As Hungary votes, memories of a mythical past loom large
The crowd is rapturous, as Hungarian far-right rocker János Petrás strides onto the stage, launching into the song he starts all of his concerts with lately, “Soldiers of Hungary.”
He rouses the audience with his lyrics, calling on Hungarians – real Hungarians, meaning white and Christian – to get on their feet and defend a nation pitted against “half the world.”
Many of his fans know the words by heart and sing along, joining him in choruses about “freedom” for the “homeland” and the “holy land.” Sweat drips down his face. Fists pump in the air.
Mr. Petrás has penned 186 disparate songs for his band Kárpátia, but all of them are essentially about one thing: “Loving the homeland,” he says in an interview before the concert, held in a ho-hum community center in this nondescript town outside Budapest. And for him there is no doubt about it: His homeland is under threat. “Europe is a Christian continent, a Christian place, and it is under attack by migrants, and also by the liberal point-of-view.”
There are no campaign posters here for Hungary’s parliamentary elections, set for Sunday, but this may as well be a political rally for incumbent Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. These
Christianity and xenophobia‘Open society’A history of loss‘We have to talk about these questions’