Buckley’s example inspired movements for freedom around the world.
This year, William F. Buckley Jr. would have turned 100. At National Review, we have marked the occasion by hosting events celebrating Buckley’s life and legacy, republishing a selection of his most influential columns on our website, and dedicating an entire issue of the magazine to all that made him extraordinary.
But perhaps the greatest tribute to Buckley’s enduring relevance is that many other organizations have joined us in honoring his accomplishments. And some of them are located far beyond the United States.
In Hungary, the Otto von Habsburg Foundation recently paid tribute to Buckley with an edifying post on its website. The article chronicles Buckley’s role in shaping American conservatism, with a particular focus on his relationship with Habsburg. In it, Habsburg Foundation fellow Bence Kocsev observes that Buckley and Habsburg saw one another as models for their respective work.
Habsburg, who stood firmly against communism and Nazism in Europe throughout the 20th century, looked to Buckley as an inspirational figure who “consistently championed Russell Kirk’s ‘Permanent Things,’ possessed a clear political vision, and, at the same time, could mobilise broad segments of society.” Buckley, meanwhile, viewed Habsburg as the “par excellence European, embodying all that he most valued in the continent’s enduring traditions.”
Kocsev also highlights how Buckley inspired the European conservative movement as it sought to resist tyranny and forge a coherent identity. In the pages of National Review, Buckley unified the American right’s various factions around their shared values and goals at a time of turbulent social transformation. This “organisational model” became a “key reference point for the European right, demonstrating how a persistently and consistently built social base could provide a counterweight to leftist dominance.”
On both sides of the Atlantic, Buckley’s example helped shape the cause of liberty. As his centennial year draws to a close, it is remarkable that his work continues to have such a profound influence on advocates of freedom around the world. For decades, conservatives from America to Hungary have sought to emulate Buckley. The qualities that made him so powerful — his charm, warmth, wit, appetite for debate, desire to persuade, and mastery of whatever form of media he encountered — will forever be universal. If they continue to guide us, then the movement that Buckley molded and the principles he championed will easily thrive for another 100 years.