Budapest in focus: a special report on the battle for contemporary culture in Orbán’s Hungary

Since the rise of Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán and his far-right Fidesz party, Budapest has seen a shift in its politics and society, and the creation of an environment in which progressive values are scorned and creative expression treated with suspicion.

Several years into a youth brain drain, and with an increasingly fractured relationship with the EU, uncertain times lie ahead. Against this backdrop, can Budapest’s progressive citizens forge a cultural landscape in its own image — open and inclusive, forward-thinking and international? And if it can, will it last?