Ukraine becoming more chauvinistic? Hungarian national anthem, flag banned at school

The opening of the school year in Munkács, Transcarpathia, a Western region of Ukraine where a Hungarian community of more than 100,000 people live, ended in scandal.

Hungarian school forbids to speak, feel, sing in Hungarian in Ukraine

According to Blikk, a Hungarian tabloid, the Hungarian national anthem, flag and colours were banned at the year-opening ceremony of the Ferenc Rákóczi II high school in Munkács, Transcarpathia. Furthermore, the director of the college could hold her opening speech only in Ukrainian instead of the school’s official language, Hungarian. The school is committed to persist despite the hardships. Those include the nomination of a non-Hungarian headmaster by the local council, who does not even speak Hungarian. Moreover, even the new deputy headmaster does not speak Hungarian.

Máté Paczolai, the spokesman of the Hungarian foreign affairs ministry, said the measure contradicts the bilateral agreements, the decisions of the Venice Commission and other language and minority charts. Therefore, Hungary cannot support Ukraine’s EU accession.

What is Zelensky’s promise worth?

That comes after President Katalin Novák’s official visit in Kyiv, where the two leaders agreed in many issues. One of them was a promise from the Ukrainian president towards his Hungarian counterpart to grant similars rights to Hungarians in Ukraine as Ukrainians enjoy in Hungary. Currently, Ukrainians can sing their national anthem, use their national colours and flag freely in Hungary.

Read also:

• Ukrainian school principal to abolish rights of Hungarians: Hungarian language to be eliminated – Read more HERE
• Hungarians fighting in Ukraine: how, where and how many died?

Here is a video about what happened. Unfortunately, in Hungarian. It says the local council removed the former Hungarian headmaster without an explanation. He served 17 years in office.

Budapest Circus holds performance for 400 Ukrainian refugee children

Some 400 Ukrainian children who have fled the war were entertained at the Budapest Circus ahead of the start of the school year, the organiser National Szechenyi Library said in a statement on Friday. The children feasted their eyes on Budapest Circus’s current show, Spirit of Steppe, featuring an international troupe of artists, including Ukrainians, “drawing on their cultural roots, bringing the exotic world of the Eastern steppe to spectators,” the statement said. Other organisers included the Nova Hvylja association of ethnic Ukrainian youth and families, the Mora publishing house and Petőfi Cultural Agency, MTI wrote.