Hungarian Academics in Last Stand over Prestigious Science Body

The academics, however, say it is simply the latest move in a Fidesz strategy to rein in Hungary's intellectuals and stifle free, particularly critical, thought.

The battle over the academy began a year ago, and is nearing its denouement.

"We feel a slow, but consistent push forward by the government to conquer sectors which they don't control," said Zsolt Boda, general director of the academy's Centre for Social Sciences.

Crackdown on critical thought

Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban in Brussels, Belgium, 2018. Photo: EPA-EFE/ARIS OIKONOMOU / POOL

The planned overhaul of the academy follows the announced departure from Budapest of the Central European University, CEU, after just over two years of confrontation with Orban's government.

CEU was founded by American billionaire and liberal philanthropist George Soros after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and came to be viewed by Orban as a hive of liberal dissent against his own self-proclaimed brand of 'illiberal democracy'. Soros, a Holocaust survivor from Hungary, has been demonised by Orban and his party.

Since taking power in 2010, Orban has seized significant control over the news media, sought to weaken the independence of the judiciary, cracked down on civil society and placed university spending under the control of government-appointed chancellors.

Now his government wants to strip the Academy of Sciences of research centres and institutes, which, more so than universities in Hungary, are responsible for the bulk of high-level research. The institutes would be integrated into a new public body controlled by the government.

"It started with the universities, the attack against the CEU, the appointment of the chancellors, who...