The report ’Hungary Turns its Back on Europe. Dismantling Culture, Education, Science and the Media in Hungary 2010–2019’ informs the Hungarian and international public as well as European institutions about the severe harm that the Orbán regime has caused in the fields of education, science, culture, and the media since 2010.

It has been compiled by independent Hungarian intellectuals that organized themselves in the Hungarian Network of Academics – an autonomous organisation of professors and teachers in higher education that wish to stand up against the force with which the Hungarian government is transforming and destroying culture, education, research and the media since 2010.

Basically, according to the authors of the book, the government always proceeds the same way: It undermines existing institutions by cutting off all references to them and covering them with media campaigns. At the same time, new institutions are being set up, which are characterised by maximum loyalty to the government and are awarded high budgets.

Since the publication of the report, further serious restrictive steps have been taken against the independence of culture, education and media. In the summer, Index, the probably largest independent news portal was taken over by the goverment. The Orbán regime has started to ’privatize’ higher education which in fact means loss of autonomy and full governmental control over universities. Late in summer 2020, the University of Theatre and Film Arts bravely defied the measures. Students occupied the buildings and held out till their sit-in protest was brought to end by the COVID-19 restrictions. Yet resistence continues in different forms. The „European Alliance of Academies” supports the Hungarian Network of Academics in their continous work to bring the described mechanisms to a braoder European public and attention.

You can download the report here.

From 24-25 November, our alliance partner, Círculo de Bellas Artes de Madrid, proposes a debate on the freedom of artistic expression and creation.

Under the title CensuradXs, the illustrator Flavita Banana, a regular contributor to El País, will hold a dialogue with the students of the SUR School on their creation process, (self)censorship, the limits of art, transgression and their own trajectory.

The conversation can be followed openly both on the web and on the YouTube channel of the Círculo de Bellas Artes on Tuesday 24 November at 7 p.m.

Due to its special history, the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities knows how precious and often hard-won freedom for art and science is. The gift of freedom can quickly be lost if all those who need freedom as much as the air we breathe do not unite and support each other. Only in a free, open Europe without borders science and art are free as well. Because we are willing to defend this gift of freedom in our own country, we stand alongside all those academies and institutions that want to speak up for it. And we are looking forward to the encounters and contacts in this community.

Jerzy Janiszewski, a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk, created in 1980 the logo of the universal social movement „SOLIDARITY“, that initiated the process of building the community, also the European one. Art and Science are the best forms of communication between individuals, communities and nations. Fryderyk Chopin, Roman Opałka and many other Polish artists were active not only in Poland but also abroad, throughout Europe, enriching its cultural heritage. Art and Science know no boundaries and no limitations. To develop, we must act in friendly conditions, in the atmosphere of trust and complete freedom. We create a great community of Artists and Scientists. We should jointly and severally strengthen it for the sake of our countries and the sake of Europe.

Krzysztof Polkowski – September 2020
The painter born in 1958. He lives and works in Poland. Rector of the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk.

The institutions that committed to the alliance come from almost every country of the European Union – a strong signal that the need for this solidarity-based cooperation is high. The partner institutions include reknown art academies, national actors of cultural politics but also smaller cultural institutions.

More than 60 institutions expressed their commitment over the last months, among them: the Royal Academy of Arts, Széchenyi Academy of Letters and Arts, L’Accademia dei Lincei, Real Academia Española and Académie Goncourt as well as the Centre Pompidou, the Onassis Cultural Center, Villa Decius and many more.

Particularly in the light of the corona pandemic, it is important for almost all institutions to use the alliance to improve European cohesion in times of crisis and to raise political and social awareness of the importance of art and culture for a functioning democracy.