Népi-Populism

In Hungarian political thinking, the Hungarian adjective ‘népi’ means ‘of the people’ or ‘populist.’ Importantly, ‘népi’ is distinguished from ‘népies’ (‘people-like’) which refers to the folkloristic and idealized approach to certain local traditions, something that the ‘népi’ thinkers sharply criticized and rejected. A parallel to the ‘népies’ can be drawn with the spaghetti Western, the romanticized Indian novels, or the Heimatfilms which are also inauthentic, merely entertainment-serving and nostalgia-nurturing ‘urban’ products. Although the Hungarian ‘népi’ ideology, also a movement, has its idiosyncratic characteristics, it has always been embedded in larger international contexts as well.