Fields of Power is a four-part podcast series is created by Ian M. Cook, Péter József Bori and Noémi Gonda.
In episode 3, “Fear and Loathing in Hungary”, we head out onto Hungary’s great plains in search of people living through the country’s land battles. What we find is a landscape marked not just by farmers without land, but by fear.
Episode 3: Fear and Loathing in Hungary
We meet István, a shepherd in his seventies whose life was upended when his grazing land was handed to a politically connected newcomer – setting off a chain of intimidation and violence that still haunts him. His story leads us to others: the farmers of Kishantos, like Ferenc and Éva, who faced threats, assaults, and the destruction of their life’s work for resisting unfair land deals. And in a village beside the prime minister’s childhood home, we learn about András Váradi, the “truth-telling shepherd” who fought the system until the night he died under circumstances many believe were never properly investigated.
As we travel through rural Hungary, we hear how these struggles are kept out of local newspapers, how journalists are discouraged from reporting, and how intimidation shapes everyday life. Noémi Gonda, a Hungarian researcher reflects on how deeply violence and fear have become embedded in the regime’s hold over the countryside.
Yet this episode is also about resistance: the stubborn refusal of farmers, activists, and ordinary villagers to be silenced. Their stories reveal not only what is happening to Hungary’s land, but what is happening to its democracy.
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Transcript Episode 3 Fields of power
Show notes
Fields of Power was researched and produced by Ian M. Cook, Péter Bori and Noémi Gonda. The research for this podcast was financed by the Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development Formas under grant agreement numbers 2018-00442 and 2024-00448. The podcast has been narrated by Péter Bori and Ian M. Cook. Sound design and audio editing was Ian M. Cook. The music is Solar Fractal by Quarksstar and Xenas Kiss/ Medeas Kiss by MWIC. The executive producer of Fields of Power is Noémi Gonda.
Selected reading
Ágh, A., The Decline of Democracy in East-Central Europe. Problems of Post-Communism, 2016. 63(5-6): p. 277-287.
Ángyán, J., Állami földprivatizáció – intézményesített földrablás [ State-led land privatisation- institutionalised land grabbing]. 2015.
Antal, A., Authoritarian populism, environmentalism and exceptional governance in Hungary. Politologický časopis – Czech Journal of Political Science, 2021. 3: p. 209-228.
Bori, P.J. and N. Gonda, Shattering the Chains of Rural Repression, in Rural Europe Takes Action: No More Business As Usual, H. Lorenzen and O. Moore, Editors. 2022, Forum Synergies and Arc2020: Brussels p. 142-147.
Bori, P.J. and N. Gonda, Contradictory populist ecologies: Pro-peasant propaganda and land grabbing in rural Hungary. Political Geography, 2022. 95(2022): p. 1-3.
Bozóki, A. and D. Hegedüs, The rise of authoritarianism in the European Union: A hybrid regime in Hungary, in The Condition of Democracy. 2021, Routledge: London, UK. p. 143-165.
Czibere, I. and I. Kovách, State Populism in Rural Hungary. Rural Sociology, 2022. 87: p. 733-757 DOI: 10.1111/ruso.12407.
Fidrich, R., Hungary. The Return of the White Horse: Land Grabbing in Hungary, in Land concentration, land grabbing and people’s struggles in Europe, J.C. Franco and S.M. Borras Jr, Editors. 2013, Transnational Institute: Amsterdam, Netherlands. p. 128-147.
Gonda, N., Land grabbing and the making of an authoritarian populist regime in Hungary. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 2019. 46(3): p. 606-625.
Gonda, N. and P.J. Bori, Rural politics in undemocratic times: Exploring the emancipatory potential of small rural initiatives in authoritarian Hungary. Geoforum, 2023. 143: p. 1-13.
Gonda, N. and P.J. Bori, Energy justice without democracy? Energy transitions in the era of right-wing authoritarianism in Hungary. Energy Research & Social Science, 2025. 129.
Greenpeace. Fighting a government-assisted land grab with #peoplepower in Hungary, 2014.
Kay, S., Land grabbing and land concentration in Europe. A Research Brief. 2016, Transnational Institute: Amsterdam.
Krasznai Kovács, E., Surveillance and state-making through EU agricultural policy in Hungary. Geoforum, 2015. 64(Supplement C): p. 168-181.
van der Ploeg, J.D., J.C. Franco, and S.M. Borras, Land concentration and land grabbing in Europe: a preliminary analysis. Canadian Journal of Development Studies / Revue canadienne d’études du développement, 2015. 36(2): p. 147-162.
Look out for episode 4, the last in the series, coming next Monday!
Noémi Gonda is a researcher at the Department of Urban and Rural Development at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. She holds a PhD from Central European University. She is currently doing research on justice and conflict resolution in resource management as well as on the linkages between natural resources depletion and authoritarian populist political regimes. Her empirical research field sites are in Nicaragua and Hungary. Previously to becoming a researcher, she worked in Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala with smallholder farmers, indigenous groups and international organisations. Noémi is particularly interested in exploring how radical social and environmental transformations towards justice and equity can emerge, and the role of scholar-activists in supporting the emergence of such transformations.
Ian M. Cook is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at Dublin City University, a member of the Allegra Lab editorial collective, a volunteer at Budapest’s Open Learning Initiative (OLIve) and a freelance scholarly podcaster.
Péter J. Bori is a PhD candidate at the Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy, Central European University, working on climate change and environmental politics within authoritarian illiberal political contexts. He is a Europaeum Scholar, also conducting research on energy justice in Hungary within a project funded by the Swedish Research Council on sustainable development.
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