In the village of Bodalovo, the clock in almost every home is set to Budapest time. The televisions are tuned to M1, Hungary’s main government-controlled news channel, which portrays the world as seen by the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán. The language spoken on the street, in the church and at the school is Hungarian.
Yet Bodalovo is in the far western corner of Ukraine. It is one of numerous villages in the Zakarpattia region populated almost entirely by ethnic Hungarians. And as Orbán threatens to veto plans to begin EU accession negotiations for Ukraine next week, Ukraine’s small Hungarian community is in the spotlight.
