Hungarian history shaped by all its nations, says Hungarian state secretary in Zagreb

Hungarian history is the history of all nations that once shared a homeland in Hungary and built it together, the state secretary for Hungarian communities beyond the border said in Zagreb on Wednesday.

Speaking to representatives of the Hungarian community in Croatia at an exhibition on Hungarian-Croatian history, Árpád János Potápi said that all those nations, “especially Croatians and Hungarians”, have survived the past centuries by protecting and helping each other.

Without standing by each other, those two nations would not have survived, he insisted.

Potápi said Hungary had a vested interest in European cooperation.

The Visegrad Group should stand together on European platforms, he said, adding that Hungary also had a special interest in procuring the support of Croatia and its other allies.

Then Hungary can also support the goals of the region, he said.

The state secretary welcomed that Hungarians living in Croatia have a strong parliamentary representation, and said that Hungary was doing all in its power to make its Croatian community “feel that Hungary is its homeland, as it has been in past centuries”.

Marking the upcoming anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian revolution, Potápi noted that many of the freedom fighters fled to what was then Yugoslavia to avoid persecution, and thanked Croatian people, organisations and families for sheltering the refugees.

The exhibition “Ars et Virtus – Croatia and Hungary. 800 years of common heritage” was opened in Zagreb on September 24.

Later this year it will move to Budapest to open in the Hungarian National Museum on December 16.

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Source: MTI