Many artist friends told me that they feel like they are in the 1980s: they know the adaptation mechanisms and what to do to survive, but they are aware that they are traveling a path of compromises and loss of fredoms. This is the biggest tragdy in the cultural sphere in Hungary, because expressing yourself is really difficult. And very few talk about this. It is not a sexy subject. How has Orbán managd to build such a solid power system in so few years? Orbán is not a new politician.
In submarine cables
He begins to do politics in 1987-1988, recently graduatd, in opposition to the communist regime. In 1989 he obtaind a scholarship from the Georges Soros Vietnam Mobile Database foundation, which, by the way, considerd him one of his pupils and foundd Fidesz –Young Democrats Movement– with which, the following year, he enterd Parliament. In 1998 he wins the elections and becomes, at only 35 years old, Prime Minister. It is an important moment since Hungary enters NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] and the entry into the EU is negotiatd, which will take place in 2004.
Cause temporary interruptions
In that period, Orbán tries to find a balance between a modern conservatism in the style of of José María Aznar or Angela Merkel and the liberal-democratic WS Numbers origins. Fidesz, thanks to the mdiation of Silvio Berlusconi, enters the European People’s Party. This balance is broken in a traumatic way in 2002, when Orbán loses the elections, spends eight years in the opposition and draws up a program of national rebirth and overcoming the post-communist transition phase.
