HUNGARY | Fascist icon dies

Source: AP Monday, 6 February 2012, 13:33

Istvan Csurka, a Hungarian anti-Soviet dissident playwright and later far-right nationalist politician who was criticised at home and abroad for his antisemitic articles, has died aged 77.

Often compared to France’s xenophobic National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, Csurka opposed Hungary’s membership in NATO and the European Union, but his political activities dwindled after a stinging defeat in the 2006 elections. Still, he kept writing vitriolic articles in his Magyar Forum publications. Just weeks ago, he spoke at a rally in the southern city of Szeged in defense of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government, which has been severely criticised by the European Union for laws curtailing civil liberties and upsetting the democratic system of checks and balances. Csurka also hit the headlines late last year when his nomination – later withdrawn – as artistic director of a Budapest theatre was criticised in Hungary and abroad by theatre professionals and Jewish groups.

Last week, a letter from Csurka was read to the staff of the New Theatre in Budapest by Gyorgy Dorner, who recently took over as director, in which he asked members of the theatre to work together in harmony despite their political differences. One of Csurka’s last works, The Sixth Coffin, a play about Trianon, the post-World War I treaty which forced Hungary to give up two-thirds of its territories and half its population, is planned to be staged at the theatre later in 2012.

Born in Budapest on March 27, 1934, Csurka wrote more than 20 plays, some satirising the Communist regime and especially former dictator Janos Kadar, and published many volumes of essays and short stories. His newspaper and magazine articles often blamed Jews and international powers for Hungary’s problems. After the 1956 anti-Soviet Revolution, he spent six months in an internment camp for leading a college militia during the uprising. During his detention, Csurka was recruited as an informant for Hungary’s secret police. but eventually declared unfit for the task because of his refusal to cooperate. Hungary’s cultural authorities twice silenced Csurka, first in 1972 for antisemitic and subversive statements and then in 1986.

While on tour in the United States, he published an article in the emigré press dealing with the plight of ethnic Hungarian minorities living in Hungary’s neighbouring countries for which he was given a year’s ban. Csurka was a founding member of the Hungarian Democratic Forum, a conservative party that led the first post-Communist government in 1990-1994.

He was expelled from the party in 1993 and later formed the nationalist Hungarian Justice and Life Party, which was in Parliament between 1998 and 2002.