Stone Pillar Repainted in Romanian Colors Where President Novák Recently Took Photo

Hungary Today 2022.05.31.

Romanian ultra-nationalists have repainted the marker stone where Hungarian President Katalin Novák posed for a photo a few days ago on her Transylvanian trip, Transtelex reports. For years now, Romanian and Hungarian activists have been racing to alternately repaint the marker on top of Székelykő (Piatra Secuiului) in their respective national colors.

Székelykő is located near Torockó (Rimetea) in Romania, which has a Hungarian majority, and is an important tourist destination for Hungarians from Transylvania and those visiting Transylvania. At the top of the 1,129-meter-high mountain there are two stone pillars marking the altitude, which for years have been serving as the pretext of a symbolic Romanian-Hungarian rivalry.

On May 21st, Katalin Novák visited the site and took a photo with the pillar that was painted in Hungarian colors at the time and posted it on social media.

This then led George Simion, a politician famed for his anti-Hungarian inciting activities, to take action, and last Sunday he posted a photo of the column repainted in the Romanian national tricolor, with the caption “Problem solved.” For some reason, however, the activists repainted only one of the two columns on the hill, Telex noted.

Fact

George Simion is the president of the ultra-nationalist Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), the party that out of nowhere took almost 9% of the overall vote at the 2020 elections. He does not define himself as anti-Hungarian in every aspect, however. In an interview, he not only praised Hungarian ruling party Fidesz’s policies as “exemplary,” and a “model” for them, but also called himself “the Romanian Viktor Orbán.”

As Transylvanian Hungarian news portal Főtér points out, the pillar repainting “war” has been going on for years now, if not decades.

featured image via Csilla Cseke/MTI