Why Hungary-Ukrainian tensions are so high

In western Ukraine, animosity has been growing – meet an artist trying to tamp down tensions by rebuilding a castle. And in reporter’s notebook, we ask a Ukrainian mobilization officer about his job.

Editor’s Note: We’re under an air alert now, as we publish. And the news is getting worse – Zelenskyy indicates that a new Russian offensive may start in May.

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Zakarpattian artist Yosyp Bartosh.

Despite living in the safest city of Ukraine, Yosyp Bartosh is waging a war of his own.  

Having started two decades ago, he uses a paintbrush instead of a rifle, and fights forgetting rather than enemy troops.

Memory and territorial claims are deeply interconnected in the fiercely-debated Zakarpattia region, where the Ukrainian artist with Hungarian ancestry reconstructs an ancient Hungarian castle with his own hands. 

“This castle is a collected embodiment of our culture, our heritage, our roots. And our roots also [define] our future,” said Yosyp, about the motives behind his decision to dedicate his entire life to this ancient structure.

Residing in the Zakarpattia region of Ukraine, which has become a hotbed of conflict between Ukraine and Hungary, Yosyp has created a cultural hub that can bring both communities closer on the basis of their shared legacy.

Art can create a space to resolve conflicts that governments are not interested in resolving. And, he says, people need to be inspired, even or especially when war is happening.

“Cicero said that when cannons speak, muses fall silent. [But] they don't fall silent; they work alongside the cannons,” says Yosyp about the vitality of art in navigating conflicts - equally military and political ones.

The Zakarpattia oblast, in far southwest Ukraine, outlined in red. 

Far from the frontlines, the westernmost Zakarpattia region of Ukraine has been a source of heated debate since 2010, when far-right candidate Viktor Orbán rose to power as a prime minister of neighboring Hungary. 

The rift in bilateral relations escalated even more after the full-scale Russian invasion, which prompted Hungary to side with the Kremlin rather than the EU and NATO, both groups to which it belongs. 

Since then, Zakarpattia's Hungarian community, which makes up roughly 12% of the local population, has become caught between the two sides.

"Hungarians live there [in Zakarpattia], part of Ukraine is ancient Hungarian land, which now belongs to Ukraine,” said Orban in a 2023 broadcast, a comment which was eventually edited out.  

Budapest repeatedly uses Zakarpattia’s ethnic Hungarians as an argument to justify blocking EU aid to Ukraine, hinting that Kyiv’s defeat is the easiest way to secure peace. In 2023, Hungary single-handedly vetoed $55 billion in EU aid for Ukraine.

Budapest has also been seen as catering to Russia's strategic interests by blocking European sanctions against Putin's regime, delaying accession of Sweden to NATO, and increasing trade with Russia.

The tension put roughly 130,000 of Zakarpattia's ethnic Hungarians between a hammer and an anvil. Yosyp Bartosh’s Hungarian ancestry could have easily pulled him into the conflict.

Instead, his unique artistic mission has created a space for mutual understanding. 

In 2001, Yosyp Bartosh took a lease on the Hungarian castle Saint Miklós (Saint Nicholas) in Zakarpattia, becoming Ukraine's first and only owner of a castle.

"It wasn't me who rented the castle — in fact, the castle rented me. It wanted to live," Yosyp told The Counteroffensive.

From an early age, Yosyp Bartosh has been fascinated by art, demonstrating talent in both music and painting. Having obtained a degree as an orchestra conductor, he taught music, played in several bands, and successfully worked as a restorer in Ukraine and abroad. 

He was first brought to the building by the local artist Tetiana Petrychko, who grew up nearby.

Saint Miklós castle in Zakarpattia region of Ukraine, rented by Yosyp Bartosh in 2001 (Courtesy of Yosyp Bartosh)

Founded by Hungarian nobility in the 14th century, the castle was involved in several dramatic historical episodes. The most important happened in the 17th century, when its landlady, the Croatian-born noblewoman Ilona Zrínyi, met her future husband — the Hungarian aristocrat Imre Thököly – at the castle.

A few years later the couple, supported by less than 2,000 troops, successfully led the defense of Hungarian Zakarpattia from the advancing Austrian troops — the largest European army of the time.

However, nothing in the castle’s look reminded of its past glory when Yosyp approached it at the turn of the 20th century, during which time Zakarpattia has alternately belonged to seven different countries. 

During the Nazi occupation of the 1940s, the castle was transformed into a prison, and the Soviets, who took it over in 1944, used the historical building as an office.

When Yosyp saw this roofless building for the first time, the abandoned castle was surrounded by a car depot that provided parking and maintenance to trucks.

"Walking by these ruins, I got ashamed. How could we, artists, who bear culture through centuries, turn the place that our ancestors had built for us, into a landfill?"

This is what the castle looked like when Yosyp Bartosh saw it for the first time (Courtesy of Yosyp Bartosh)

This impression made him make a decision that surprised all people around — to restore the castle by his own efforts.

“I hired four people to build a park there — and all of them refused. They said, ‘There will never be a park here,” he recalled.

This soil is polluted with gas 30 inches deep, probably due to fuel and chemicals being dumped there during repairs. “Nothing will ever grow here,” the workers said.

The only person, who took Yosyp seriously, was Tetiana, who had shown him this spot for the first time, and later became his wife. 

The couple moved into the destroyed castle for the next ten years, investing all of their artistic skills and revenues from selling their art into reconstruction.

“Those were our best ten years, [although] we had no clue what was waiting for us. We had to live there, surrounded by a car depot. Yet, those were the heaviest and the happiest years of my life,” recalls Yosyp.

In this time, the artist managed to transform an abandoned Saint Miklós castle into a local cultural hub, which now hosts an artistic school, exhibition space, knight festivals, music school of ancient instruments, and even a small opera theater, which the artist is now equipping in a nearby garage, shaped like a Roman basilica.

“Castles and palaces contain immense power within them. It needs to be understood, uncovered, and provided to people for their use, for exploring their inner world, rather than the external one,” claims Yosyp.

A reconstructed room with portraits of castle owners, painted by Yosyp and Tetiana Bartosh (Courtesy of Yosyp Bartosh)

And Yosyp managed to turn the cascle into a space for reconciliation, relying on cultural exchange as a way to foster Ukraine’s connections with its western neighbors despite the ongoing political challenges.

What can’t be done by governments, he accomplishes due to his own efforts, and the contribution of Ukrainian and international guests, whom Yosyp personally guides through the castle, explaining its history in five languages he speaks.

Yosyp Bartosh guiding a tour in Saint Miklos castle which he is reconstructing with his own hands (Courtesy of Yosyp Bartosh)

As long as the war is raging, Yosyp first and foremost hopes that the history of Saint Miklos will help Ukraine to remember and strengthen its own European identity, challenged by the Russian invasion. 

He recalls that the work on the castle helped him to reconcile with his own aristocratic origin, for which his father was persecuted in Soviet times.

Now Yosyp, who calls himself first of all a citizen of Ukraine, hints that the history of Saint Miklós can help the entire country to comprehend its European aspirations better:

“The entire humanity is returning to its sources, although in different forms. We must take this into account and prepare our future not from scratch, but based on what our ancestors have left for us.”

And although the war has halted some of his artistic projects and claimed the lives of several contestants of his knight festival, it failed to shutter Yosyp’s belief in the importance of his work in times of crisis to turn violence into something healing.

“We create works that reflect our pain, and transform the fragments [of Russian weapons], which were meant to bring us death, into pieces of art. Our people have strength to transform the evil that is coming upon us into something else,” says Yosyp.

AFTER THE PAYWALL, we run through the Ukrainian energy grid’s greatest challenges, and why we’re anticipating a difficult summer due to Russian attacks on infrastructure. In reporter’s notebook, Tim talks to a former Ukrainian mobilization officer to give a sense of the job nowadays.