President Katalin Novák visited Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg county in north-eastern Hungary. Also, she paid a private, non-official visit to nearby Carei (Nagykároly), Romania, where she unveiled a statue of the poet Ferenc Kölcsey, author of the Hungarian national anthem. Romanian extremists tried to interrupt the event.
“We Hungarians, both within and across the border, can always count on each other,” the president said in Carei. She stressed that Kölcsey warned Hungarians that they must at the same time enrich tomorrow, take care of today, and guard yesterday.
Even today, some deny the Hungarian identity of the Hungarians, the irreplaceability of the mother tongue, and the obvious historical facts: we must not let them, we must not let them. We must stand up for our shared future and our shared past,”
the head of state stressed. She noted that preserving the past is as important as thinking responsibly about the present and the future.
The president and her entourage were greeted by hundreds of celebrants in the Hungarian-majority city’s main square. At the same time, around a hundred nationalist demonstrators with Romanian flags and banners tried to disrupt the event with shouts and chants.
According to the Romanian Agerpres, the protest was not carried out by locals, but by demonstrators from all over the country. They said they were disturbed by the fact that the Hungarian president was on an unofficial visit to Romania. They also objected that too many Hungarian personalities had been honored with statues in Carei.
Local Hungarians were singing Hungarian folk songs to counter the demonstrators.
Novák did not shy away from facing the demonstrators and went close to them when she was leaving the venue.
Photos via Facebook/Novák Katalin