Launch and Signing of The Magyar Péter Phenomenon
Date: 22 January 2026, 18:00
Location: Central European University, Auditorium (1051 Budapest, Nádor Street 15)
Language of the event: Hungarian
The new book by Rudolf Metz, Associate Professor at Corvinus University of Budapest, and his co-author Veronika Kövesdi, titled The Magyar Péter Phenomenon – The Anatomy of a Political Rise, has been published. The event will be followed by a professional discussion and a Q&A session with the audience. Copies of the book will be available for purchase on site, and a book signing will also take place.
Participation in the event is free of charge for students and faculty, but prior registration is required, which is provided by HVG Publishing House.
The book addresses key questions such as:
-
what makes someone charismatic in the 21st century,
-
how a political actor can exert such a powerful influence on public life,
-
how political identity is constructed in the online sphere,
-
and what followers perceive in a political leader.
The authors also examine how modern forms of political messianism and hero-making appear in contemporary Hungary, as well as the democratic dilemmas faced by a new political challenger and the community forming around them.
Drawing on political science, psychology, sociology, and communication studies, the book analyses the processes of political “becoming,” focusing on the less visible mechanisms of collective belief, attraction, and persuasion. The volume offers both a theoretically and empirically grounded and highly readable analysis of one of the most compelling phenomena in contemporary Hungarian politics.