Parliamentary democracy — a political system most averse to bringing strong personalities to power —occasionally throws up surprises. One such surprise was the “seventh in line” to the Marlborough dukedom: Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, writes Prof. Maciej Szymanowski for Do Rzeczy.
It would seem that Viktor Orbán—born in Alcsútdoboz (Hungarian for “Road by the Lower Boxes”), a village so small that even GPS maps can get lost and Wikipedia does not publish photos of this hamlet—is a figure from a different fairy tale. Unlike Winston Churchill, Hungary’s long-serving prime minister has not written his own autobiography—which is, in fact, the multi-volume “The Second World War,” for which the British leader received the Nobel Prize in Literature. Only three biographies of Viktor Orbán have been written—at very different times. Their authors (including one Pole) have one thing in common: they all unanimously shifted from a barely concealed fascination with the Hungarian prime minister’s personality to an equally poorly concealed aversion to him.
“The dictator,” who has won parliamentary elections without interruption since 2010, the fairness of which no international organization—including the European Union—has questioned.
“Putin’s best friend,” under whose rule Hungary was placed by the Kremlin on a blacklist of unfriendly states. “An anti-Semite,” whom Benjamin Netanyahu calls “my dearest friend,” expressing gratitude that Israeli teams have been able to play international matches in Hungarian stadiums for years.
Viktor Orbán was born in 1963 to young agricultural engineering students. He grew up in modest circumstances. To this day, he leads a modest life. Like many young Hungarians at the time, he was raised in the shadow of the “liberation” in 1945 and the Soviet suppression of the 1956 uprising—a subject few parents had the courage to discuss even with their own children, but absorbed incidentally from overheard adult conversations and half-uttered phrases spoken by teachers at school. Anti-communism absorbed with mother’s milk—one might say.
Viktor Orbán seen manhandled by communist police in 1988. Photo: Fortepan Judit Hegedus
Military service is when Viktor Orbán begins to take an interest in Polish history. He would later write his master’s thesis on the Polish anti-communist opposition. In March 1988, together with a group of friends studying law, he co-founded the political party Fidesz, whose honorary chairman would become a Polish historian from the Jagiellonian University and a legendary Tatra mountains courier during World War II—Prof. Wacław Felczak. It is widely believed that Viktor Orbán became a politician in June 1989, when, during the solemn funeral of the leaders of the 1956 uprising—who had previously been buried in a landfill—he publicly demanded the immediate withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungarian territory.
It seems, however, that Viktor Orbán’s first “stress test”, his true lesson in Realpolitik, came in 1994. It was then, fueled by public frustration over the high social costs of the transition, that the popularity of the Fidesz party first skyrocketed. A split occurs within Fidesz, and the party becomes the target of a massive negative media campaign. Instead of securing the expected 50 percent of the vote needed to take power, Fidesz barely clears the electoral threshold in 1994. This likely made the election victory four years later all the sweeter. All the more bitter was the victory in the 2002 elections, when, after four years of successful rule, Fidesz did indeed win the election, but the coalition of post-communists and SZDSZ liberals once again held the majority of seats in parliament.
First term in parliament in 1989. Photo: Fortepan Imre Prohaszka
At the time, the Hungarian press wrote extensively about the months-long depression Viktor Orbán was said to have fallen into because of this victory, which turned out to be a defeat. If the latter is true, then it was a “black dog” type of depression, as Churchill wrote in his book. All in all, the last thing his political opponents should pray for. For this is the time when Viktor Orbán is rebuilding Fidesz into a mass party with a membership base exceeding 100,000 people—a figure that remains impressive even by Polish standards to this day. The more than 100,000 people further encouraged by Viktor Orbán during his grueling travels across the country are members of the most diverse associations: from stamp collectors to anglers along the Danube or Tisza.
These are people who want nothing to do with politics, do not see themselves as belonging to any party, but are actively beginning to support Fidesz to defend their way of life.
At the same time, Viktor Orbán travels extensively, inviting people from the worlds of science, business, media, and, of course, politics to meetings that last for hours. In reality, we do not know much about these meetings because the Hungarian prime minister hardly ever mentions them. If it were not for Donald Trump’s “loquaciousness,” we would not know that the two men regularly speak by phone once a month about the European Union.
Delivering a public speech in 1990. Photo: Fortepan Imre Prohaszka
Returning for a moment to the days when Fidesz was in opposition, it is impossible not to mention the suppression of anti-government demonstrations on the streets of Budapest and other major Hungarian cities in the fall of 2006. Some of those persecuted at the time, who expected to be arrested and who today often hold high-ranking government positions, fled abroad, including to Poland, where they were granted guarantees of safety, employment, and various scholarships. Especially from today’s perspective, the year 2006 also seems significant in that that it was then that a group of young Hungarian lawyers, including Judit Varga—who later served as Minister of Justice for many years—and her then-husband Péter Magyar, now a candidate for prime minister and the main leader of the anti-Orbán opposition, became involved in defending the persecuted by providing pro bono legal assistance.
The year 2010 was a time of triumph for Fidesz and Viktor Orbán himself. A two-thirds majority in parliament, with a full slate of bills, paved the way for numerous structural reforms in the country. Despite the state’s catastrophic financial situation—from which Viktor Orbán led the country out in less than two years, or perhaps thanks to it. Herein lies the answer to the question of why, in the years that followed, Hungarians were so eager to cast their votes for Fidesz and its leader.
In the shift from a policy of “there is no money and there will be none” to a policy of lower taxes , higher incomes, and major investments. But also in creating the conditions to build a new middle class. Religious communities—Roman Catholic, Lutheran, or Calvinist (to which Viktor Orbán himself belongs)—along with 20,000 newly established non-governmental organizations, enjoy the rights and freedoms of the free world—one might say. This “free world,” such as the EU, which simultaneously allocates funds for SAFE—apparently only to immediately refuse to disburse them—and has imposed a total of approximately 1.5 billion euros in fines for Hungary’s refusal to open its territory to illegal immigrants.
Viktor Orbán is, even in today’s turbulent times, is able to walk into a crowd without any security. Just like his children, who took the subway or commuter train to their university classes. There is currently no leader in Europe who would spend an hour or two answering questions without any censorship whatsoever. Orbán suffers from a condition typical of intelligent people—he is an introvert. When he speaks more openly, these are truly exceptional situations, usually in front of young people, students, for example, during the Summer University in Transylvania.
In 2026, at the age of 62, he runs for office once again. With a severe knee injury, which he paid for with obesity and likely problems using the balls (three of them) and other sports gear gifted by Prime Minister Donald Tusk. There is no indication that he is struggling with his age. Five children, six grandchildren, and a wife who, essentially acting as a human shield, led a large humanitarian convoy to Ukraine in March 2022—these undoubtedly provide this politician with a level of support that many others in Europe can only envy.
The Hungarian Prime Minister has failed to normalize relations with Kyiv in earlier years. Today, few remember that as soon as Ukraine declared independence, Hungary established diplomatic relations on the very same day, opened an embassy in Kyiv a few days later—the first European country to do so—and even played the first international match (soccer). Relations with Belgrade, Bratislava, and Bucharest are the best they have been in decades. Relations with Vienna and Zagreb are also good. Who knows if, were it not for the large-scale financial aid provided to Balkan countries such as Serbia, Bosnia, and Herzegovina, this corner of Europe—now forgotten by the rest of the world—would still be enjoying peace?
The statistics on Viktor Orbán’s visits to the Balkans over the past decade speak for themselves. Three to one in favor of the Hungarian prime minister, compared to visits by the head of the European Commission and the prime ministers of Berlin and Paris combined…
Viktor Orbán’s master stroke, the 2024 establishment of the Patriots for Europe alliance that is supplementing the continuously faltering Visegrad 4 alliance. Photo: Facebook Viktor Orbán
The parliamentary elections on April 12 will primarily answer the question of whether the vote on the Danube will have more in common with the one in Romania or with Poland in 2025. Will the techniques of social polarization and the seizure of power, so perfectly described by Saul Alinsky, triumph in yet another European Union country?
Originally published in Do Rzeczy. The author is a lecturer at the Center for Eastern European Studies at the University of Warsaw.
Featured Image: Facebook Viktor Orbán
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