More on Traditionalism in Hungary

There is a good discussion of Traditionalism in Hungary in a new book on Modern Hungarian Political Thought: Ideologies and Traditions by Zoltán Balázs and Csaba Molnár (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024). It comes in a chapter on “National Radicalism, Radical Conservatism, National Socialism and Traditionalism,” available here. Traditionalism is discussed along with these other trends because they are all to the right of moderate or classical conservatism. 

Traditionalism is introduced first in general terms, and then in the Hungarian context. “Much as elsewhere in Europe,” write Balázs and Molnár, “traditionalism in Hungary was never a serious political movement. However, it can boast some fascinating intellectuals.” They then discuss these: the Dialogical School of Béla Tábor (1907–1992) and Lajos Szabó (1902–1967), who attacked modernity in their Vádirat a szellem ellen (Indictment Against the Spirit, 1936), and whose group Béla Hamvas (1897–1968), discussed in earlier posts here and here, joined. 

Then we have András László (born 1984) and Tibor Imre Baranyi (born 1967), also discussed in posts already linked, and their influence on recent politics. Balázs and Molnár conclude: “In its early phase, some important politicians of… Jobbik, including its previous chairman, Gábor Vona, were heavily influenced by these traditionalist tenets. However… it has been radical conservatism… that has been the most successful in absorbing certain traditionalist arguments, mostly the modernity-criticizing ones.” It would be interesting to see this second argument more fully developed.

Between Hamvas in the first generation and László and Baranyi today, Balázs and Molnár insert Thomas Molnar (1921-2010), an American philosopher of Hungarian origin who became popular in Hungary after 1989 and who they also class as a Traditionalist. Molnar is certainly close to Guénon’s Traditionalism as an anti-modernist who regrets desacralization, values esotericism, and condemns occultism as a modern confusion, and he cites Guénon as well as Mircea Eliade and Titus Burckhardt, but his focus is mostly that of the mainstream American Right, certainty in his earlier years, before he moved in the direction of Alain de Benoist. He seems not close enough to Guénon to be classed as a Traditionalist, but I may be wrong.