In 1990, a group of young activists were called onstage at a Budapest concert called “Rendszerzaro Hazibuli,” translated as “House Party of Regime Change.” The rock concert combined with a campaign rally for Hungary’s hottest young liberal party, in an event celebrating the end of the dictatorship and the beginning of the Soviet army’s withdrawal. Towards one side of the stage stood a twenty-six-year-old law student with his hands shoved awkwardly into blue jeans — a young Viktor Orbán. The youthful liberal activist peered out shyly from beneath a late eighties bowl-fringe, giving a nervous smile to the crowd and a little wave to the camera. Orbán and his fellow activists even performed a sing-along with the headlining band, leading an amphitheater of thousands in a glam-rock anthem denouncing the corrupt, authoritarian regime.

The contrast with today’s Orbán is striking. The self-described “illiberal” prime minister is perhaps best known for his conspiracy theories about George Soros seeking to ethnically replace the Hungarian people with migrants from the Middle East. In stark contrast to the floppy-haired kid who sang onstage with a rock band, today’s Orbán is now a decidedly paternalistic figure, often making speeches in front of a massive Hungarian flag and railing against migrants. He concluded one 2018 speech by leading the nation in a mass prayer, shouting nationalist slogans as young Hungarians dressed in traditional folk costumes came out to join him on stage, cheered on by a feverish crowd waving red, white, and green flags.

But if in the early 1990s Fidesz was a “radical, iconoclastic” group of young people pushing for freedom and democracy in the post-Communist period, how did it become the nationalistic, uber-patriarchal, and despotic regime we see today? How could a group of scrappy young intellectuals in acid-washed jeans evolve into gray-suited despots waving in front of flags and ordering the censure and closure of universities?