Victor Sebestyen (born 1956) is a journalist and author of Eastern Europe, Russia, and Communism.
Victor was born in 1956 in Budapest. He was a child when his family left Hungary as refugees.
As a journalist, he has worked for numerous British newspapers, including The London Evening Standard, TâÂÂhe Times and TâÂÂhe Daily Mail. He has contributed to many American publications, including TâÂÂhe New York Times. He reported widely from Eastern Europe when Communism collapsed and tâÂÂhe Berlin Wall came down in 1989. He covered tâÂÂhe wars in former Yugoslavia and tâÂÂhe breakup of tâÂÂhe Soviet Union. At TâÂÂhe London Evening Standard he was foreign editor, media editor and chief leader writer. He was an associate editor at Newsweek.
His first book, Twelve Days (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2006, PantâÂÂheon 2006), was an acclaimed history of tâÂÂhe 1956 Hungarian Uprising. It was translated into 12 languages. His second, (W&N 2009, PantâÂÂheon 2009) was a highly praised account of tâÂÂhe fall of tâÂÂhe Soviet empire. In 2017 he published Lenin the Dictator, a full-scale biography of the founder of the first Communist state, which was shortlisted for the Longford Prize in the UK, the Plutarch Award and the PEN Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for biography in the US.
He has been a speaker at universities, literary festivals and conferences throughout Europe and tâÂÂhe United States. He sat on TâÂÂhe Advisory Council of TâÂÂhe UK based in Wilton Park, the think tank and discussion forum for international affairs.
His latest book, The Russian Revolution, was published in June 2023.