For nearly half a century, Jolán Ballók has worked tirelessly as the doctor and pillar of a small, isolated Hungarian-majority township in Transylvania. Despite living a difficult life, Ballók, member of the Friends of Hungary Community, still always manages to find beauty in her circumstances. Her refreshing outlook is heavily reflected in her stories and anecdotes.

How did you end up in Görgényüvegcsűr?

Originally, I’m from Székelyderzs (Dârjiu), an 800-year-old traditional Székely village. I learned the most from my parents and the high school in Székelykeresztúr (Cristuru Secuiesc), a deeply conservative institution where they raised us to honor our Hungarian identity and homeland.

The medical university in Marosvásárhely (Târgu Mureș) was easier, and since I was the valedictorian, I was able to choose the only practice available in Transylvania: Görgényüvegcsűr. At that time, Hungarian medical graduates were sent to serve in Romanian-populated areas, beyond the Carpathians.

Have you ever thought of leaving the village or Transylvania?

No, although I would have had a lot of opportunities after 1990. For example, in 1991, I went to Switzerland for a few months. There, I was offered citizenship and maximum assistance.

But I couldn’t leave for two reasons: the first being my education, parents and school. And the second was the almost 1500 orphaned Hungarians who could hardly speak Romanian. Who knows, maybe they would never have had a Hungarian doctor if I hadn’t stayed.

What were your biggest difficulties?

It’s a very tough job to be on guard continuously and to decide on life and death all the time. And then afterward, you have to get back on your feet somehow and regenerate because life is not just about work.

I had to do all of this while far away from everything I knew and with only a few like-minded people around. This, I think, is one of the reasons why a number of doctors struggle with alcohol addiction, for example. My ‘shelter’ was classical music. I was fortunate because I got to know the technical director of the Hungarian State Opera, Miklós Borsa. I provided regular medical supervision for his son when they came to Transylvania for vacation. ‘In exchange,’ he let me use the director’s box at the Opera house as much as I liked while in Budapest. During week-long stays, I often spent every single night there. I also had literature at my disposal.

What was the most interesting aspect of your job?

It’s very interesting that since I have been practicing here – for almost 42 years now – 1300 children have been born and “only” 1100 people have died. So the case is, and it’s quite rare, that the demographic indicator is positive.

What do you think the reason for this is?

I believe there are two reasons: deep faith and proximity to nature. As a consequence, abortion has been practically non-existent. I once asked a woodsman about this. To my surprise, he replied and asked me if I had ever seen an animal killing its offspring. “How could I kill mine?” he questioned.

What was it like to practice in the mountains?

The mountains are a very different, tough world. From time to time, they have their own drama.

Once a coal-burner fell in the ‘buksa’ – a roof-shaped pile-like building where the coal is burned – from the ladder. When we managed to pull him out, he was completely, unrecognizably burned.

Then there was a case when a logger failed to return to the village after finishing his weekly work. We found him on Saturday. It turned out that the machine he worked with fell on him, and he was stuck underneath it for five days. Unfortunately, we couldn’t save his life either.

And I will never forget when two lumberjacks had a dispute in a barn up there, and one of them literally cut the other’s head in two with an ax.

Unfortunately, due to the high number of acute deaths, there have always been a large number of orphans in the village.

I heard that the Görgény Valley was popular for a number of rulers.

Yes, the Valley is a very special, beautiful place. It has always been a popular hunting ground. Ferenc Rákóczi, Franz Joseph, Miklós Horthy and the Romanian king all had castles here. Horthy’s, for example, was set on fire just as the situation turned. And, this was one of Dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu’s favorite valleys as well.

During his time, in my opinion, both Romanians and Hungarians suffered a lot.

I met him several times when he came to hunt because, despite always bringing his entire staff, us doctors had to be on call, sometimes even in his castle.

What was life and work like for the minority?

The fate of minorities has, of course, affected me too. I was always at the ‘end of the line’ when it came to renovating the offices. I was also ‘mysteriously forgotten’ when two of my Romanian colleagues in the district were given goods for their services.

But my biggest frustration came about 15 years ago when Romanian legislation made it possible for doctors to purchase their practices. I began the administration procedure well on time and the Illyés Public Foundation would have helped me with the money. With their support, I could have bought the building and probably the equipment too. However, my two Romanian colleagues in the district could not purchase theirs because those were church properties and therefore banned by law. So, at the assembly,

my purchase was voted down, with some arguing that “we shouldn’t let a Hungarian purchase his practice when a Romanian cannot purchase his.”

During Black March, a lot of Romanians reportedly arrived in Marosvásárhely (Târgu-Mureş) from the Görgény Valley. How did this affect you?

Since telephones were very rare at that time, for a long time we weren’t even aware of what was going on. Eventually, I got a report from the post office warning that people armed with axes were headed to Marosvásárhely by bus.

In the afternoon, our bus bound for Szászrégen (Reghin) where my daughter lived was stopped in the next village by people armed with sticks and axes.

They told the Hungarians sitting at the back to get off and said that if we didn’t, they would cut our heads off. They then lined us up at the road’s edge.

Although I had never before experienced such humiliation, fortunately, they didn’t hurt us. They just got on the empty bus and forced the driver to take them to the city. The road leading to the village was then blocked for days.

But this wasn’t everything. Only a mountain ridge separated Üvegcsűr and a nearby Romanian village, Görgényhodák (Hodac). When news came over the ridge that Hungarians were being killed in Vásárhely, the men in our village went up to the ridge to prevent a potential attack. The Romanians from Hodák, however, were afraid so they went up as well.

Fortunately, after being suspicious of one another for a few days, they eventually drank Pálinka together and went home in peace.

What is the biggest difficulty the community faces nowadays?

Considering there were no roads before the system change, conditions have improved a lot over the last five years. However, emigration and the lack of doctors are certainly disconcerting. There were times when 70% of the local men found jobs up in the mountains: woodcutting, coal burning and stone carving. But since that’s no longer the case, it’s not surprising that many have decided to seek prosperity in the West.

Who will take over your practice then?

God himself probably intervened as I finally managed to find a successor. He happens to be one of the direct descendants of Prince Bocskai. He is half Romanian, half Hungarian, speaks Hungarian fluently and isn’t a nationalist, thank God.

Does isolation endanger the mother tongue of local Hungarians?

There is a very good school in the village where children can learn Hungarian – for now.

What do you think about the Hungarian state’s increasing support for Hungarians beyond the borders?

Frankly, I can see why someone would feel hurt watching the Hungarian state send their tax abroad. But you know, when I got Hungarian citizenship and stepped out of the embassy in Kolozsvár (Cluj-Napoca), I called my friend and told him I wasn’t completely sure I deserved this. He said that

although you don’t pay your taxes to the Hungarian state anymore, your ancestors were taxed here for 1000 years, so now you get it back.

How did you get in contact with the Friends of Hungary Foundation?

I was contacted after I was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Hungarian Republic in 2012. Anyway, I don’t think it’s a foundation anymore. It has grown into a company and community. The connections made here mean a lot to us, both in terms of protection and self-esteem.

images: Dénes Erdős /

Hungary Today

Reklám

We should not romanticize the countercultural efforts of the Poles and Hungarians. But until the broad center of the intellectual and political spectrum steps away from its flirtation with nihilism and post-political illusions, we must show more understanding for those who wish to save the remnant of Western civilization that still exists.

In elite political and intellectual circles, a consensus has emerged: a dangerous populism, bordering on fascism and the worst political currents of the 1930s, is haunting Europe, Britain, and the United States. The election of Donald Trump, the prospect of a British exit from a Euro-Behemoth, and the rise of populist parties in France, Italy, and Austria are major pieces of evidence for the prosecution. In this narrative, contemporary “democracy,” pure and innocent, and beyond reproach, is under assault from new authoritarians. But there is no evidence that any of these developments or movements has threatened, or will threaten, public liberties.

In late January, thirty leading intellectuals signed a manifesto along these lines, which was written by the flamboyant French intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy. The manifesto spoke of a “new battle for civilization” in which “arsonists of soul and spirit” threaten fundamental European freedoms. For these self-proclaimed defenders of democracy, Poland and Hungary are at the center of the conflagration threatening to set fire to European freedoms.

A Tale of Good versus Evil?

Anne Applebaum, one of the signers of the new manifesto, has sounded the alarm with a depressing regularity both in her column in the Washington Postand in a widely read article in The Atlantic. Even as she invokes the horrors of a past about to repeat itself, Applebaum nonetheless admits that the “populist” regimes in Poland and Hungary tolerate opposition, do not resort to tyranny or terror, do not lie in the “surreal” manner of the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century, and have widespread popular support.

Still, she sees them as conveyors of a series of pernicious, middle-level lies that are paving the way for a far worse form of authoritarianism. Applebaum sees in Poland a replay of the Dreyfus Affair that split France in two at the end of the nineteenth century. One side represents a noble set of “abstract values”: justice, honesty, and a “neutral” judicial and bureaucratic class, paired with support for globalization, immigration, and European integration. But were the ex-Communists who dominated Polish politics for much of the 1990s “neutral” in their approach to the judiciary and the bureaucracy? Did not the previous centrist government in Poland appoint many last-minute judges to stymie the freedom of action of the new Law and Justice government? The other part of the nation, represented by the ruling Law and Justice party, stands for xenophobia, paranoid patriotism, religious zealotry, and hostility to European values. Applebaum doesn’t seem to remember that when the Dreyfusards came to power in France in 1903 they outlawed religious orders and closed Catholic schools. They were fanatical in their own way. So much for a simple morality tale of good versus evil.

Applebaum is also completely blind to what the French political philosopher Pierre Manent calls the “fanaticism of the center.” Such fanaticism erodes national identity and sovereignty, identifies European values dogmatically with aggressive secularism, and displays contempt for what used to be called “Western civilization.” Can one imagine any of the signers of Bernard-Henri Lévy’s appeal invoking “the survival of Christian civilization,” as Europe’s two greatest anti-totalitarian statesmen, Churchill and de Gaulle, did over and over again during the Second World War? Never. The Old West has been left behind, condemned in a thousand ways.

That is why Daniel Pipes, in a recent piece in Commentary, refers to Poland’s Law and Justice party and Hungary’s Fidesz party as “civilizationist” parties. These groups are wary of transnationalism, and they are suspicious of an Islam that has yet to make its peace with modern civilization and political moderation. They are deeply committed to a rich and capacious notion of the West and of European liberty—one that does not confuse freedom with radical autonomy. Pipes believes that such parties, movements, and governments need to be tutored in the arts of political responsibility, not declared beyond the pale by elite consensus. In his view, they are not “dangerous,” they do not have totalitarian ambitions, and they can play a constructive role in defending what is left of the “Old West” against the acids of modernity and the assaults of militant Islam. And they are recognizably more responsive to public opinion than governing European elites who associate “democracy” with a determined policy to depoliticize and de-Christianize Europe. When European peoples vote “No” on a project supported by the European Commission in Brussels (as the Danes, Irish, French and Dutch have done on various occasions), they are usually told to vote again until they get things right. The Poles and Hungarians are right to reject such a demeaning, not to mention Orwellian, conception of self-government.

For her part, Applebaum believes that Europeans must choose between the National Front and the political correctness bandied about by Emmanuel Macron. Macron tells the French they have no distinctive “culture,” properly speaking, and he incoherently cites de Gaulle as a political inspiration even as he supports the evisceration of the traditional nation and the building of a European super-state. Macron perfectly embodies the contempt for self-government in a centrist elite that confuses “democracy” with abstract values that cannot be challenged by self-governing peoples without the specter of populism or fascism being raised by guardians of a democracy who refuse to consult the unsavory demos.

How would essentially conservative patriots such as Churchill and de Gaulle fit into this false and debilitating choice? Anne Applebaum herself once identified as conservative. But what kind of conservatism unthinkingly identifies with the entire cultural project that arose out of 1968? What is wrong with European peoples attempting to defend their way of life against those who contemptuously reject the old “spiritual contents of life”: the nation, the Church, and a culture rooted in beauty, truth, and the old classical and biblical verities? Why should they be told to adhere to new European “values” that are at odds with everything they hold dear and that are, truth be told, of relatively recent provenance?

Are Poland and Hungary Still Free?

Applebaum is not wrong that the governing elites in contemporary Poland are prone to conspiratorial thinking about Poland’s foes. They see Russian machinations everywhere. In Orban’s Hungary, there is a willingness and ability to distinguish between the Soviet Union and Russia. This distinction is impossible for the passionate Polish patriots of Law and Justice to affirm. For them, alas, Russia is the “eternal enemy” and is even said to be behind the 2010 Smolensk plane crash that took the lives of many Polish and military figures. Even Applebaum, a generally wise and judicious student of Soviet totalitarianism who does not believe this conspiracy theory, sees Putin as an unreconstructed Leninist and KGB man. Most Russians, in contrast, see him as a White, as an enemy of Communism, rather than as a Red or a neo-Bolshevik. But in this, Applebaum (who resides in Poland with her husband Radek Sikorski, a former foreign minister) reveals herself to be very Polish, indeed.

Do Poland and Hungary remain free countries? Yes. Is there fear in the streets of Warsaw, Budapest, and other Polish and Hungarian cities? No. Observers should not confuse Orban’s animosity toward George Soros with anti-Semitism. Soros, a partisan of transnationalism and radical libertarianism, shows little respect for the Jewish religion and is no friend of the state of Israel. Applebaum is right about one thing: Polish elites are divided in two, and old friendships, including political friendships, have been severed. But elections are free, and political liberty is intact.

The Law and Justice government is sometimes clumsy and inept, as when it sponsored legislation criminalizing those who blamed Poland for the Holocaust. To be fair, they do have reasons to be defensive, from American reporter Andrea Mitchell’s recent conflation of the “Polish and Nazi regime” to Israeli officials’ linking of Polish anti-Semitism to the genocidal crimes of the Nazis. Meanwhile, elsewhere in Europe, militant and aggressive anti-Semitism flourishes unchecked in Islamic and Leftist circles. Have these critics no eyes to see?

Hungary remains a free country, even if Victor Orban’s Fidesz party has largely consolidated political control. People demonstrate, an opposition exists, there are no political prisoners, independent views can be freely expressed. Hungary, too, is countercultural in its response to the new European civil religion of radical secularism and unthinking cosmopolitanism. As the Polish philosopher Ryszard Legutko has pointed out, Hungary proudly affirms her sovereignty and her character as a Christian nation (going back a millennium to her great founder King St. Stephen). On abortion, same-sex marriage, and open-ended Islamic immigration, Hungary, like Poland, refuses to be intimidated by the “fanaticism of the center.” These supposedly “extremist” governments defend positions that were commonplace in Western Europe until a generation or two ago.

David P. Goldman goes too far in calling Orban a European Christian Democrat of the old kind. A European Christian Democrat might speak of a conservative democracy, but not an illiberal one, as Orban has done on a half dozen occasions. Orban is surely not a model democratic leader, but as Scott McConnell has recently argued in The American Conservative, he is not an “aspiring dictator” either. And David P. Goldman is right, absolutely right, that Hungary cannot reasonably be accused of anti-Semitism. Orban’s Hungary is a great friend of Israel, and Budapest’s 100,000 Jews are safer and more secure than Jews in most nations of Europe, France and Britain included. Orban’s decision not to accept Islamic migrants and refugees during the recent great migration no doubt has something to do with that climate of safety for Hungarian Jews. And yet articles in the Western press published the last weekend of March suggested that Hungarian Jews are too “fearful” to speak out against an essentially anti-Semitic government in Budapest. Orban is habitually compared to Hitler in a shameless resort to the old reductio ad Hitlerum.

The Fanaticism of the Center

Let us return to the question of the “fanaticism of the center” of which Pierre Manent has spoken. As Daniel Pipes points out, the “6Ps: police, politicians, press, priests, professors, and prosecutors” in the rest of Europe remain blind to Islamist fanaticism. They are fully convinced of the historical “culpability” of the old “liberal and Christian civilization.” In Ireland, Catholic hospitals are now commanded to perform abortions, an abomination by any standard. In France, one can be imprisoned for two years for trying to persuade a pregnant woman not to have an abortion. In Canada, a refusal to endorse and uphold the “metaphysical madness” of the new language of human self-identification that accompanies gender theory is punishable under the law.

Is this the noble democracy that our ancestors swore to uphold?

Legutko makes the wholly persuasive case that the Poles associated with Solidarnosc thought they were fighting for truth, moral nobility, classical metaphysics, respect for religion, and the family. They believed in a democratic republicanism that bowed before the goodness and greatness of God. They were, Legutko suggests, insufficiently appreciative of the nihilist turn taken in the West, which began in the 1960s but whose theoretical roots long predated those momentous days.

We should not romanticize the countercultural efforts of the Poles and Hungarians. That is even more true of the more unsavory civilizationalist parties and movements in Austria, Greece, and elsewhere. But until the broad center of the intellectual and political spectrum steps away from its flirtation with nihilism and post-political illusions, we must show more understanding for those who wish to save the remnant of Western civilization that still exists.

Lévy and Applebaum confuse conservative patriotism, albeit of a clumsy and defensive sort, with an incipient authoritarianism, even totalitarianism. They could not be more wrong. They are blind to the myriad ways that late-modern democracy is in the process of losing its soul. They do not see that it is becoming a new form of coercion and authoritarianism, not unlike the “democratic despotism” of which Tocqueville warned. The conflagration is much broader and deeper than they suppose. True liberals, who are also true conservatives, have every reason to be wary—and not just about events in Poland and Hungary.

Source: thepublicdiscourse.com

Reklám

May 20, 2019, 7:30 pm
Carnegie Hall – Zankel Hall

We would like to invite you to an upcoming Hungarian musical production featuring the Nikolett Pankovits Sextet and The River Voices, which will have its premiere on May 20, 2019 at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall. 

We are thrilled to present eighteen Hungarian and American artists from New York and the tri-state area who are all devoted to Hungarian folk music and culture: 8 folk singers, 6 jazz musicians, 3 folk instrumentalists, a folk dancer and an actor will collaborate on this event.

After the Nikolett Pankovits Sextet’s great success in high prestigious venues such as Lincoln Center, Blue Note Jazz Club and Joe’s Pub, we are very excited to present our extended line up and new repertoire at the Carnegie Hall.

One part of the concert will showcase authentic folk music as originally orchestrated for violin, viola, bass and voice. The other part of the event will have jazz, Latin and world music arrangements of folk songs. The basic framework of the concert is the dialects of Hungarian folk music as established by Béla Bartók.

Admission:
Tickets can be purchased online:

https://www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2019/05/20/Nikolett-Pankovits-Sextet–The-River-Voices-0730PM

OR

Please let us know the amount of tickets you request: pankovitsniki@gmail.com

We look forward to seeing you at the Carnegie Hall!

Have a nice day,
Nikolett Pankovits
www.nikolettpankovits.com

Reklám

The local administration of the town of Dărmănești/Dormánfalva has recently taken ownership of a Hungarian military cemetery in neighbouring Harghita county, under dubious circumstances. The cemetery located in Valea Uzului/Úzvölgye (Valley of Uz) was the site of several battles during World War I and II, and many Hungarian and German soldiers are buried there. The cemetery has come to be almost like a place of pilgrimage, not only for Hungarians living in Transylvania, but for all Hungarians.

Officials from Dărmănești/Dormánfalva have already put up numerous crosses made of concrete next to the wooden crosses put up on the graves, and they have also erected a monument in memory of the Romanian soldiers that fought in World War II. András Gergely, mayor of Sânmartin/ Csíkszentmárton (a nearby village) said that the war cemetery figures in the inventory of the village led by him, which was reinforced by a 2010 government decree. He also added that the cemetery was founded in 1917 for the Austro-Hungarian troops that died there, with most of the soldiers buried there belonging to the 10^th regiment from Miskolc (Hungary), the majority of whom were Hungarians.

The site in question has been the source of discord for several years between the local administrations of Dărmănești/Dormánfalva in Bacău county and Sânmartin/ Csíkszentmárton in Harghita county, but a 1968 law clearly states that the valley belongs to the latter. Nevertheless, attempts by Harghita county officials to impede the appropriation of the cemetery through legal means have so far failed. The issue also has a diplomatic dimension, given that in a 2008 government decree signed by both the Hungarian and the Romanian government, they mutually agreed to consult one another before modifying each other’s military cemeteries.

The issue sparked huge outrage among the Hungarian community in Romania, for whom the cemetery in Valea Uzului/Úzvölgye is a place of national remembrance. These changes made to the cemetery, which can be qualified as nothing short of a vicious and immoral appropriation, are moving forward under the guise of “refurbishment”, and sadly, thus far, no legal or diplomatic solution has been found.

Source: Mikó Imre Legal Service / Newsletter no. VI/6/05.01.2019.

Reklám

The biggest Easter food basket blessing of the world is held each year in the Székely town named Csíkszereda/Miercurea Ciuc. On Easter Sunday thousands of people (last year for example more than 7,000) are waiting at the town’s main square in ordered lines for the Roman Catholic priests to bless their food in their baskets covered with ornate tablecloths.

More than 7000 believers at the Easter Food Basket Blessing in Csíkszereda in 2018 (Photo: Imre Gegő)

In the Middle Ages the tradition of food blessing used to be practiced in every Catholic province, but nowadays it is not that common anymore. However Székelyföld is one of the few regions left (similar to Poland) where the tradition – of putting egg, lamb meet, ham, Easter bread and salt into the basket – still lives on. According to the faith of the Catholics, eating of the blessed food after their long fasting protects them from intemperance. At the end of Lent, in the morning of Easter Sunday people confess – so they can purify spiritually as wel l- then after their Holy Communion the priest blesses the foods in their baskets. And finally following the mass the family eats the sanctified food at home.

Easter Food Basket Blessing in Csíkszereda (Photo: MTI/2018)

“In the beginning of the 1980’s, early morning, after the first mass the people were standing in lines on the sidewalks of both the main street and the side streets around the church and we were walking among them to sanctify their foods. From the second part of the ‘80’s authorities did not permit this anymore, so we had to do it inside the St. Cross Church and the nearby plank church.” -told vicar of Csíkszereda, József Darvas-Kozma last year to Erdélyi Napló. The tradition then stepped up to a new level in the XXI. century: “In 2001, we held the mass in the Trade Union Cultural Center and the food blessing took place outside, on the main square. This was so successful, that since then we don’t do the sanctification at the end of the mess, but instead we do it separately in the morning outside on the square.”

Easter food basket blessing in Csíkszereda in 2016. (Video: Facebook Székely TV)

Believers keep standing in lines patiently with their baskets placed front of them on the ground, while eight-nine priests walk between the rows sprinkling the foods with Holy Water. “I’m happy that it turned into an ecumenical liturgy, as also our Protestant brothers bring their food to get sanctified and we pray together. At the end of the event the community sings together our national pray, and the Székely anthem”-told the vicar.

Little girls have their own basket. (Photo: Maszol.ro 2018)

Last year believers were standing in 22 row, with about 350 souls in each, which meant more than 7000 people altogether. Many of these people also put on their traditional Székely costumes for the event, and not only adults but youngsters and little children participate as well. The little girls have their own baskets, and the priests commend them separately, and talk with them directly. It is important because they are the ones who are going to play the important role in the Easter food basket blessings of the forthcoming decades.

Believers are arriving to the Easter Food Basket Blessing in Csíkszereda (Photo: Maszol.ro/2018)

Youngsters also practice the tradition of Easter Food Basket Blessing. (Photo: MTI/2018)

Believers are arriving to the Easter Food Basket Blessing in Csíkszereda (Photo: MTI/2018)

Believers are arriving to the Easter Food Basket Blessing in Csíkszereda (Photo: Maszol.ro/2018)

Easter Food Basket Blessing in Csíkszereda (Photo: Maszol.ro/2018)

Easter Food Basket Blessing in Csíkszereda (Photo: Maszol.ro/2018)

Easter Food Basket Blessing in Csíkszereda (Photo: MTI/2018)

Easter Food Basket Blessing in Csíkszereda (Photo: Maszol.ro/2018)

Little girls have their own basket. (Photo: MTI/2018)

More than 7000 believers at the biggest Easter Food Basket Blessing of the World in Csíkszereda in 2018 (Photo: MTI)

Title Image: The biggest Easter Food Basket Blessing of the World in Csíkszereda in 2018 (Photo: MTI)

Reklám

Authored by Jennie Taer via SaraCarter.com,

At their talks in Budapest on Thursday, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior Matteo Salvini agreed on the importance of strong nation states, on the need to give priority in Europe to European culture based on Christian values, and on border defence.

At a joint press conference held with Mr. Salvini – who is also head of the Italian government party Lega – Mr. Orbán said they both believe the following:

that there will be no strong Europe without strong and successful nation states;

that on the continent priority must be given to European culture based on Christian values;

and that “Europe’s borders must be defended against the migrant invasion”.

Speaking about Italy’s response to migration, Viktor Orbán praised Mr. Salvini for “his efforts in achieving on the sea what we have done on land”.

He said that the success of these efforts is of crucial importance.

Viktor Orbán described Matteo Salvini’s visit to Budapest as an honour, adding that cooperation between the governments of the two countries has reached its highest point so far.

He said that “the citizens of Europe will benefit from listening to Italy and Hungary rather than President Macron.”

Viktor Orbán also outlined the Hungarian proposal for the establishment of a new body comprising the interior ministers of the Schengen Area countries. He stated that powers related to migration should be taken away from the European Commission and delegated to such a body.

Click here for more on this…

Source: zerohedge.com

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Yesterday Ukraine’s parliament approved a controversial law that makes the Ukrainian language compulsory for the public sector. As a result, minority languages can only be spoken at home or during religious events.

Backers of the law claim it would strengthen Ukraine’s national identity and language, something the country – which finds itself in a delicate position as a result of an increasing pressure from Russia – could possibly benefit from. Hungarian organizations, and those of other minorities, have protested against the legislation by saying it eliminates the right minorities have to speak their own languages.

According to Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó, the law is “unacceptable.” He expressed hope that the situation concerning the rights of the Hungarian community in Ukraine could be “clarified in a dialogue with the country’s new president (…) in pursuit of finding a solution to the issue.”

In addition, as Index noted, the law’s text states that the languages of Crimean Tatars and other indigenous peoples – potentially including Hungarian – will be covered by an amendment. It is expected to be presented within half a year by a new parliament as President-elect Volodymyr Zelensky’s Servant of the People party is not yet present in the Parliament due to the particularities of the Ukrainian electoral system. However, the party will likely have a majority after the October elections.

As a native Russian speaker, Zelensky’s stance is of great interest to many. However, for now it remains unclear how he feels about the language law. Nevertheless, he does appear to be less of a nationalist than the current president, Petro Poroshenko. According to karpatalja.ma, he said on Thursday that when sworn in he plans to carefully analyze “this law to ensure that it respects the constitutional rights and interests of all the citizens of Ukraine.”

For now, the law is yet to be signed by outgoing President Poroshenko, but given his previous statements, it is highly likely he will sign it before handing over the presidency.

The law has generated tension not only between the two countries but also in diplomacy. For example, Hungarian diplomats blocked discussions between Ukraine and NATO. This led to criticism from the US: At a conference organized by the conservative Danube Institute yesterday, U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker insisted that “the issue of national minority languages is important and needs to be resolved between Hungary and Ukraine, but it doesn’t provide justification for blocking NATO discussions.” Founding member of Fidesz and Chairman of Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee Zsolt Németh retorted by declaring easing up out of the question for the time being. In the same vein, Transcarpathian Hungarian Cultural Association (KMKSZ) leader László Brenzovics warned the US “not to confuse Westernism with Ukrainian nationalism oppressing minorities.”

featured image: Transcarpathian Hungarian kids (illustration); via MTI/János Nemes

Source: hungarytoday.hu

Reklám

In our recurring Week in the life of the Hungarian Diaspora series, we’ll be looking back at recent events and exploring the many success stories of the Kőrösi Csoma Sándor Program, which targets Hungarians outside the Carpathian Basin, and the Petőfi Sándor Program, which focuses on dispersed Hungarian communities beyond the borders of Hungary.

Hungarian Baking Club in Windsor

The kitchen of the Mindszenty Hall in Windsor is filled with hard-working Hungarian women who delight the locals with Hungarian delicacies every Monday. They make a large quantity of gingerbread, as well as walnut and poppy seed-flavored rolls, which are usually sold immediately. They also bake traditional Hungarian desserts and sell them at various Hungarian events and food fairs. Jam, walnut and poppy-seed cookies, zserbó, apple pie, honey cake and several other delicacies are typically up for grabs.

Buza Wedding Party at the Regös Camp

This year, the Western European Hungarian Scout Association organized the Tinódi Lantos Sebestyén Regös Camp for the 41st time in Lützensömerern, Germany. Every year, some 140 young people and scout leaders gather to keep both Hungarian tradition and folk culture alive. As this year’s camp’s theme was the Mezőség, the participants took part in a Buza wedding celebration.

Interconnection of the Petőfi and Kőrösi Programs

The participants of the two similar programs were given a rare chance to help preserve the identity of Hungarians outside Hungary. Hungarians in Zürich are now helping the scattered Hungarian diaspora in the Carpathian basin as part of a cross-border co-operation. They have donated 500 Swiss Francs to help strengthen the Hungarian community in the village and to aid in the renovation of the Hungarian Reformed church in Kóbor.

Archery Training and Horseback Riding in Solyva

The Hungarian community in Solyva – a city nestled in the Carpathian Mountains on the road to the Vereckei Pass – has recently renewed its Hungarian kindergarten. It now offers new, exciting programs which include archery and horseback riding.

Palm Sunday Concert in Prague

At a concert held in the Hungarian Church of St Henry, the audience listened as the Kobzos ensemble – composed of singer Andrea Navratil and zitherist László Demeter – performed archaic Hungarian holy songs preserved in the Moldavian Csángó tradition in an original, intuitive way.

Book Presentation About the Székely Hungarians Living in Southwest Banat

Kis Valéria’s book, titled Hungarians/Székelys in Southwest Bánát(Mađari/Sekelji u Jugozapadnom Banatu) was presented in the large hall at the Petőfi Hungarian Cultural Association in Pancsova. The writer, who is currently living in Bukovina and has her roots in Budapest, wrote the book in Serbian so that the non-Hungarian readers living in the region could learn of the unique situation facing the Hungarians/Székelys living there.

Source: hungarytoday.hu

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Hungary is ready to promote the development of Europe-China relations through cooperation between China and central and eastern Europe, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in Beijing at talks with President Xi Jinping on Thursday, the Chinese English-language paper China Daily reported.

Orbán, who is attending the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing, expressed firm support for the Belt and Road Initiative, calling it “an opportunity rather than a threat”.

Orbán said that “the Hungarian government and people cherish the extraordinary friendship with China” and that Hungary is optimistic about China’s high-tech development and welcomes investment from China.

The paper cited Xi as saying that China and Hungary should cooperate within the Belt and Road framework, including the upgrade of the Budapest-Belgrade railway, and “strive for more concrete results”. The Chinese president noted that “this year marks the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries and China looks forward to working with Hungary to bring the bilateral comprehensive strategic partnership to a new level.”

In the featured photo: Viktor Orbán and Xi Jinping.

Photo by Balázs Szecsődi/PM’s Press Office

Source: hungarytoday.hu

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New York, NY – The Hungarian Human Rights Foundation (HHRF) announces with profound sadness that László Hámos passed away on April 16 in New York, after a long and bravely borne illness.

László Hámos was co-founder in 1976 of the Committee for Human Rights in Rumania, which in 1984 became the Hungarian Human Rights Foundation. He remained at the helm of HHRF for the past 43 years. His vision and commitment sustained a movement, and fundamentally shaped the community of HHRF co-workers and supporters throughout the world.

László was born in 1951 in Paris to Hungarian parents (his father was born in Slovakia, his mother in Romania) and raised in a New Jersey suburb of New York. A graduate of the Mount Hermon School (Massachusetts), he studied international relations at the University of Pennsylvania. After working at the law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore, he started his own legal research and litigation support services company in Manhattan, before giving up the legal career to work full-time at HHRF.

In his youth, László was formed by the Hungarian-American organizations in Manhattan’s Yorkville neighborhood – the scouts, the Hungarian Reformed Church, the Hungarian House. Proud of his Hungarian heritage, László had an equally strong sense of American identity. In the 1970’s, U.S. foreign policy singled out Romania, alone among Communist East bloc adversaries, as a “Most Favored Nation”. As László often told the story, it was as a U.S. citizen that he found this intolerable: the U.S. government (“Our government!”) chose to overlook the Ceausescu regime’s human rights violations, including a systematic campaign of forced assimilation against the Hungarian minority. On May 8, 1976, he and a group of fellow Hungarian-Americans decided to exercise their civil rights: they organized a demonstration at the Romanian consulate in New York. The Committee (later Hungarian Human Rights Foundation) was born.

Initially an ad-hoc group of young volunteers, HHRF changed the way Hungarian-American organizations operated. Instead of looking inward or backward, HHRF embraced the unique power of “hyphenated Americans” and their potential, as ordinary voters, to influence their elected Congressmen and other decision-makers. Uniquely among Hungarian-American groups at the time, HHRF used the concept of human rights as the morally and legally acceptable “handle” to get U.S. policymakers at international forums to raise the issue of rights violations against Hungarian minorities. To document these violations, HHRF gathered, translated and published first-hand information provided by courageous underground activists in Slovakia and Romania (at a time when the web did not exist, the fax was a novelty, and Eastern bloc countries banned copy machines). In the mid 1980s, Baron Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza – who was partly of Transylvanian-Hungarian origin – was duly impressed by László’s work and became HHRF’s major benefactor and board member until his death.

László was a natural leader: he inspired co-workers by his clear thinking, problem-solving approach, and heartfelt desire to help those in need, often at the expense of his own well-being. In documentation, his sole goal – from which he never gave an inch – was to produce top-quality and airtight text. The high standards paid off. Under László’s leadership, HHRF developed into a trusted clearinghouse of well-researched, reliable information (“Our only asset is our reputation!”), and over the years built up a network of bipartisan U.S. allies in Congress and State Department willing to use their offices to speak up on behalf of Hungarian minorities, themselves “voiceless” behind the Iron Curtain.

László wrote and edited several volumes, position papers and scholarly articles on human rights, in addition to presenting more than 1,000 pages of written testimony at 27 hearings before various Congressional committees. He lectured at Cornell, Princeton, Yale and Columbia Universities and served as a consultant to the news media, other international human rights monitoring organizations, as well as U.S. and international governmental bodies.

Since 1976, László met with six U.S. presidents. He participated in three 1994 discussions with President Clinton and Vice President Gore regarding NATO enlargement. In March 1990, he arranged and participated in the Oval Office meeting between President George H. W. Bush, cabinet members and Rev. László Tőkés, the Hungarian Protestant minister from Romania whose resistance sparked the 1989 revolution. Over the years, László held several hundred personal meetings with Members of Congress, White House and State Department officials organized for Hungarian community leaders from East Central Europe after the fall of Communism.

László’s personal example directly inspired a new generation of leadership in the larger Hungarian-American community. Since 1984, HHRF hosted 73 interns in New York and Washington from around the world. Many of them would continue professional activities related to human rights. None would forget their late-night conversations with László, the stories he told, the habits he kept, or his kindness.

In 1991, HHRF was a co-founder of the Hungarian American Coalition, and László continuously served as Board and Executive Committee member since that time.  In 1996, he was elected Director of the Hungarian Reformed Federation of America (HRFA). In his capacity as Chairman beginning in 2008, he successfully led the Federation’s merger with GBU Financial Life in 2011. Until Fall 2013, László was Chairman of HRFA’s successor organization, the Kossuth Foundation. He also served as President of the 64-year-old American Hungarian Library and Historical Society in New York.

László played a decisive role in preserving and developing two emblematic buildings belonging to the Hungarian American community: the Hungarian House of New York, and the Kossuth House in Washington, DC. He developed new initiatives to promote cultural identity among the 1.5 million Americans of Hungarian ancestry, notably the 2012 launch of ReConnect Hungary Birthright Program under the patronage of former New York State Governor George E. Pataki.

László also won respect throughout the world-wide Hungarian Diaspora. László represented Hungarians in the West at meetings of the Hungarian Standing Conference (MÁÉRT) and the Carpathian Basin Hungarian Parliamentarians’ Forum (KMKF) in Budapest. Between 1998-2002, he served in a pro bono capacity as Foreign Policy Advisor to the Prime Minister of Hungary. Awards recognizing his and HHRF’s achievements include: the “For Minorities Award” (Kisebbségekért Díj) in 1996; the “Middle Cross of the Hungarian Republic” (Magyar Köztársasági Érdemrend Középkeresztje) in 2001; the American Hungarian Foundation’s Abraham Lincoln Award in 2007; and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences’ Arany János Medal, bestowed in 2011.

László Hámos is survived by his wife, Zsuzsa Erdélyi Hámos, daughter Júlia and son Dániel; parents Ottó and Margit Hámos, brother Árpád, and numerous family members in the U.S., Europe and Asia.

He is also mourned by HHRF Board Members Emese Latkóczy, Zsolt Szekeres and Péter Józsa, and by many other co-workers and associates who benefited over the decades from his friendship, character and vision.

Visitation will be Saturday, April 20 between 10 am and noon at the Barrett Funeral Home (148 Dean Drive, Tenafly, NJ 07670. www.barrettfuneralhome.net). Interment will follow at 1 pm in Brookside Cemetery (425 Engle Street, Englewood, NJ 07631. https://www.brooksidecemetery.net/). A memorial gathering will be held at the Hungarian House in New York at a later date.

The Hungarian Prime Minister’s Office, recognizing the invaluable contributions of László Hámos to the Hungarian nation, will provide full funeral honors.

You may express condolences and share memories here.

Source: hhrf.org

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The Hungarian government has made an offer to buy 25 percent of a liquid natural gas (LNG) terminal “possibly built” in Croatia, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó told journalists in Dubrovnik on Friday.

Szijjártó had talks with Tomislav Coric, Croatia’s environment and energy minister, on the sidelines of a China-Central and Eastern Europe summit, and said it was crucial for central Europe to diversify its gas supplies.

Péter Szijjártó with Croatian Foreign Minister  Marija Pejèinoviæ Buriæ in Dubrovnik. Photo by Mitko Sztojcsev/Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Szijjártó said it was in Hungary’s strategic interest that the terminal should be built and offer gas to Hungary at a competitive price. He added that the decision and the plans for the terminal have been in place, but “there has been no progress” in the physical implementation.

PM Viktor Orbán with Croatian PM Andrej Plenkovic in Dubrovnik. Photo by Balázs Szecsődi/PM’s Press Office

He added that Croatia had “not yet provided a clear answer” on the matter, as the country wants to take a decision on Hungary’s offer at the same time as it contracts gas volume. Investing in the terminal is “a strategic issue” but “we will certainly not buy gas at a higher price than at present,” he said, adding that the negotiations would be continued.

Featured photo by lng.hr

Source: hungarytoday.hu

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Construction contracts in connection with the upgrade of the Budapest-Belgrade railway line could soon be signed, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on Friday.

Speaking at a summit of the China-Central-Eastern Europe cooperation in Dubrovnik, Orbán said that cooperation between China and the CEE region “serves true European values with regard to the deep and comprehensive changes in the global economy and global politics”.

Countries in central and eastern Europe build their policies “on common sense and rationality”, on a basis of mutual respect, which is reflected in the successful and multi-faceted cooperation with China, Orbán said. He noted that Hungary and China are celebrating the 70th anniversary of establishing diplomatic ties this year.

Pm Viktor ORbán with Ana Brnabic, PM of Serbia, and Bojko Borisov, PM of Bulgaria. Photo by Balázs Szecsődi/PM’s Press Office

Concerning the railway project, to be implemented with Chinese participation, Orbán said that it will offer the fastest way to transport goods between China and western Europe. The project is an integral part of the Belt and Road Initiative aimed at promoting free trade.

Photo by Balázs Szecsődi/PM’s Press Office

Orbán said hopefully similar projects such as the construction of a high-speed railway link between Budapest and Bucharest would follow in the future.

On the featured photo: PM Viktor Orbán with Chinese PM Li Keqiang. Photo by Balázs Szecsődi/PM’s Press Office

Source: hungarytoday.hu

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Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Friday outlined his Fidesz party’s programme aimed at stopping immigration.

The first part of the proposal calls for stripping “Brussels bureaucrats” of their power to manage the migration issue and giving that competency back to the European Union’s member states.

He said no country should be forced to take in migrants against its will and no one should be admitted to the EU without valid documents.

The EU should also stop issuing prepaid debit cards and “migrant visas” to migrants, Orbán said. Neither should the bloc give any more money to organisations linked to US financier George Soros, which the prime minister said promoted immigration. Instead, he said, these groups should pay for member states’ border protection measures.

Photo by Szilárd Koszticsák/MTI

Further, no one should face discrimination for identifying as a Christian, Orbán said, adding that EU institutions should have anti-migration leaders.

The prime minister said these measures were crucial for stopping immigration and preserving Christian culture, and asked voters to back his party’s programme. He said that

Our Christian civilisation is at stake in the upcoming European parliamentary election”

The election will decide if the EU has “pro-migration or anti-migration” leaders in future, whether “Europe continues to belong to the Europeans or to masses from another civilisation; whether we can save our Christian, European culture or give up the ground for multiculturalism,” the prime minister said.

Orbán added that “discontent with Europe’s elite is mostly rooted in their treatment of migration”. What Europe is facing is not just a migration crisis but a migration of peoples in the historical sense, he suggested. Europe, he went on to say, could stop mass migration “but it has not even made an attempt;

the European Union’s incumbent leaders support and encourage migration.”

Orbán criticised Brussels for not focusing enough on family policy, pointing out that at the same time the EU regularly emphasises the importance of legal migration. He said the EU’s programme of legal migration was actually a “front” for replacing Europe’s population with immigrants.

We Hungarians have lived here in the Carpathian Basin for a thousand years and we want to remain here and preserve our borders for at least another one thousand years”

The prime minister said. “We want the next generations, our children and our grandchildren, to be just as free to make decisions about their lives as we are.”

Orbán also touched on the relationship between Fidesz and the European People’s Party, saying that “we will decide on our own future, not the European People’s Party.” Fidesz will wait and see which direction the EPP will go in after the elections, he said, adding that right now it appeared to be heading “left, in a liberal direction towards liberal European empire-building and in the direction of the Europe of immigrants” If this is the direction the EPP is headed, he said, “you can be sure Fidesz won’t follow it.”

As regards the outgoing European Commission president, Orbán called Jean-Claude Juncker an

“authentic socialist”

who bore heavy responsibility for Brexit, “the migrant invasion” and the “growing conflict” between central and western Europe.

“There is an error in the appliance of the Brussels elite,” Orbán said, adding that there was a “bubble”, or “virtual world” in Brussels that refused to accept reality. This was why, Orbán said, it was possible for EPP group leader and spitzenkandidat Manfred Weber, who he noted was a Roman Catholic Bavarian, to “insult” the Hungarian people. He said this was not unusual from a “Bavarian from Brussels”, adding, however, that a “Bavarian from Munich would never do such a thing”.

Orbán noted that Hungary has been at odds with Brussels on various issues for nine years now, adding that these disputes were always about the Hungarian government’s refusal to “do as Brussels dictates” if it believes that something would be against the interests of the Hungarian people.

The prime minister summed up the achievements of the Juncker commission saying “the British are leaving and the immigrants have come in”.

Concerning the future of the bloc, Orbán criticised the concept of the “united states of Europe”, which he said was a power ambition of the “Brussels elite” against nation states.

The European dream is broken”

Orbán said, citing a recent study by (pro-Fidesz) Századvég Foundation, which found that EU citizens no longer believe that future generations will be better off than the current one. Orbán said western Europeans tended to be more pessimistic about the future of the bloc. The majority of Europeans also believe in preserving the continent’s Christian culture and traditions, Orbán said, pointing out that 80 percent of Hungarians shared this view.

Europeans oppose immigration, Orbán said, adding that European Commission First Vice-President Frans Timmermans, the lead candidate of the European Socialists, on the other hand, was in favour of it.

It’s understandable that Juncker and Timmermans are together all the time. The only question is how the EPP’s Manfred Weber can come together with someone like this.”

The prime minister called on voters to “show Brussels” in the election that it was the European people, and not the “Soros-affiliated NGOs and Brussels bureaucrats” that had the final say in the EU’s affairs.

Fidesz EP List Leader Trócsányi: Europe at a crossroads

Europe stands at a crossroads and next month’s European parliamentary elections will be about the present, future generations and the fate of the EU’s member states, Justice Minister László Trócsányi said on Friday.

László Trócsányi. Photo by Szilárd Koszticsák/MTI

Speaking at the unveiling of the ruling Fidesz party’s election programme, Trócsányi said he believed in the strength of democracy and that the future of Europe was in the hands of its citizens.

The minister said European Union institutions had grown out of touch with the bloc’s citizens and that many of the bloc’s decisions were often “far from reality”.

Trócsányi said the EU would only be able to carry out its mission if it respects national sovereignty and independence instead of striving to be a “forcefully constructed community”.

Foreign Minister Szijjártó: Hungary should be proud of having rejected UN migration compact

Hungary should be proud that it rejected the United Nations’ migration compact, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said on Friday, adding, at the same time, that “the battle is not yet over”.

Péter Szijjártó. Photo by Szilárd Koszticsák/MTI

Addressing the official unveiling of ruling Fidesz’s European parliamentary election programme, Szijjártó said it had now become “clear” that the inflow of illegal migrants faced by Europe in 2015 had been “part of a well-conceived plan” to organise a “global population exchange”.

He said international organisations like the United Nations also had parts to play in the plan, adding that the UN’s role had been to legalise illegal migration through its global migration compact.

Though Hungary rejected the compact, Brussels “will do everything it can” to make the document mandatory for the European Union’s member states “and decide in our place whom we should allow in and whom we should live together with”, Szijjártó said.

“We won’t allow this,” the minister said, adding that this was what voters needed to make clear in the EP elections.

On the featured photo: PM Viktor Orbán. Photo by Szilárd Koszticsák/MTI

Forrás: hungarytoday.hu

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