23 October: Hungarians have never given up freedom
Despite their trials and tribulations in the first half of the 20th century, Hungarians have never given up freedom, the prime minister’s chief of staff said in Budapest on Saturday, on the eve of the anniversary of the 1956 revolution.
The heroes of 1956 wanted a free homeland not only for themselves but also for the generations to come, Gergely Gulyás said at a commemoration at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics. Patriotism dictates different tasks in every era, the minister said. In 1956, patriots demonstrated love of their homeland by taking up arms, fighting against dictatorship and sacrificing their lives, he said.
“Today, in turn, we are living in less difficult but no less fateful times, in which we no longer need Molotov cocktails to assert our interests. It would be enough if Hungarian public players loved their country more than the extent to which they hate the freely elected government,” he said, bitterly.
Addressing Hungarian and Ukrainian young people from Transcarpathia attending the commemoration, Gulyás said the way Ukraine had treated ethnic Hungarians in recent years would give no reason for Hungary to express solidarity with Ukraine but Hungary has every reason to help a country which is heroically defending its freedom and sovereignty.
“The nation of 1956 can only say that those who are fighting for their freedom and national independence are friends and proteges of Hungary,” he said.
Source: MTI