On September 20, the Danube Institute and Helena History Press presented a collection of György Schöpflin’s (1939-2021) various writings entitled The Contested Europe. The book was published in cooperation of these two institutions, and launched on the premises of the Lónyay-Hatvany Villa in Buda Castle. Schöpflin excelled both in academia and politics. He was a Jean Monnet Professor of Politics at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at at the University College London and published extensively, especially on East and Central European aspects of nationhood, identity and political power. Between 2004 and 2019 he was member of the European Parliament representing FIDESZ.

About 100 guests, including high ranking diplomats and well known scholars, attended the event that was introduced by Dr. Katalin Kádár Lynn, head of Helena History Press. Prof. Ferenc Miszlivetz was one of the 6 laudators pointing out his close to 40-year-friendship with Schöpflin who was the chairman of the Advisory Board iASK ever since it was founded in 2015. Together with the other speakers (Pál Csáky, former Slovak member of EU Parliament, former Deputy Prime Minister and head of the Hungarian Minority Party in Slovakia, Zsolt Németh, chair of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Hungarian Parliament, Ferenc Hörcher, political philosopher, historian of political thought, Gyula Kodolányi, Kossuth Prize-winning writer, literary translator, university professor and John O’Sullivan, writer, journalist, political advisor, President of the Danube Institute) he praised how successfully Schöpflin integrated his complementary identities: he was a great. Hungarian, Central European and European public intellectual. Both in scholarship and politics he built passable bridges between Eastern and Western European mindsets, mentalities and agents.

The book launch is available HERE.

Our Institute published a volume dedicated to Schöpflin on the occasion of his 80th birthday entitled Navigating Troubled Waters edited by Ferenc Miszlivetz and Attila Pók. In this VIDEO, the authors of the volume shared their views on the personality of György Schöpflin, the former Chairman of the Advisory Board of the iASK.