Danube Institute Podcast

We all know what we mean by the Western Canon. Or do we? The Canon comes from nowhere and everywhere. A smelted down best-of-the best of the things our culture has truly loved. But at its borderlands, there are constant wars for what should be included. Culture always evolves. We see the same Roman poets quite differently to how the Victorians did. At its core, things like Shakespeare sit firmly within the redoubt. But is Henry James worthy? And is Trollope not? Magrite - yes; Koons no?  Dr Jonathan Price is a Visiting Fellow at the Danube Institute. In my new show for Danube Culture,I want to explore the meaning of the Canon, by asking individual experts what they think it should contain. Each episode, we’ll have two guests. Each will argue to place one new artefact inside the Canon — and argue as to why one well-respected piece should be removed. You’ll hear passionate arguments about the meaning of art.  And hopefully, you’ll pick up some recommendations of great works to check out —  and those to swerve. After all, the canon is made by those who actually engage with it.  This is Who’s In; Who’s Out? 

Calum T. M. Nicholson, Director of Research at the Danube Institute and commentator on Anglo‑Hungarian culture, explores surprising cultural parallels between Britain and Hungary. He discusses shared humor, island‑style mentalities, communal versus social‑media habits, why Budapest feels intimate, Scottish–Hungarian underdog links, and the future paths of conservative politics in both countries.

Scott Newman, an Oxford researcher on COVID and authoritarianism, and Isabel Heineman, a Cambridge PhD candidate studying Dante and theology, spar over the Western Canon. They argue removing Dante and promoting Tolkien. They debate accessibility, theological aims, portrayals of evil, and modern parallels like tech power. Quick, provocative clashes about what should be in cultural teaching.

We asked Lee J. Strang, a legal scholar and Executive Director at the Salmon P. Chase Center for Civics, Culture, and Society at The Ohio State University, about whether the Declaration of Independence, the "birth certificate" of the United States, was legally and lawfully adopted under the British laws of the time.The Danube Lectures is a video podcast of the Danube Institute, a Budapest-based conservative think tank that asks its guests – decision-makers, experts, academics, and politicians – about their unique ideas. Host: Tamás Maráczi, a journalist at the Danube Institute.

In March of this year, The Danube Institute hosted a panel in London on the life and legacy of Enoch Powell. Powell was a poet, and a classicist, and a brigadier, and a monetarist. It is of course for his thoughts on immigration that he has fallen into the pages of history. We wanted to think about Powell in the round — this most impressive of men, the youngest this and the youngest that, who franked his personality into the Conservative Party, who saw the two great challenges of the late twentieth century coming a mile off — immigration and inflation. Yet whose actual political career was a footnote to his intellectual one. The talk was recorded, by a DI fellow, Alexander Pelling-Bruce, on his mobile phone. Alexander had put together the Powell seminar. With the help of our own David Oldroyd Bolt. And that was meant to be that — a quick recording for his own personal posterity. But a few chance conversations have lead us to the recording. And that, in turn, has minded us to putting it into the public domain. First - a word of apology. This is a phone recording, on a mic a fair way from the stage. We’ve used all the digital trickery in our possession to pull it up to scratch. But it is never going to reproduce the full bodied surety of a Rode SM7b. We hope the words — by John O’Sullivan, our president, Powell’s biographer Lord Simon Heffer, Lord Maurice Glasman the Labour Peer, Richard Vinen, a professor at King's College London, Tim Montgomerie, the former editor of Conservative Home, and Alexander himself, will outrun any fuzz or din. 

We asked Pierre-Hugues Barré, a French lawyer and academic, a Non-Resident Fellow at the Danube Institute, about the origins, significance, and paradoxes of the French constitutional principle of secularism, as well as the historical struggle between the church and the state in France.The Danube Lectures is a video podcast of the Danube Institute, a Budapest-based conservative think tank that asks its guests – decision-makers, experts, academics, and politicians – about their unique ideas. Host: Tamás Maráczi, a journalist at the Danube Institute.

We asked Rock Missamou, a water management expert at the Department of Water and Environmental Policy and UNESCO Chair at the University of Public Service, Budapest, about African water shortages and their economic, political, and demographic impacts, as well as the Hungarian drought situation.The Danube Lectures is a video podcast of the Danube Institute, a Budapest-based conservative think tank that asks its guests – decision-makers, experts, academics, and politicians – about their unique ideas. Host: Tamás Maráczi, a journalist at the Danube Institute.

Marek Magierowski, Polish journalist-turned-diplomat and former ambassador to Israel and the US, reflects on Poland–Hungary ties and Visegrád resilience. He discusses 'militant democracy' tactics, EU funding tied to politics, divergent Russia policies, and hybrid threats to security. Short, sharp takes on sovereignty, NATO cohesion, and the challenge of delivering big election promises.

Dr Simon Cottee, criminologist and author who studies jihadi terrorism and migration. He outlines a 'fourth wave' of jihad driven by attackers born outside Europe. He describes how he built a 2015–2025 dataset, profiles the typical perpetrators, and explains shifts in methods, geography, and political fallout.

Eduard Habsburg-Lothringen, member of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine and former Hungarian ambassador to the Holy See, reflects on Habsburg identity and historical roots. He discusses family expectations and public duty. He explores aristocratic titles and the Hungarian branch’s heritage. He talks about Europe, subsidiarity, the role of faith, and why large families matter.