Far-right Hungarian politician

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FILE - A Sunday May 24, 1998 photo from files showing President of the far-right Hungarian Justice and Life Party Istvan Csurka casting his vote during the second round of the general elections at a polling station in Balatonederics, some140 kilometers southwest of Budapest. Hungarian far-right politician and writer Istvan Csurka has died. He was 77. Csurka's death was announced by his family. He had been hospitalized in recent weeks with an undisclosed illness, but no other details were immediately available. (AP Photo/MTI, Karoly Penovac, File)

Updated: March 7, 2012 9:56AM

BUDAPEST, Hungary — Istvan Csurka, a Hungarian anti-Soviet dissident playwright and later far-right nationalist politician who was criticized at home and abroad for his anti-semitic articles, died Saturday at age 77.

Mr. Csurka’s death was announced by his family. He had been hospitalized in recent weeks with an undisclosed illness, but no other details were immediately available.

Often compared to France’s xenophobic National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, Mr. Csurka opposed Hungary’s membership in NATO and the European Union, but his political activities dwindled after a stinging defeat in the 2006 elections. Still, he kept writing vitriolic articles in his Magyar Forum publications.

Just weeks ago, he spoke at a rally in the southern city of Szeged in defense of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government, which has been severely criticized by the European Union for laws seen curtailing civil liberties and upsetting the democratic system of checks and balances.

Mr. Csurka also hit the headlines late last year when his nomination — later withdrawn — as artistic director of a Budapest theater was criticized in Hungary and abroad by theater professionals and Jewish groups.

On Thursday, a letter from Mr. Csurka was read to the staff of the New Theater by Gyorgy Dorner, who took over as director this month, in which he asked members of the theater to work together in harmony despite their political differences, state news wire MTI reported.

One of Mr. Csurka’s last works, “The Sixth Coffin,” a play about Trianon, the post-World War I treaty which forced Hungary to give up two-thirds of its territories and half its population, is planned to be staged at the theater later in 2012.

Born in Budapest on March 27, 1934, Mr. Csurka wrote more than 20 plays, some satirizing the communist regime and especially former dictator Janos Kadar, and published many volumes of essays and short stories. His newspaper and magazine articles often blamed Jews and international powers for Hungary’s problems.

AP