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Hungarian politicians mark August 20 national holiday
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Hungary’s national holidays, regardless of whether they commemorate events from decades or centuries ago, send a message of unity, President Janos Ader said on Friday at a celebration of Hungary’s St. Stephen’s Day national holiday.
The past year and a half made it difficult for Hungarians to commemorate their national holidays together, as many suffered serious losses because of the pandemic, which has claimed more than 30,000 lives, Áder said in his speech at a swearing-in ceremony of new officers in Kossuth Square.
“Under the siege of the pandemic, when we had to endure more and more trials every day, when we had to live from one wave to the next, the liberated joy of celebration seemed more than a light year away,” the president said.
“During this time we could hardly see ourselves as those who would carry on the glorious past,” Áder said. “We far more resembled our ancestors who had experienced so much misfortune.”
The president added, however, that although Hungarians “had to give up so much in the past several months”, they had also come to “recognise all the things that we can hold onto”.
“It turned out that there is something beyond the ultimate limit of fear and pain that pulls us back from the edge of the vortex, . that we have strength in reserve within ourselves and in the community,” he said. “It turned out that we can be selfless, helpful, attentive and disciplined, and that we can be patient, that we can adapt and pay attention.”
Áder urged the new soldiers taking their oaths to see not just the heroes of the past, but also each other as role models. “And in all those who in the past months have shown us what loyalty and the service of the homeland is about.”
He said the pandemic had also proven that no task or form of service was too small.
The president’s speech and the oath-taking ceremony were preceded by the hoisting of the national flag by a ceremonial guard in front of Parliament.
Hungary one of Europe’s few ancient states
Hungary one of Europe’s few ancient statesHungary is one of the few ancient states of Europe, Gergely Gulyás, the prime minister’s chief of staff, said in a speech marking the August 20 national holiday, commemorating the founding of the state of Hungary in the year 1000 A.D. by St. Stephen, Hungary’s first Christian king.
Today there are hardly any ancient states in Europe similar to Hungary, a country that was capable of organising itself, establishing its own public administration and enacting laws more than a thousand years ago, Gulyás said at the commemoration event of the Prime Minister’s Office.
Associated with this was Hungary’s adoption of Christianity and the diocesan system which had served the country for almost a thousand years until the post-WWI Trianon peace treaty, he said.
The survival of the Hungarian state is strongly related to its decision to choose sovereignty and independence, Gulyás said. It was because King Stephen accepted the crown from the pope that Hungary was not forced to become anyone’s “vassal” and that there was no secular power ruling over it, he added.