The year: 1861. The city: Vienna. According to a popular account, a reporter for the Viennese newspaper Donau Zeitung wrote a story about a Hungarian who entered a bookshop in Vienna and made the following request: "Geben Sie mir Globus von Ungarn." Give me a globe of Hungary. The story gave birth to an expression, a reference to the very special world of Hungarians. It's a world where the inhabitants have difficulty seeing anything beyond the Carpathian Basin and, conversely, a curious world opaque to foreigners, who are at pains to understand this odd, Asiatic people in the middle of Europe, and not only because of their peculiar language. With this phrase in mind, with equal parts of affection and irony, we set out to write about Hungarian affairs on Hungarian Globe.
Mandiner has planned for years to publish an English-language version of our blog and with today's launch of Hungarian Globe, our dream has finally become reality. Hungarian Globe will focus on Hungarian politics and current events and, from time to time, report on other colorful aspects of life in Hungary. With original content, we aim to offer to an English-speaking audience the same kind of thought-provoking, first-person narratives that readers of our Hungarian edition have grown to expect from Mandiner.