The Guiding Principle of Liberalism
Boon and Bale of the Hungarian Intellectuals
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
Five former dissidents serve as examples for the broad spectrum of liberal intellectuals in Hungary in the early 1990s: István Eörsi, János Kis, György Konrád, Miklós Szabó, and Gáspár Miklós Tamás. Their goal was to anchor liberalism at the heart of the new democracy. This has failed. They have to ask whether they bear some responsibility for this, since they barricaded themselves behind a minority position and assumed from the start that Hungarian politics was dominated by illiberal forces.
(Osteuropa 4/2013, pp. 29–40)