Exactly! And I mean it’s fair, Orban built so much of his “legacy” on being the ultimate defender of Hungarians, yet failed to criticize a legitimately terrible policy that genuinely affected Hungarians (and was a major historic injustice) because it hurt his political interests/ties.
Anyway this is peak CEE drama and I’m here for it 🍿
That being said, the December 2025 move by Fico’s government to *criminalize* questioning the Beneš Decrees — w/ months of prison time — is a different matter entirely. You don’t pass laws protecting “dead” legislation unless you’re actively using it. Slovak civil society criticized it widely.
Okay now for the reality check: are the Beneš Decrees a major influence on the ethnic Hungarian existence in Slovakia? Not really. Are they still being applied? Yes, sadly, but mainly (however bizarrely) to properties that impede, say, road construction.
Now for one of the key historical ironies: most of these confiscations happened despite Slovakia itself being an Axis-allied state in WWII under Jozef Tiso, i.e. making it hypocritical that Hungarians be expelled due to the alleged Nazi ties of their ancestors.
More recently, there have been cases of ethnic Hungarian-owned properties being confiscated by the Slovak state based on this law in the 21st century (?!) — despite it widely being decried as “dead letter.”
But this law also affected Hungarians in Slovakia, a historically significant minority group in Slovak regions, with hundreds of thousands being stripped of Czechoslovak citizenship due to the collective guilt aspect — despite many actually resisting Nazism throughout the war.
So Edvard Beneš, the Czechoslovak president, pushed through a set of laws placing collective responsibility on those who had participated in the Nazi repression of Czechoslovakia. The Czech Republic, in particular, saw brutal oppression in WWII and was a major victim of Nazism.
Oh wow, Hungary’s Peter Magyar has just invoked the Beneš Decrees in a call with Slovakia’s Robert Fico — a set of WWII-related decisions that imposed collective guilt on ethnic Nazi collaborators (mainly targeting Germans but heavily affecting Hungarians in Slovakia):🧵
Nije nije, a niti je Pavelic, whose grave should prob include a similar “contextual” plaque soon
Of course. Also it’s telling when the Croatian government, who have been happy to fan the flames of its uhm “nationalist diaspora” in the past, were like nah we don’t want him back
Yes this was a couple days ago but I was distracted by said terrible times
In these terrible times, I choose to focus on rare awesome victories:
Spain FINALLY ordered the removal of the Ustaša plaque honoring Vjekoslav “Maks” Luburić — the single biggest war criminal of the Croatian Nazi regime during WWII — and will add another plaque describing his crimes!
Thrilled to share my first piece for @thenerve.news—an incredible woman-led team reporting on tech, politics, and culture, founded by the inimitable @carolecadwalla.bsky.social —on why Iran is winning the information war
www.thenerve.news/p/nina-janko...
It does sound like allies are pretty skeptical.
But it will only take a couple countries designating small far-left factions on their soil as terrorists for the administration to have a pretext to start charging people in the US with material support for engaging with them
For all the “but if he’s really authoritarian why did he concede” people out there
Mike those make me feel so old 🙃
Hehehehe
Smarter takes will follow once this properly settles
VIKTOR OUTBAN
Siri, show me what getting crushed at the ballot box looks like
This is one of my pettier impulses but I want the record to reflect just how often this motherfucker said that Kamala Harris was the pro-war candidate in 2024.
I can’t tell, does it say Skanderbeg kiseli kupus?
Let’s be fair, this was an opinion also widely held amongst tankies
This despite me learning how to pronounce “W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie”
Still not worth the Polish pileup it caused
I can remember a group of you unleashing the wrath of the Polish twitterati on me for my Wars car comment, yes
Including the last time Grenell tried to solve a problem by naming something after Trump www.politico.eu/article/koso...
Hi it’s me, I cover the “misfit toys [countries].”