“When it comes to pronouns, we don’t even have any!” said Tibor Várady, owner of Espresso Embassy, a popular cafe and specialty coffee shop in downtown Budapest. Várady’s comment is a joking reference to his native Hungarian, a famously difficult language that has no equivalents for the English pronouns “he” and “she,” and the atmosphere in Budapest, which is years, perhaps decades, behind the vanguard of left-wing cultural politics in the United States. As we spoke, Várady was closing the cafe early so he and his staff could march in this year’s Budapest gay pride parade, the latest flashpoint to emerge in Hungarian politics. 

Over the past decade and a half, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his ruling Fidesz party have become unlikely standard-bearers for international conservatism. Orbán and his allies have hardened the country’s borders, abolished gender studies in public universities, and enacted a raft of pro-natalist policies to increase the Hungarian birth rate. In 2014, Orbán notoriously declared that he was building an “illiberal democracy,” a remark that is ritually invoked every time Western journalists feel compelled to scold the current government.  

With the 2026 parliamentary elections fast approaching, the annual Budapest Pride Parade seemed poised to become the next fight between Fidesz and Hungary’s embattled Left. Last year, Orbán said that organizers “should not even bother” preparing for the parade. In March, the Hungarian parliament passed a law banning Pride demonstrations on the grounds of child protection. The stage was set for a major showdown between liberal Budapest and the national government. Then, the march went off without a hitch, attracting a record number of attendees and exposing political and cultural rifts in a country often described as a conservative monolith. 

Orbán is a resourceful politician, but his footing is not as secure as his most fervent critics or supporters imagine. Budapest, the cultural, economic, and political heart of Hungary, has long been a liberal outlier in a country known for its conservatism. The current mayor, Gergely Karácsony, is a former academic and Green Party member who went to great lengths to give Pride organizers legal maneuvering room and political cover. 

Protests against the government’s threats started early. On April 1, a large contingent of young-ish protesters closed Budapest’s Elizabeth Bridge, chanting “Nem Hadjuk Abba” (“We’re Not Going to Stop”) while hoisting Pride banners, Hungarian and European Union flags, and homemade signs decrying Orbán. As the date of the parade drew near, smaller rallies and marches periodically filled the streets of the capital.

Orbán’s opponents sometimes describe Hungary as a one-party state, but the reality is more complicated. Since the fall of communism, Budapest has transformed into a cosmopolitan city, complete with gay pride parades — it hosted Eastern Europe’s first such gathering in 1997 — and its own Chinatown neighborhood in the outlying suburb of Kőbánya-Kispest. The conservative government wields the state media apparatus to great effect, but savvy Hungarians look to foreign news, private television networks, or the internet for alternatives. A characteristic example is “A Dinasztia” (“The Dynasty”), a YouTube documentary from the opposition media outlet Direkt36 alleging widespread corruption on the part of Orbán and his political allies. According to YouTube, the video has received over 3.7 million views, a considerable figure in a country of fewer........

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