Éva is 26 and working towards her masters in business administration. Although she hails from the same corner of the country as the prime minister, and even attended his old alma mater, she is not a fan of Viktor Orbán’s politics. Quite the contrary in fact. Éva has been attending rallies since high school, and does not plan on stopping anytime soon. Her roommates and friends are like her, and though they do not make a big deal of their political affiliation, they are very Eurocentric. They feel as comfortable speaking English and German as they do Hungarian, knowing they make mistakes, and are open to locals and foreigners alike. Many, Éva included, have family and friends who moved abroad, who have clearly settled down in Germany, or the UK, and though Éva likes being abroad and hates domestic politics to the point of being physically sick after the elections, she won’t leave.
“I’m Hungarian,” she states. “This is my home.”
It is not so much a nationalistic pride as one driven by necessity. At least from Éva’s point of view.
“I tried living abroad,” she explains. “I spent a year of my bachelor degree in Norway. But I came back. Because I realized that when all’s said and done, I am after all Hungarian.”
To Éva this is less to do with national feeling than practical aspects: family and friends, knowing how things work, and — an important aspect for her — the humor, being able to create a punchline from shared experience, something she really missed abroad.
Éva is not alone. There is a relatively small, yet not insignificant, number of teens who opt to stay put, despite either not caring for the government, or shrugging their shoulders when it comes to politics. They all agree on one thing: they will continue their education in Hungary and lay down roots for the next generation. For many of them it comes down to family.
“My family is here,” Szonja explains. “My friends, my dog, and my cat. I can’t imagine leaving all that.”
Szonja is 17, at school, and looking at a career in the performing arts. Although once a week she attends a language academy specializing in preparing high school students for their life at a foreign university, she is one of the few students on the program whose goal consists of solely working on language skills, rather than tying the language to life abroad.
“I couldn’t perform in another language,” she claims. “I couldn’t express myself.”
Her statement is as much of a testimony to the Hungarian inferiority complex, as it is to the Hungarian system of education. By those standards, her German is excellent. Compared to her peers in Northern Europe, however, she is severely lacking. Rather than try to ameliorate her skills, she is happy with the way things are at present. Other than the weekly language course – driven by the need to pass the compulsory language exam necessary to obtain even a high school diploma — she does not engage with the language in her everyday life.
Hungarians, it would seem, are by nature predisposed to keep things as they are and stay in one place, defying the founding legend of the country whereby brave men rode into the Carpathian Basin from the East, and decided to stay put. Weekends are spent with your partner and offspring on Saturday and either of the children’s grandparents on Sunday in the full knowledge that grandmother will make a killer meal. Christmas — arguably the most important holiday for a Hungarian — is split up the same way: close family on Christmas Eve (the most important of the three days), then visits with relatives according to their hierarchical status within the nuclear family. On average there seems to be a general acceptance of step-siblings, and patchwork families are the norm rather than the exception. One could argue that this either stems from conservative values espoused by the current government, or a deep distrust thereof, but it has always been like that. Partners living with one set of parents won’t raise an eyebrow, and many cite family members as the only source they can trust and rely on for help.
Csaba is a good example of the latter. At the age of 32, he is established in life, working as a language teacher at a prestigious establishment. In Scandinavia his language skills would never have gotten him past the door. In Hungary, however, he is head of the German department. Though his language skills are below intermediate level, he teaches all years and — without the slightest trace of deliberate exaggeration or self-irony — assesses his language level as, “quite excellent.” Like Éva and her friends, Csaba is politically active, they might even have met at political rallies. Though unlike the first group, he is very vocal about his participation, seeing himself as a freedom fighter whose next move might very well have him end up in prison or — at the very least — a holding cell. Csaba speaks five languages to various degrees, and before committing to life as a teacher also spent time abroad with his then girlfriend, now wife. Both are from privileged backgrounds, and other than family, his wife’s job is what’s keeping them in Hungary.
“We agreed that while my wife’s work continues to be as productive as now, we will stay in Hungary,” he states, adding that since they now have children, a move wouldn’t be possible.
“We have to rely on our parents, for babysitting and for general help,” are his words, before launching into an account of how hard it was abroad, not knowing the city they lived in, despite having friends.
Creatures of comfort and habit, or just that famous Hungarian pessimism. Whatever it is that keeps a significant chunk of the population from migrating West, there might just be a smidgen of hope that this group of people willing to forego the lure of milk and honey their peers are accused of seeking abroad will eventually end up making things better. Or will those very traits that are holding them here at present – along with the apathy felt all over the country, which has also always been there — prevent their desire to get things moving at home for a significant change, leaving things just as they were? Only time will tell.
Photo: Thomas Depenbusch/Creative Commons