful Hungarian poems in the second half of the 20th century. His work has been translated into 15 languages. István Domonkos was awarded with the József Attila and Híd Prizes. He has been living in Sweden since 1979.

ÁDÁM FARKAS (Budapest, 1944), sculptor. He studied ceramics at the Budapest Grammar School for the Arts (1961–64) and the Budapest Academy of Fine Arts (1964–68). In Paris, he attended the École des Beaux-Arts, and became an assistant to Emile Gilioli (1968–69). He has exhibited widely in Hungary and abroad since 1970. From 1992 on he has been teaching at the Academy of Fine Arts, also serving a term as Provost. He is a member of the Academy of Hungarian Artists.

MARIO FENYŐ (Budapest, 1935), historian. He received his MA in history from Yale University and his PhD from the American University in Washington, DC. From 1988 he is Professor at Bowie State University, MD. In 2007 he was a visiting professor at the University of Debrecen, Hungary. He received various grants and awards, including the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary and the Knight’s Cross. His most important publications include Mario Fenyo on the Third World: a Reader (2002), Hitler, Horthy and Hungary (1972), A Nyugat hőskora és háttere [The background and golden age of the review Nyugat] (2001). His current research focuses on the legacy of Emil Torday and the historiography of the Caribbean.

GYÖRGY FERDINANDY (Budapest, 1935), literary historian. He started his studies at the Secondary School of the Piarist Fathers, but was forced by the regime to work at the Ikarusz Bus Factory and could never graduate. He managed however to get enrolled at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, as a double major in French and Hungarian, but he had to leave the country after the fall of the 1956 Revolution. He lived in Paris until 1964 and worked as a translator, bookshop assistant and mason. He received his PhD in Literary History at the University of Strasbourg in 1959. Between 1964 and 1976 he taught Western Civilisation at the University of Puerto Rico. He published many novels, short stories and poems, and is a receiver of the Commander’s Cross of Merit of the Order of Hungary.

GEORGE GÖMÖRI (Budapest, 1934) has been living in England since November 1956. After studies in Oxford, he taught at the University of California (Berkeley), and researched at Harvard. From 1969 to 2001 he taught at the University of Cambridge. He published many books on Polish and Hungarian literature, as well as 12 books of poetry in Hungarian and two in English. He is a member of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences (Cracow).

OTTO HIERONYMI (Budapest, 1938), economist, is Professor of International Relations and former Head (1995–2006) of the International Relations and Migration and Refugee Studies Program at Webster University, Geneva. Between 1966 and 1970 he worked as an international economist at Morgan Guaranty Trust in New York. From 1970 to 1994 he was Senior Economist at Battelle Geneva Research Centers. He earned his Licence and Doctorate in international relations and economics at the Graduate Institute of International Relations (University of Geneva). He was Economic Adviser to Prime Minister József Antall (1990–1993) and member of different committees drafting the Bank Reform and the new strategy for growth (GAM – 1991–1992). In 1989 he became Secretary of the Expert Group on the International Debt issue appointed by the Swiss Federal Government. His publications include among others: Economic Policies for the New Hungary: Proposals for a Coherent Approach (1990 – the so-called “Battelle Report”); Globalization and the Reform of the International Banking and Monetary System (editor, 2009); “Agenda for a New Monetary Reform” (1998); Global Challenges, the Atlantic Community and the Outlook for International Order; (editor, 2004); Wilhelm Röpke, the Social Market Economy and Today’s Domestic and International Order (editor, 2002); The Spirit of Geneva in a Globalized World (editor, 2007); Renewing the Western Community: the Challenge for the EU, Europe and Japan (editor, 2016 forthcoming).

ÁRPÁD KADARKAY (Kesztölc, 1934) Conscripted into the Hungarian Army, 1954–56, he deserted in November 1956 and joined the Revolution. After the Soviet invasion, he emigrated to Vancouver, British Columbia, in March 1957. While working the graveyard shifts at Eburne Saw Mills, Vancouver, he earned Double Honours at the University of British Columbia, 1958–1963, and on a fellowship, an MA in Political Science at UC Los Angeles, 1963–65, and a PhD in Political Philosophy, at UC Santa Barbara, 1965–1971. He is Emeritus Professor of Politics and Government at the University of Puget Sound, and lives in Tacoma, Washington. His publications include Georg Lukacs: Life, Thought, and Politics (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), The Lukacs Reader (Blackwell, 1995), Human Rights in American and Russian Political Thought (University Press of America, 1982), and an English translation of Journey in North America, 1831, by Sándor Bölöni Farkas (Santa Barbara, 1978).

GYULA KODOLÁNYI (Budapest, 1942), Editor-in-Chief of Hungarian Review and of Magyar Szemle, is the author of eleven 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 (1984–85) 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 1990–94, he served as Senior Foreign Policy Advisor to the Prime Minister. 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.

MIKHAIL KRUTIKHIN is an analyst on the oil and gas industry and politics in Russia, a co-founder of the RusEnergy consultancy in Moscow. He previously served as editor-in-chief of the Russian Petroleum Investor and as associate editor of the Caspian Investor monthly magazines. In 1972–1992 he worked for TASS news agency in Moscow, Cairo, Damascus, Tehran and Beirut, rising from correspondent to chief of bureau. A graduate from Moscow State University majoring in Iranian linguistics, he later obtained his PhD in modern history.

CSABA LÉVAI (Debrecen, 1964) is Associate Professor at the Department of History of the University of Debrecen. He earned an MA (1998) and a PhD (2000) in history at the University of Debrecen, and an MA in sociology at Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest (2002). A Fulbright visiting scholar at the University of Virginia (1999), he was also a visiting professor at the National University of Ireland, Galway (2005–2006). His research interests are the history of the British Colonies in North America and the history of the American Revolution, including Hungarian–American contacts from the beginnings to the American Civil War. His publications include The Republicanism Debate. A Discussion in American Historiography about the Intellectual Background of the American Revolution (Budapest, 2003, in Hungarian), and American History and Historiography (Budapest, 2013, in Hungarian). He also edited several scholarly volumes in English and Hungarian, including Europe and the World in European Historiography (Pisa, 2006).

NICHOLAS T. PARSONS is a freelance author, translator and editor based in Vienna. A graduate of New College, Oxford, he spent two years in Italy teaching at the British Institute of Florence and as Reader in English at the University of Pisa before returning to the UK to work in publishing for ten years in the 1970s and early 1980s. In 1984 he settled in Central Europe with his Hungarian wife, the art historian Ilona Sármány, and has since published some 17 books on cultural topics, writing also as Louis James. These include the Blue Guide Austria and the Blue Guide Vienna as well as the first English guide to Hungary to be published following the “system change” of 1989. His essay- length Xenophobe’s Guide to the Austrians (Louis James) has been in print for 20 years. His recent books are Worth the Detour: A Cultural History of the Guidebook from Pausanias to the Rough Guide, and Vienna: A Cultural History Signet (Oxford University Press; Italian edition: Vienna: Ritratto di unacitta, Odoya, Bologna).

NORMAN STONE (Glasgow, 1941) is a British historian, former student then lecturer at the University of Cambridge, professor of history at the University of Oxford, and currently professor of International Relations at the University of Bilkent, Ankara, Turkey. He was also an advisor and speech writer to the British Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and is the author of many books on twentieth century history, including The Eastern Front 1914–17 (1975), Hitler (1980), Europe Transformed, 1878–1919 (1983), The Other Russia (1990), and The Atlantic and Its Enemies: A Personal History of the Cold War (2010).

MIKLÓS SZÁNTHÓ is a lawyer and political analyst. He graduated as a lawyer from Eötvös Loránd University of Hungary, and is the managing director and head analyst of the Centre of Fundamental Rights, a Budapest-based legal research institute. Previously, Szánthó was a political analyst at a Budapest-based think tank and contributed to several newspapers and political blogs. He also joined domestic and international research projects on the powers and limits of the executive or on higher education policies in England. Szánthó’s core interest is on constitutional law, legal structures of the government and election law. The centre he leads, which was founded in 2013, prepares assessments and research papers on the professional level regarding the functioning of the rule of law and protection of fundamental rights in Hungary.

TIBOR VÁRADY (Zrenjanin / Nagybecskerek, 1939) is a professor of law. He received his law degrees in Belgrade (JD) and at Harvard (LLM and SJD). He taught for almost three decades at the Novi Sad University School of Law, and for a number of years he was editor and editor-in-chief of the literary magazine Új Symposion. He is member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Since 1993, he has been teaching at the Central European University in Budapest. He is also a tenured Professor at Emory University, Atlanta. In legal practice, he acted as international arbitrator in about 200 cases, and also acted as counsel and advocate before the International Court of Justice. He has about 300 scholarly publications in five languages. Most of his publications are devoted to various fields of international law, but they also include collections of essays and a novel.

ERICH WEEDE (Hildesheim, 1942) was professor of sociology at the Universities of Cologne and Bonn until his retirement. He had acquired academic degrees in psychology and political science. In 1982–83 he was president of the Peace Science Society, and in 1985–86 vice-president of the International Studies Association. In 1986–87 he was visiting professor of International Relations at the Bologna Center of the Johns Hopkins University. For some time, he served on the editorial boards of the Electronic Journal of Sustainable Development, International Interactions, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Korea and World Affairs and New Asia. He has produced 11 books and about 250 other publications in German or English. He has studied the causes and prevention of wars, the rise and decline of nations, Asian civilisations, the invention of capitalism, the spread of economic freedom, economic growth and income inequality. His books include Economic Development, Social Order and World Politics (1996), Asien und der Westen (2000), The Balance of Power, Globalization, and the Capitalist Peace (2005), and Freiheit und Verantwortung, Aufstieg und Niedergang (2012). He is a member of the Mont Pelerin Society and a founding member of the Hayek Gesellschaft.