PHOTOS: Greatest Hungarian poet’s strange death commemorated

“Petőfi’s spirit is with us whenever we do something for our homeland, our community, our nation,” Péter Szilágyi, deputy state secretary in charge of nation policy, said at a commemoration marking the 174th death anniversary of revolutionary Hungarian poet Sándor Petőfi, held in Albesti (Fehéregyháza), in central Romania, on Sunday.

Meanwhile, the state secretary slammed “western powers” for “working to break Hungarians’ love of freedom … promoting their selfish interests rather than the interests of the community”. “Hungarians will not follow that path,” he insisted. “Hungarians think in a community, that is how they interpret past and present, and that is how they plan for the future … Hungarians are more united now than ever before,” he said.

“We can only be free if all Hungarians can live in freedom,” he said, adding that the Hungarian government had worked to ensure that Hungarians could stay and prosper in their homelands and “united the nation in nurturing communities.”