Hungarian Classics – just as most of the local histories of the discipline – has a long and rich history, well integrated in the history of European Medieval Latin, Renaissance and humanist, positivist and contemporary reception of antiquity. Hungarian Classics has a global history with a rich interconnectivity within the European history of Renaissance (Italian scholars engaging with Matthias Corvinus and his academic centres and library), illuminism and Classicism as well. The dominant presence and schools founded by Károly (Karl) Kerényi and András Alföldi marked the history of Hungarian Classics in the twentieth century.

H.'s book does not aim to present the long and difficult history of Hungarian Classics from the Renaissance till recent times: such an endeavour would need a multi-annual project and several monographs, which would be a necessity for Hungarian Altertumswissenschaft. This monograph presents the impact of Classics in culture, literature and arts in a formative period of Hungarian history, from the end of the nineteenth century to modern times. The historical framework of the book covers 160 years, from the period of the Habsburg- and Austro-Hungarian Empires to the recent context of Hungary. This period is essential not only in the formation of modern academic historiography of Hungary, but also in the reception history of antiquity and the instrumentalisation of the past in the political narratives of today's Hungary, which also reuses traditions from the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, the interwar period and the communist period.

H. presents six case studies on the use, reuse and abuse of antiquity in Hungarian national identity-formation, literature and arts in the last 160 years. The first case study focuses on the role of antiquity in the Hungarian national identity formed in the age of nationalisms in the early nineteenth century (however a much longer medieval and pre-modern historical tradition already existed on the ‘otherness’ and ‘exceptionalism’ of the Hungarians in Europe). Hungarian history-writing and collective mentality was always aware of their Eastern (Asian, Central-Asian) origin, well established in Hungarian medieval myths and historiography. The integration of the previous, Roman history (the history of Roman Pannonia and the post-Roman reality from the fifth to the ninth centuries) was, however, a problematic element, as there was no direct, nor ethnic nor cultural connection with this long and decisive part of European history (in contrast with many of the neighbouring populations, such as the Romanians or the Southern Slavic populations, who had direct contact with late Roman populations). Having no other way to connect to Christian, continental European traditions on the level of ‘intentional history’ and collective memory (p. 6), medieval Hungarian chronicles constructed the Scythian-Hungarian and Hun-Hungarian myths. H. discusses the medieval reception of the Huns and Attila on one page only (pp. 6–7) and misses the alternative, Scythian origin myth, explored in detail by G. Klaniczay and many others. H. jumps from a short presentation of the medieval reception of the Huns and Attila to the nineteenth century, which could be confusing for readers not familiar with Hungarian history and historiography. After an analysis of Mór Than's painting of Attila's banquet, H. moves back to the Jesuits of the eighteenth century and their impact on the reception of the Huns. He rightly argues – but briefly – that Hungarian national identity and the mythical ancestors were interchangeable in Hungarian historiography, as an element of self-defensive identity in the conflict of inter-imperiality (p. 11). When Hungarians were fighting with the Turkish Empire or an atheist empire (Soviet era), the Christian, classical, Latin (Graeco-Roman) roots were strongly emphasised; when Hungarians were in expansion or fighting against a ‘Western’ power (Habsburgs, or as today, against ‘decadent’ Western powers), the Eastern origins (Huns, Attila) are emphasised. H. briefly presents the issue of the Hungarian language and the 150 years’ long debate on the Finno-Ugric vs Turkic origins, which became a critical point in the ‘Western vs Eastern’ identity debate of Hungary from the 1850s.

H. presents in detail the presence of classical motifs, Greek heroes and the impact of Greek and Latin epic on nineteenth-century Hungarian literature, especially in the works of Mihály Vörösmarty, Sándor Petőfi and János Arany, three of the Romantic heroes of national literature, followed by several novelists, such as Mór Jókai and Gyula Krúdy. H. presents short passages from poems and novels, where intertextuality, the use of ancient quotes and literary motifs are used in Hungarian literature. Classical knowledge and Latin learning often appear in these nineteenth-century works with several layers of identities: they show the Prussian-like education system of Hungary, the role of memorising in education; but sometimes ancient elements (Scythians, quotes from Horace or Virgil) had political messages in the post-1849 period. The second chapter focuses on the everyday presence of Classics and presents the beautiful paintings of the Markó street high school, where the teachers’ hall is lavishly decorated with historicised allegories of antiquity, setting a model for classical motifs on later public buildings. Several buildings – such as the Kazinczy memorial at Széphalom or the buildings of the Hero's Square (Museum of Fine Arts) – are presented as the finest Hungarian examples of architectural classicism and the classical revival. Although the chapter presents few buildings, Hungarian classicism produced several important buildings in the early nineteenth century (the Hungarian National Museum or the Saint Anne church from Esztergom are two further examples).

Following more or less a chronological order, the third chapter traces the history of Hungary in the interwar period. The nation suffered its biggest loss since the battle of Mohács (1526) in 1920 at the treaty of Trianon, losing several millions of Hungarian-speaking citizens. The interwar period – resembling in some parts contemporary Hungarian society – had two major cultural currents: the Westerners, concentrated around the literary journal Nyugat (‘West’), and the conservative contra-movement, symbolised by the journal Napkelet (‘Orient’). H. accurately presents the complexities of these two categories, which often overlap in the works and careers of authors, such as Karl Kerélyi, Zsigmond Móricz or Gyula Illyés in the early twentieth century. H. presents in detail a magisterial analysis of the ancient elements and fragments used in the early poems (from Fogaras) of Mihály Babits and the works of Dezső Kosztolányi. A particular importance of antiquity can be identified in the novel by Antal Szerb called Journey by Moonlight, one of the most popular novels of the interwar period. Szerb was a friend of Karl Kerényi and a member of his Stemma circle, a friendly group of intellectuals of Budapest. The fictional character of Prof. Waldheim was inspired by Kerényi and reflected the first golden age of Hungarian religious studies.

H. continues the historical analysis through the Communist period (1948–1989), marked by severe social and academic restructuring in Hungary. The new ideological and political regime after 1948 intentionally eliminated the leading figures of the Hungarian Altertumswissenschaft (especially Karl Kerényi), reshaping the entire academic hierarchy and education in Classics. Although Kerényi was exiled by the Communist party and its major political and ideological agents (György Alexits and György Lukács), his students continued his tradition. H. analyses the elegant techniques and methods of the ideological debates, the layers of semantics used in the reviews, obituaries and publications, where Western scholarship was competing with Marxist traditions in the major Hungarian journals of Classics and antiquity. H.'s next chapter focuses on the history of translations of classical Greek and Latin literature, focusing on case studies of Horace and Tacitus. He rightly identifies the major periods and contemporary issues of Hungarian philologists, translating mostly ‘marginal, less canonical writers’ (p. 164), with few exceptions of grand translation projects.

Finally, the volume emphasises how Classics is present in contemporary Hungarian literature in the works of György Petri, Péter Nádas, Flóra Imre, Imre Kőrizs, Balázs Simon and András Ferenc Kovács, who wrote several poems as Gaius Licinius Calvus.

H.'s book is an inspiring, but far from complete kaleidoscope on some case studies of Classics inspiring the evolution and history of Hungarian literature, art and architecture in the last two centuries.