Young Hungarians use music to celebrate Orbán’s election defeat

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Many of the young Hungarians who came of age during Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s 16 years in power helped create the soundtrack for Sunday’s election that ejected him from office, according to an Associated Press account. As the celebrations unfolded after the victory by pro-European candidate Péter Magyar, youth-led music and chants became a visible part of the political push, stretching from everyday transit to large gatherings outside Hungary’s neo-Gothic parliament building.

AP described musicians and performers filling the air as hundreds of thousands took to the streets to celebrate Magyar’s “historic win.” It said teenagers climbed Budapest’s Chain Bridge and blasted revolutionary anthems by artists whose songs captured young people’s frustrations with Orbán’s rule. In neighborhoods and on public transportation, AP reported that young people led chants and played AI-generated fan music dedicated to Magyar.

The scenes extended into a more explicitly youth-coded event near Parliament. AP said a group called “More Techno to Parliament!” celebrated Orbán’s defeat with a rave in front of Hungary’s parliament building.

The reporting tied the youth role to polling ahead of the vote, including a survey cited by AP. It said a poll by 21 Research Center found that 65% of voters under 30 supported Magyar’s Tisza party, while only 14% backed Orbán.

AP’s account also described how the musical and cultural push intersected with personal histories of political awakening. One example was Marcell Szabó-Temple, a 26-year-old architect, who AP said grew up outside central Budapest and recalled that adults did not discuss politics in front of children. It said he entered university in a period that brought him into contact with what he viewed as problems in public institutions.

AP reported that Szabó-Temple said studying for engineering at a top school left him shocked by what he described as an outdated curriculum housed in a crumbling building. He said the experience led him to question whether the country’s governance under Orbán had produced enough progress. AP also said the next phase of his disillusionment came with higher education changes in 2022.

According to AP, in 2022 more than 20 Hungarian universities were disqualified from the European Union’s Erasmus exchange program as a consequence of an Orbán scheme intended to place control of universities in the hands of public foundations headed by political appointees. AP reported that critics warned the move was aimed at taking control of academia and stifling critical thought, and that student and university leadership protests against the overhaul continued without reversing it.

AP said Szabó-Temple described feeling “like the world went silent for the next few years” after another overwhelming Orbán victory in 2022. He said, “I stopped caring about politics, again,” adding that it felt “like being back in high school” and that he “didn’t even want to hear the news.”

That disengagement, AP said, shifted when Magyar broke into Hungarian politics in 2024. AP described Magyar as having previously been an insider in Orbán’s Fidesz party and as campaigning on repairing Hungary’s relationship with the EU and restoring a Western orientation that had drifted increasingly close to Russia under Orbán. It said Magyar addressed young people at rallies across the country, urging them to take the country’s future into their own hands.

Meanwhile, AP reported that a new generation of musical stars—many of whom gained prominence on the internet—began producing more overtly political content that criticized Orbán’s regime. It said audiences joined in anti-government chants during concerts at summer festivals and that government officials scolded young people for what it described as signs of disrespect.

AP said the movement’s peak came two days before the election, when over 100,000 people packed a sprawling Budapest square for a “system-breaking” concert. It reported that over 50 artists performed and urged young people to vote for change.

After Orbán’s defeat, AP said Szabó-Temple planned to move back to Hungary from Portugal, where he was on a work exchange. He said, “There was a growing sense among young people that if we can’t change the regime now, we might not want to live in Hungary for the rest of our lives. I certainly felt like that,” and he described the expectations many young voters now place on Tisza.

AP reported that Szabó-Temple said, “We put our faith in them and we expect them to deliver.” He added, “If they do, I will settle down and build a family in Hungary.”