feudalism comes back to Hungary.
Only later, after we spent weeks alongside farmers in the countryside, did it make sense. Farmers told us that criticizing the government is a sure way to invite an audit or end up blacklisted from grants. Mr. Angyan was also a professor at one of the top agricultural schools in the country. When he spoke out against the policies of the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, his state-run university abruptly shut down his program. Then the organic farm he supported lost its right to the land. Tractors plowed over the crops and sprayed the land with chemicals.
Mr. Angyan was instrumental in helping us understand how the European Union money flows to the oligarchs. But then he abruptly cut off contact. Months later, over a dinner of homemade sausage and fresh tomatoes in a tiny farmhouse kitchen, a farmer named Istvan Teichel explained that speaking out about agriculture corruption had cost Mr. Angyan nearly everything. “He will not put his family through these hardships again,” he said.