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Based on long-term ethnographic research in a Hungarian village between 2014 and 2026, this book examines how Viktor Orbán’s rule takes shape through everyday ‘populist projects.’ From pest control and greenhouses to soil, flowers and vegetables, rural life becomes a medium for redistributing resources to loyal networks while generating tacit and explicit propaganda. As successive crises – from the 2015 refugee moment to COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine – reconfigure social relations, ordinary practices are recast as symbols of national belonging. Tracing these shifts, the book shows how populism appropriates and exhausts social commons, even as its grip begins to loosen.;
"In this profound and beautiful book, Tatyjana Szafonova shows us how caring for plants can sustain populist politics and anti-immigrant sentiments. From land grabs, to village beautification, to empty soccer stadiums, we see how state power works in ordinary lives in rural Hungary." — Andrew S. Mathews, University of California
Tatyjana Szafonova is Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of Social Anthropology, Comenius University. She was previously a Research Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Budapest. From 2023 to 2025, she led the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions–funded project “Pan-Ideologies in Central Europe: Paradoxes of Right-Wing Self-Orientalism,” examining political imagination and self-exoticism in contemporary Central Europe.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Introduction. Gardens of Propaganda in the Hungarian Countryside
Chapter 1. Pest Control: ‘Gardening State’ and Anti-Migrant Sentiments
Chapter 2. Greenhouses: Climate Change and Deep-Time Populism
Chapter 3. Soil Cultivation: Land-Grabbing for National Good
Chapter 4. Flowers: Tacit Propaganda and Supply Chain Capitalism
Chapter 5. Vegetables: Beautiful Self-Sufficiency of Populism
Chapter 6. Fruits: Grafting the National Orchard, Distilling the Populist Spirit
Chapter 7. Garden as a Refuge: A Populist Solidarity Project
Conclusion
References
Index
Index