Balázs Hankó

Minister, Ministry of Culture and Innovation

He graduated from the Ignác Török High School in Gödöllő and then from the Faculty of Pharmacy of Semmelweis Medical University, where he obtained a PhD degree Summa cum Laude in 2005. Over the years, he has obtained specialist qualifications in pharmaceutical management, administration, pharmaceutical supply, hospital-clinical pharmacy, and pharmaceutical nursing.

He started his career as a junior pharmacist at the Institute of Pharmaceutical Management of Semmelweis University of Medical Sciences, later heading a department, becoming chief pharmacist there, and then Deputy Rector for Strategy and Development. In addition to being a professional administrator and organisational developer, he also has two decades of teaching experience and obtained a university professor’s degree in 2023.

From 2010 to 2014, he was a pharmaceutical advisor to the State Secretariat for Health within the Ministry of National Resources, then the Ministry of Human Resources. From 2011 to 2016, he served as an advisor to the Director General of Pharmacy at the Institute for Pharmacy, Health Quality and Organisational Development, then the State Health Care Centre.

From 2020 to 2022, he was Deputy State Secretary for Higher Education at the Ministry of Innovation and Technology, then at the Ministry of Culture and Innovation, and from December 2022, State Secretary for Higher Education, Innovation, Vocational Training and Adult Education.

He has been Minister of Culture and Innovation since 1 July 2024.

He is married and father of four children.

Mária Schmidt

Széchenyi Prize-winning Professor of History, Director General, The Institute of the Twenty first Century

She graduated from the Faculty of Humanities of Eötvös Loránd University with a degree in History and German Studies. She obtained her doctorate in 1985 and her PhD in 1999. From 1996, she worked as an adjunct professor at Pázmány Péter Catholic University; then, from 2000, as an associate professor, and from 2010 to 2024 as a professor. In 2005 she was awarded the title of "habilitated doctor". In 1985 she won a three-year research grant from the MTA-Soros Foundation to study the 20th century history of Hungarian Jewry. She also held multiple post-graduate fellowships and was a visiting lecturer at the Universities of Vienna, Innsbruck, Oxford, Paris, the Technische Universität Zentrum für Antisemitismusforschung in Berlin, Tel Aviv, the Jad-Vashem in Jerusalem, the University of Bloomington in New York, and the Hoover Institution in Stanford, with the support of the MTA-Soros Foundation. From 1998 to 2002, she served as Senior Advisor to the Prime Minister. At present, she is the Director General of the 20th Century Institute, the 21st Century Institute, and the House of Terror Museum. From 2002 to 2013, she was a trustee of the Ettersberg Foundation, an international foundation for comparative research on 20th-century European dictatorships and democratic transitions. Since 1999, she has been on the Board of the Public Foundation of Research on Central and Eastern European History and Society, and since 2008, has been a member of the Board of Experts of the House of European History project. Since that very year, she has chaired the Board of the Media Union, while since 2015, she has been a permanent member of the Gulag Memorial Committee. She is also a founding member of the Women for Hungary Club, established in 2018. In addition, she served as Government Commissioner responsible for coordinating the commemoration of the 1956 Revolution and War of Independence and co-chaired the commemoration committee from 2015 to 2017. She was a member of the Scientific Council of the Institute for the Investigation into the Crimes of Communism and for keeping the Memory of Romanian Exiles Alive (IICCMER) from 2013 to 2018. Main research interests: history of Hungarian Jewry from 1918, dictatorships in the 20th century, history of Hungary under dictatorships. So far, she has published twelve books, the latest one went to print in 2022. She has received numerous national and international awards in recognition of her work, including the Széchenyi Prize in 2014. In 2023 she was awarded the civil section of the Hungarian Order of Merit with the Star. In 2024 she received the Pro Facultate Award of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of Pázmány Péter Catholic University.

András Lánczi

Széchenyi Prize-winning philosopher, Political scientist, Chairman of the Board of the Foundation for the Research of Central and Eastern European History and Society, Head of the MCC European Center of Political Philosophy

András Lánczi (1956) is a university professor, former Rector of Budapest’s Corvinus University (2016-2021), former Director of the Institute of Political Science. Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Századvég Foundation (2011-2016). He was awarded the Hungarian Cross of the Order of Merit in 2012 and the Széchenyi Prize in 2022. His main research interests are political philosophy, the epistemology of political science, politics and moral philosophy, political theology, and theoretical problems of conservatism. He is the author, editor, and translator of numerous volumes. His most recent publications are Political Redemption (2023), The Polemic between Antiques and Moderns (2019), Political Realism and Wisdom (2015), On Political Knowledge (2012), Legacy of Fate (2009), Political Philosophy of the 20th Century (2007), Utopia as a Tradition (2005). He has been chair of the Board of the Foundation for the Research of Central and Eastern European History and Society since 2023.

Colin Wright

Evolutionary biologist

Colin Wright is an evolutionary biologist, a Manhattan Institute fellow, and CEO / Editor -in-Chief of Reality’s Last Stand. He writes mainly about science, the biology of sex and sex differences, and gender identity ideology. His writing has been published in major news outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, the New York Post, Quillette, and others.

Awards:

• The Pennsylvania State University (State College, PA): Eberly Research Postdoctoral Fellowship (2018 - 2020) National Science Foundation: NSF Graduate Research Fellow (2015 - 2018): $102,000 stipend total over 3 years
• UC Santa Barbara (Santa Barbara, CA): Charles A. Storke Graduate Fellowship Award (2017): $2,500 (awarded for outstanding academic and research record).
• University of Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh, PA): Mary P. Edmonds Award (2014): awarded for the publication of an outstanding research paper

Academic publication: Hilton, E.N. and Wright, C.M. “Two Sexes.” In Sex and Gender, pp. 16-34. Routledge (2023).

Francesco Giubilei

President, Fondazione Tatarella

Francesco Giubilei is an Italian publisher, columnist and conservative writer. He is president of the think tank Nazione Futura and Fondazione Tatarella. He writes for the newspaper “Il Giornale” and he published ten books translated in the USA, Spain, Hungary, Serbia. He is adjunct professor at the Università Giustino Fortunato of Benevento and he has been a special advisor for the Italian Minister of Culture and a member of the Scientific Committee on the Future of Europe of the Italian government. He was recently appointed scientific director of “Fondazione Alleanza Nazionale”, the main political foundation of the Italian right.

László L. Simon

Attila József Prize-winning writer, a politician specialising in cultural affairs

Born in 1972 in Székesfehérvár, he graduated from the Faculty of Humanities of ELTE. From 2011 to 2014, he served as President of the National Cultural Fund, in 2012-2013, as State Secretary for Culture at the Ministry of Human Resources, and for several years, as Chairman of the Culture and Press Committee of the National Assembly. For two years, he served as State Secretary at the Prime Minister's Office, where he was mainly involved in cultural heritage protection. In 2021, he served as Ministerial Commissioner for the Renewal of the Hungarian National Museum and the Integration of Museums in Hungary; and from 2021 to 2023, he was Director General of the National Museum. He is a corresponding member of the Hungarian Academy of Arts. He has published 16 books and numerous other works.

Dorottya Baczoni

Historian, Director, The Institute of the Twentieth Century

She received her B.A. degree in History and French from the Faculty of Humanities of Eötvös Loránd University, and then in International Studies from the Faculty of Social Sciences of Corvinus University. From 2012 to 2014, she completed her Master's degree in History at the Department of Modern Hungarian History, ELTE BTK. She started working at the House of Terror Museum in 2009 as an assistant historian, becoming thereafter, a historian and then a group-leader historian. Since 2019, she has worked again as a historian and editor at the Public Foundation for the Research of Central and Eastern European History and Society. Since 2021, she has been Director of The Institute of the Twentieth Century .

Rajmund Fekete

Historian, Expert on America, Director, The Institute for the Research of Communism

Born in 1987 in Hatvan, he graduated from the University of Debrecen with a bachelor's and master's degree in history - history of international relations, and in 2021 received a PhD degree in history with summa cum laude honours from Pázmány Péter Catholic University. He is a fellow of the ICD (2009) in Berlin and CEPA (2018) in Washington, D.C. In 2020, he was a doctoral fellow at the Lajos Batthyány Foundation, and in 2021, he was a visiting scholar at the Institute for American Studies of the National University of Public Service. From 2022 on, he was a research fellow at the Institute. In the same year, he was awarded the Young Researcher Fellowship of the American Association of Hungarian Academics. From 2010, he was a press officer at the Ministry of Public Administration and Justice, where he served, from 2012, as a Head of Department. From 2019 to 2022, he was Communications Director and then advisor to the World Wildlife and Natural Heritage Exhibition "One with Nature". From 2022 to 2023, Communications Director of the Sándor Palace. Currently, he is the Director of The Institute for the Research of Communism.

Gábor Megadja

Historian of ideas, Director of the Századvég Institute for Policy Studies

Gábor Megadja (1985) is a historian of ideas, director of the Századvég Institute for Political Thought, and holds a PhD in political science from the Faculty of Law and Political Science of ELTE University. He has published three books to date, The Hegemony of Utopia (2014), The Reactionary Warriors of Freedom (2019), and Defiance: A Handbook for Heretics (2020).

Gábor Csepregi

MCC Visiting Lecturer, Advisor to the Leadership Academy

Currently a visiting scholar at St. Paul's College, University of Manitoba, Canada. He is past president of the Université de Saint-Boniface (Winnipeg) and the Dominican University College (Ottawa). He is the author of The Clever Body and In Vivo: A Phenomenology of Life-Defining Moments. His most recent book, Attitudes of Play was published in 2022 by McGill-Queen's University Press. He holds a master's degree in theology and a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Laval, Quebec City. Before his academic career, he was an Olympic-level water polo player and coach. He is a consultant at the MCC Leadership Academy.

Márton Békés

Historian, Political scientist, Director, The Institute of the Twenty first Century

Márton Békés PhD (1983, Szombathely) is a historian and political scientist, He graduated from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of Budapest’s Loránd Eötvös University. From 2009 to 2014 he worked as a broadcaster for HírTV, then, from 2010 to 2014, as editor of the Jobbklikk website. He has published eight independent and three co-authored volumes and edited fourteen. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Kommentár Foundation and the Foundation for Hungarian Culture. He lives with his family in Budapest.

Zsolna Ugron

Writer, Journalist, Artistic Director of the Imre Kertész Institute

Zsolna Ugron, an Attila József and Mihály Táncsics Prize-winning writer and journalist was born in Kolozsvár (Cluj-Napoca); and graduated in Law and Political Science from Pázmány Péter University in Budapest. Worked for Tv2 and then for Hungarian Television as an entertainment editor, producer, news editor, producer-reporter of programmes on domestic and foreign politics, and then as a communications consultant for MOL.

Her first novel, Gentlegirls in Transylvania, was published in 2010 and topped the Hungarian bestseller lists for months. The first volume of her historical novel series, A Wedding in Transylvania, was published in 2013, followed by the second volume of the Gentlegirls trilogy, The Viceroy’s Women (2014). Both novels topped the sales rankings for weeks. Her short novel about Erzsébet Szilágyi, entitled Raven Woman was published in the autumn of 2016.

In 2021, she published a collection of short stories entitled Not One Man Around, illustrated with her own drawings.

She is the scriptwriter and co-director of several documentaries. Her documentaries "The Last Grand Dame" and "Free, as nature" are mainly historical portraits. She is the writer-presenter of the programmes "Gold of Golds" and "Petőfi, the Traveller in Love".

Her gastronomic programme Kastély a Kárpátokban (A Castle in the Carpathians) has become one of the most successful cuisine shows in Hungary. Her recipe book Seven Seasons was published in 2013.  She is a regular contributor to multiple magazines.

She is the editor and presenter of the television portrait series Nagyok (The Great) for Duna Television and serves as the artistic director of the Imre Kertész Institute.

Oszkár Horváth

Producer, Broadcaster

Oszkár Horváth, (born in 1979) is a radio presenter and software developer. He graduated in economics from Corvinus University of Budapest, is a member of Mensa HungarIQa since 2003. In the online space, he has created or run 20 different blogs since 1999, four of which have won awards (Weekly Spelling, Bünti Social Roundtable Blog, Modorosblog, B-side Music Magazine).His work has won awards in the Website of the Year competition in the government category (former emagyarorszag.hu), at the ITB Berlin (Best European Exhibitor Award: Hungarian Stand) and participated in the conceptual design of the Hungarian pavilion at EXPO2020 in Dubai. Given his Buddhist inclinations, coupled with his belief in the principles of Western culture and freedom, he observes public affairs from outside and away from extremes, through the intention-mindset-passion-thought-word-deeds chain, as well as in light of cause-and-effect, motivation, behavioural culture and human factors. His daily radio show with Robert Puzsér, entitled Arbitrary Authoritative, has been running since 2015 and is one of the leading podcasts in the country. He can alse bee seen in event series and television programmes such as Sniper of the Week, Snobjective, Cool Live and Clash 2.

"Kovi" István Kovács

Four-time porn Oscar-winning producer, Director

Born on 24 January 1957 in Budapest, he grew up in a middle-class family.

After primary school, he graduated from the István Széchenyi High School in 1975. Thereafter, he worked as an investment clerk at OVIT, a subsidiary of MVM.

He was conscripted into the army in 1979 and served as a passport officer at Ferihegy airport.

„I got married in 1981 and have been happily married to my dear wife ever since. We have no children”, he writes.

After completing military service, he worked as a freelance photojournalist for various outlets, including the Sunday News, until he had a serious knee infection during an unfortunate operation, in 1990. He has been handicapped ever since.

He then became a producer and director for LUXx Video. During the 23 years of his filmmaking career, he was awarded 4 Academy Awards for Adult Films (AVN) and a total of 28 national and international prizes.

Since 2016 he has worked as an independent product consultant. „My experience has led me to help people who want to live a healthy life”, he writes in his autobiography.

László Szabó

Communications expert

László Szabó, a versatile creative and communication specialist graduated in 1994 in transport engineering, in 1996 in administrative management, and received his PhD in aviation sciences. From 1999 to 2002, he served as Deputy State Secretary for Youth.

He has been running his communications agency since 2002 and has led numerous successful campaigns and events. He has hosted several talks and talk shows on theatre, sports, and public affairs.

Since 2016 he has been the creative producer of the M4 Sport - Sportsman of the Year Gala. He has directed and/or produced Football Festivals, the Opening Gala of the Budapest Wrestling World Championship, and the Hungarian Theatre Awards Gala.

He is also President of the Hungarian Paralympic Committee and the Hungarian Chess Federation, while Vice-President of BEAC. He has been doing sports since childhood and is currently a registered football player.

Bence Rétvári

Deputy Minister, Ministry of the Interior

Born in Budapest in 1979, he graduated from the Piarist High School in Budapest in 1998. In 2008, he passed the bar exam, after which he worked as a clerk in a law firm, then as a solicitor, and as a lawyer.

From 2002 to 2011, he was President of the Young Christian Democratic Alliance (IKSZ) and then Vice-Chairman of the Christian Democratic People's Party (KDNP).

From 2006 to 2010, he was a member of the Budapest City Council. Since 2008, he has served as a Member of Parliament. From 2010 to 2014, he was Parliamentary State Secretary at the Ministry of Public Administration and Justice.

From 2014 to 2022, Parliamentary State Secretary and Deputy Minister of Human Resources.

Since 2022, Parliamentary State Secretary and Deputy Minister of the Interior.

Bence Rétvári is married and a father of four children.

Zoltán Szalai, PhD

Director General of MCC, Cultural Historian

Dr. Zoltán Szalai is the Director General of Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC) and Director of Mandiner, a weekly newspaper. He studied at the universities of Budapest, Pécs, and Heidelberg; graduated from ELTE with a degree in German Language and Literature and a Master's degree in Human Resources Counselling from the University of Pécs. He is the editor and author of numerous books and studies in Hungarian, German, and English.

Obianuju Ekeocha

Author, Speaker and Biomedical Scientist

Obianuju Ekeocha is a Nigerian biomedical scientist living and working in the United Kingdom. She has also worked tirelessly, in the last decade, for the promotion of a Culture of Life in Africa and campaigned for an end to ideological neocolonialism. This has set her apart as an internationally acclaimed pro-life speaker, strategist and author. She is the author of Target Africa: Ideological Neocolonialism of the Twenty-First Century. Obianuju has advised many legislators, diplomats and religious leaders in more than 20 countries around the world. Her passion is to continue to work in defense of the sanctity and dignity of life within Culture.

PaweŁ Lisicki

Journalist, Essayist, Writer, Editor - in - chief of Do Rzeczy

Paweł Lisicki (born 1966) journalist, essayist, writer, editor-in-chief of Do Rzeczy. In the years 2006-2011 he was the editor-in-chief of national-wide daily paper “Rzeczpospolita”. The founder and the first editor-in-chief of the weekly Uważam rze (2011). In 2013, he founded the Do Rzeczy magazine, currently one of the largest and most influential conservative magazines in Poland. He is its editor-in-chief and co-editor and co-owner. Author of numerous collections of essays, history, religion and philosophy books. All his books caused disputes, polemics and discussions in Poland. He is  the winner of a few journalistic and literary awards. Some of his books were translated into French, Hungarian and Czech. He regulary takes part in radio and television feature programmes.

Jan Bentz, PhD

Professor of Philosophy, MCC guest lecturer

Dr. Jan C. Bentz (1986) was born and raised in Germany and holds a doctorate in Philosophy (PhD) from the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum (Rome, Italy) and a Masters in Sacred Art, Architecture, and Liturgy and a Masters in Church and Religious studies. Dr. Bentz is a Lecturer and Tutor at Blackfriars Studium (Blackfriars Hall) in Oxford. Past employment included an adjunct professorship at the Catholic University of America’s Rome program, a visiting professorship at Christendom College’s Rome Program, and teaching for IES Study Abroad in Rome. Prof. Bentz regularly contributes to The European Conservative and has worked as video producer for EWTN and contributed written work for Catholic News Agency, Jüdische Rundschau, Zenit, and H2O News in the past. His fields of expertise include Metaphysics, History of Philosophy, Thomism, and Philosophy of Art focusing on Christian Sacred Art. His philosophical research focus is philosophy of being, 17th and 18th-century German idealism, Thomism, Utopia, and Transhumanism. He most recently edited a dedicatory book on Thomas Molnar.

Orsolya Bajusz

Researcher, Lecturer

Orsolya Bajusz tries to understand and apply the frontiers of contemporary art. She studied visual communication, media studies, fine arts, philosophy, and sociology. In search of the meaning and relevance of studying art and posthuman media theory, she spent years in London’s creative industry and then in the pseudo-civic milieu that serves as a hinterland to politics in Hungary. She regularly publishes works of art critique, has been a visiting scholar at Louisiana State University, and has been involved in research software development at Birkbeck College. He has been a lecturer at Budapest Corvinus University. She now teaches a course at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design (Visual Research Methodology and Art Research), as well as design courses and consultations. She is an adjunct professor at the University of Tokaj-Hegyalja, teaching courses in art and visual communication. Her PhD thesis is on the interface between science communication and contemporary art, while her first book (The Rat King, a theory-fiction) will be published in 2024. His work has been featured in various constellations (including fictional names) - Museumsquartier Vienna, Kunsthalle Bratislava, Calafou, various European galleries and festivals, the International Sociological Association (ISA) annual forum, the South by Southwest festival, Vice magazine, Opendemocracy, Kunstforum, Hungarian mainstream press and political tabloids, English and Hungarian language academic journals - and has served as inspiration for juridical studies. She is currently in the process of studying mineral collectors and designing an educational trail illustrating geological energies.

Zsófia Fodor-Horváth

Psychologist

In her work as a psychologist, she is particularly involved in bereavement counselling, which is not confined to accompanying clients after the death of a beloved person, but also includes helping people going through a divorce, a life cycle change, or a crisis. She graduated from the Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary (Chartered Psychologist), the Grief Recovery Institute (Grief Processing Method Specialist), Eötvös Loránd University (specialization in psycho-pedagogy and learning disabilities). She completed a joint training course in Political Communication Counselling at the Political School of the Századvég Foundation and the Budapest Metropolitan University.

She has worked in the field of addictology (HOPE Programme, OPAI Nyírő Gyula Hospital), as a journalist and project manager for the Political Psychology section of Mindset Psychological Magazine, as a diagnostician and therapist for the Pedagogical Service, and currently conducts private practice at the Psychonest private clinic. She is a regular participant in scientific conferences, as well as author of the Abuse Prevention Publication (FSZK - Public Nonprofit Ltd. for Equal Opportunities of Persons with Disabilities, Budapest, 2017), in addition to being on the Board of Trustees of the My Story Foundation.

Feró Nagy

Kossuth Prize-winning singer, Actor, Songwriter, Frontman of Beatrice and Original Bikini

He is a household name, being the frontman of Beatrice and having played roles in multiple rock operas. Feró has been one of the busiest and most popular performers in the music world for decades, both in Hungary and abroad.

In 1971, he joined the Beatrice band, previously known as a girl group. After they disbanded in 1977, he formed the classic and still famous Beatrice in 1978, of which he became the frontman. After their break-up in 1981, Feró founded Bikini Original, one of the most influential bands in Hungary’s alternative punk-rock culture. In 1987, the Beatrice band reunited, with several of their songs rewriting the top of the pop rankings.

Nagy Feró is credited with hits such as "8 hour day", "Those Happy, Beautiful Days", "Paddling Little Girl", "Before I Leave for Good", "Ice Cream" and "Come, Little Girl, Come".

In his Garage radio show, he offered help to young people facing problems and gave a public forum to amateur bands.

In 1989, he was awarded the State Youth Prize.

In 2016, he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Hungarian Order of Merit.

In 2017, the rock musical Ricse Ricse Beatrice, based on his biography, was staged by Új Színház.

In 2021, he was awarded the Kossuth Prize, the highest Hungarian state award acknowledging exceptional cultural achievements.

In 2023, Nagy Feró and Beatrice celebrated the band’s 45th birthday in an MVM Dome concert followed by a nationwide tour.

Levente Székely, PhD

Head of the MCC Youth Research Institute

Dr Levente Székely is a sociologist, PhD in Sociology, head of the Sociology Workshop at the Mathias Corvinus College School of Social Sciences and History, and director of the Youth Research Institute. He studied at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of ELTE and Budapest’s Corvinus University.

Previously, he worked as a researcher at the Centre for Information Society and Trend Research (ITTK) at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics. He has collaborated with renowned market research institutes, non-governmental research organisations, and ad-hoc research groups. For over a decade, he was Research Director of the Research Centre, responsible for managing about fifty, mostly market research projects yearly.

He took over the professional management of large-sample youth research in 2012. He led the 2012, 2016, and 2020 surveys. The most recent surveys were conducted with a representative sample of 12,000 young Hungarians aged 15 to 29, generating significant media coverage.

He is the author or co-author of more than 100 scientific publications (journal articles, book chapters, reports) and has presented several conference papers, mainly on youth and information society. His most recent monograph is Grey Swans. [Székely, L. (2020).  ISBN 978-615-81136-1-8]

Research interests: media consumption, new media, information society, youth, generations, education, cultural consumption, financial culture, NGOs.

István 'Koko' Kovács

Olympic, World and European boxing champion

Born on 17 August 1970 in Budapest, he got into sports at a young age: he started boxing in 1985 in the 10th district of Budapest. Three years later, he won the European junior championship., before winning one Hungarian championship after another. In 1991, he was unbeaten at the World and European Championships.

In 1992 he won the bronze medal at the Barcelona Olympics. In 1993, he won the bronze at the European Championship in Bursa. In 1996, he won the European Championship and the Atlanta Olympics in the 54 kg category. In 1997, he won the gold at the World Championships in Budapest. He turned pro in 1997. In 2001, he won the world professional title before losing it in the same year to Julio Pablo Chacón. A year later he announced his retirement.

Upon the end of his sporting career, he has been active in various fields. He has hosted sporting events, been a Goodwill Ambassador for the Hungarian Ecumenical Relief Organisation, Vice President of WBO, Secretary General of IBA for two years and has held various positions in the Hungarian Boxing Federation.

He has also appeared in several films, including the Glass Tiger trilogy and in 2006, On Tenterhooks. He also appeared in the animated film Immigrants - Jóska go America, where he was the voice of the lecturing doorman, in 2008.

Gábor G. Fodor

Political scientist, Strategical Director, The Institute of the Twenty first Century

He graduated from the Faculty of Humanities of Miskolc University in 1999. He received his PhD from the ELTE Institute of Political Science in 2003 and his habilitation in 2011. He taught for nearly a decade and a half at the ELTE Institute of Political Science; for three years at Corvinus University’s Institute of Political Science, and spent four years as a junior research fellow at the Institute of Political Science of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He has held repeated research fellowships in Austria (2000, 2003, 2007), was a visiting lecturer at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo (2010), and has been a fellow of The Institute of the Twenty first Century (2000-2001, 2003-2004). In 2005 he won the Academy Youth Prize, in 2007 he was awarded the Aurel Kolnai Prize for the best political science publication of the year, in 2008 he was awarded the Bezerédj Prize, in 2009 he received the MTA Bolyai Plaque for outstanding research. He has written books, among others, on bourgeois radicals; Eric Voegelin's political philosophy, and on governance. His most recent books include The Orbán Rule (2021); Political Virology - Governing the Virus (2021); The Man with the Knife - A War of Thought (2023); Orbán v. Soros (2024).