The new prime minister of Slovakia, Igor Matovič, made his first official visit to Hungary, and I must say that if the pomp and circumstance was any indication, he was very warmly received by Viktor Orbán. The two had met already, both virtually and in person in Lednice on June 10 at the meeting of the prime ministers of the Visegrád 4.
Matovič, a well-heeled businessman, began as a political activist with a strong anti-corruption message. Eventually, he reconstituted his civic movement into a center-right party called Ordinary People and Independent Personalities (OĽaNO). After the 2020 election, he was able to form a coalition government with three other centrist and right-wing parties.
Matovič made a couple of moves that surprised the Hungarian minority in Slovakia as well as the Orbán government. Even before the election, seeing that the fortunes of Hungarian parties were anything but bright, he encouraged Hungarians to vote for Magyar Közösség Pártja (MKP) or Most-Híd. They were not convinced. The result was exactly what Matovič had wanted to avoid. For the first time in the history of Slovakia, Hungarians have no political representation in parliament.
Then came something which few people could have imagined earlier. A day after Hungarians remembered the day that the Treaty of Trianon was signed in 1920, Matovič invited 100 important members of the Hungarian community in Slovakia to meet with him. According to his own summary of the event, which he published on his Facebook page, he told them that “we didn’t write the past, but our future is in our hands.” He wanted to express “our respect, gratitude and understanding” to the Hungarian community. He “sincerely apologized for all the wrongs [they] experienced.” But at the same time, he asked them “to understand those Slovaks … who suffered … during the second half of the 19th century in Hungary.”
Without going into the details of the reaction, I think that it is enough to say that the inflexible politicians of MKP handled the situation very badly, a response that even conservative publications in Budapest found unacceptable, especially since the Orbán government’s early reaction to Matovič’s announcement was favorable.
It was at this point that the Slovak prime minister arrived for his first official visit in the Hungarian capital. The Orbán government pulled out all the stops; even the hussars were enlisted for the occasion. Naturally, the visitor had to admire the scene from that infamous balcony, but the ensuing discussion must have gone well because the press conference was more than an hour late. Orbán specifically thanked Matovič for visiting Hungary so soon after taking office and expressed his appreciation for the Hungarian translation of his party’s program. He talked about the “historic months” ahead, during which the infrastructure which connects the two countries will be greatly developed. The bridge between Komárom and Komárno will be finished and three bridges will be built across the River Ipeľ/Ipoly. In addition, by 2022 there will be four new crossings which will reduce the distances between them to 16 kilometers, “which is almost civilized.” He thanked the Slovak prime minister “for his words, which didn’t remain echo-less in the hearts of the Hungarian people.”
While Orbán didn’t bring up Trianon, Matovič began his press conference by addressing the topic. “I accept our common history because we were parts of the same state, with kings who were based in Pest-Buda and many of whom were crowned in Bratislava. If we tried to conceal this, we would deny our own past. We were not the ones who wrote the past, but the future is in our hands.” Hungary’s interest in the fortunes of Hungarians in Slovakia is “natural,” and his goal is the creation of a country where the whole Hungarian community feel themselves to be equal members of society.
Although Orbán didn’t want to talk about Trianon, the topic was bound to be brought up by Slovak journalists. Naturally, Slovaks and Hungarians will never interpret Trianon the same way, said Orbán. As he put it, “there is a Slovak view and there is a Hungarian view,” but what happened “a hundred years ago shouldn’t be an obstacle to cooperation.”
If Orbán had stopped there and hadn’t wandered off to his favorite topic, the uniqueness of Hungarians, everybody would have been better off. “There will always be Slavs, Germans, Anglo-Saxons, and Latins. Arabs too. But that there will be Hungarians who are not Indo-Europeans, who have no cultural relatives except perhaps somewhere in Central Asia,” that’s not so sure. Sorry, Mr. Prime Minister, it’s nonsense to say that Hungarians are not Indo-Europeans and to claim that the only cultural relatives of Hungarians live somewhere in Central Asia. The cultural relatives of Hungarians are those who influenced the Hungarian language and literature, and they do not reside in Central Asia. But Orbán went on. “We are the only surviving people who began their journeys from East to West. We are remnants, the last remnants of a world that was once a huge steppe, who wanted to survive. This is what we have managed. Accept us as we are.” More incomprehensible nonsense. All Europeans, earlier or later, came from the East. And as far as Hungarian DNA is concerned, it is practically indistinguishable from that of others in the region.
“This is what we call kovászos uborka”
Oh, and one more thing. The next time, before Viktor Orbán gives a jar of “kovászos uborka” as a gift to his Slovak colleague, perhaps he should learn a thing or two both about “kovász” (leaven or sourdough) and “uborka” (cucumber). First of all, the dish is as well known and is made the same way in Slovakia as in Hungary. In Slovakia it is called kvasené uhorky. In fact, the Hungarian “uborka” most likely came from the Slovak “uhorky.” As for “kovász/kvasené,” it can be found in practically all Slavic languages. On the other hand, I understand that Igor Matovič was told that he must try a place in Normafa, in Buda, where one can find the best “rétes” (strudel). Apparently, he tried it, and it was as good as promised.
If Eva would have stopped herself from writing the last two paragraphs, it would have finally been something that one could call objective and not an ideological hack-job.
You gave no explanation and examples, just a meaningless accusation. A hack-job and not a meaningful criticism.
Wow, Zoltán the multiple migrant and serial colonist decided that everything from human DNA to kvasené uhorky made in Slovakia are “ideology”. What a sick person! But what is his fascist stupidity he spreads here, what is his racial hate he writes on HS or what are the regime propaganda lies he repeats constantly?
Indeed, instead of kovászos uborka, Orban should have given some dish of Csuvash or Mali origin, our sole cousins, which certainly is a staple of the Hungarians cuisine!
Further on the usual Zoli nonsense;
since the nomads, Huns included, didn’t have much of a cuisine, most of the later one came from the locals.
Even now the Huns talk about the Bulgarian vegetable gardeners who came in the late 19th and 20 cen to broaden the vegetable choice. In the 1980s I was shocked when I was asked in Budapest “what is this?” about black olives.
Actually a large part of the Hu words related to settled life activities comes from the Slav language group.
https://www.sulinet.hu/oroksegtar/data/magyarorszagi_nemzetisegek/altalanos/a_magyarsag_es_a_szlavok/pages/010_magyar_szlav.htm
Orban and his strange anthropological studies have sad antecedents in similar nonsense after World War One, which contributed to the rise of
delusional Hungarian fascists. The science -as Professor Balogh has commented on in the past and again today- finds that the closest genetic affinity for Hungarians is-no surprise- in today’s Slovaks and other neighbors! Orban can ride a horse into central Asia until he dies of thirst, but the actual relatives are much closer. Poor Orban, it must really bother him that Lajos Kossuth was of Slovak origin.
Igor Matovic extended the hand of friendship to not only Hungarian speakers in Slovakia, but to the regime in Budapest. MKP in Slovakia made a big mistake in rejecting the hand of friendship. And Orban is like a lemming headed for the cliffs, but he may yet take Hungary with him.
Misi Ba
There are much worse parodies, eg. Alexander the Great sketch of Gruevski or some Mongolian pricks playing Ghengiz Khan in the dust there…
Kossuth’s mother was German. His family name is of Slav origin.
Kossuths father was born slovak but changed his identity for magyar. Kossuths uncle gyorgy was an ardent supporter of slovak national movement. Kossuth himself spent a few years at an elementary school at his uncles near martin in slovakia. Apparently his slovak classmates were not very kind to him cause his disliked slovaks until his death.
Kadar was also of Slovak decent (his mother). We all know Petofi was Slovak too. But this is all unimportant, just as whether Orban is a Roma or not – who cares. The leader of a European nation (if it was) has much more important things to analyze and discuss. This is is such a nonsense that it embarrasses the reader even ten thousand kms from our homeland. This guy should be a server of a local pub in Felcsut, or a soccer trainer in that local club. Him ‘leading’ Hungary is such an anomaly as Ader would be leading the UN – as he inspires. Except the UN has some brains not to let him close. What a tragedy for Hungary.
Czermanik aka Kadar, Slovak
Petrovich aka Petofi, Serbian or Croatian
Both of petofis parents were slovak. His mother even hasnt learned hungarian until her death. Petrovic is a common nsme in svk. The -ic ending name is common among all northern an southwestern slavs. See matovic e.g.
And he didn’t mention the Mongol spots – that differentiate Huns from their neighbours? 🙂 🙂
What I always find sad or even idiotic is that many Hungarians try to “prove” their superiority over the other Balkan nations – it was especially bad on politics.hu.
And it says a lot about those people – inferiority complexes?
Can’t they just be friendly neighbours?
Wolfi- I have such a “spot” on my ass, but as you implied, it has nothing to do with the “Mongols”. Sometimes a “spot” is just a spot:-> What nonsense comes from these crazy nationalists.Thanks for your comments.
It seems that Matovič wants to be a good neighbour. Of course we have a common history that nobody can rewrite – although our regime tries to do so. And he is so correct that we must create our future, a future that is common in many ways, not only by our common ties through the EU and the facts that many Slovaks are of Hungarian origin and many Hungarians are of Slovak origin. Matovič expressed that “his goal is the creation of a country where the whole Hungarian community feel themselves to be equal members of society.” That is a great idea, just why are minorities in Hungary still held unequal? I am afraid that Slovakia and Hungary are on the same road in different directions. Slovakia is looking into future, a democratic future for everybody, while Hungary is looking backwards and travelling into a period where only the small minority of pure ethnic Magyars have rights and a very few own the country.
@István
June 14, 2020 2:45
I think that the expression “pure ethnic Magyars” is an oxymoron, and as such, quite nonsensical. After all, the lineages of the original Hungarian tribesmen that entered the Danube Valley in the course of the tenth century CE, had long ago become subsumed in a continuously evolving ethnic/linguistic/demographic melting pot in the Carpathian Basin, which continued virtually uninterrupted until the rise of largely homogeneous (i.e. majority monolingual) nation states on the ruins of the Habsburg Empire in the wake of WW1.
What’s so good about these pricks being the last “survivors” from the steppes? The so oft lamented “suffering” of the Huns cannot be disconnected from their behavior, and here are these latest “heroic” or embarrassing examples …
No to worry though, these minorities will become irrelevantly small in two generations.
SOUNDS LIKE A GOOD DAY 76 FOR THE CUCUMBER-PUSHING DICTATORSHIP
…but also a quiet coup for Slovak Prime Minister Matovič…
Perhaps we should be grateful that Miniszterelnök Orbán in his Trianon-twaddle didn’t expand on his plans to have the next generation of doughty Hungarian storm-troopers push the Hungarian-Slovak border 100 km to the north. He is keeping that plan up his sleeve yet.
„but what happened “a hundred years ago shouldn’t be an obstacle to cooperation.” Freud sends his regards „should not be“ …
Orban is a ridiculous politician a stupid little mind especially next to other politicians like Igor Matovič who shows greatness. If I interpret the picture Orban gives the cheap Magyaricum cucumber as a national identification. Even Ferenc Gyurcsány has politicized the cucumber, but these cucumbers do not taste very good, but they are cheap. Hungary offers a cheap-sour friendship with Slovakia! Orban is a ridiculous politician …
Thank you Eva an intelligently delicious contribution about a boring tasting cucumber country.
Rather OT:
As soon as organic cucumbers are available again, my wife will also make some kovaszos …
She makes them sweet, not like the really sour stuff you get in the stores in Hungary.
Everybody likes them very much, but I prefer the mildly sour cucumbers I buy in Germany …
„but I prefer the mildly sour cucumbers,“ like me. Well, it’s really a matter of taste our neighbor makes these pickles every year she likes them salty. She always offers us some. Sweet is a good idea I haven’t tried it yet, I haven’t even heard of it yet.
Mr. Orban. ‘Uborka Salata Man’
Seems to be always stuck thinking about all the ‘salad days’ back on the steppes. When it comes to Trianon and its political, cultural and societal effects he can’t let sleeping Magyar uborka lie.
At this time post-Trianon Europe is trying to work communally with its ‘polyglot‘ people’ in various nations. They’re trying to get themselves ‘out of the Trianon Woods’ which still hangs its branches like a pall over CE. But VO seems to want to go ‘green’ and keep the pilgrimages by horse, cart, whatever going back to the Garden of the Steppes. It is a place where in his heart Europe began to be born and where most probably Magyars were the first to taste and eat cucumbers.
Good uborka eating to all. Nothing like them sliced real real thin in vinegar , onion and paprika sprinkled. Great crunch. ☝️
Wolfi, my late father loved kovaszos uborka. He was very excited when the sunshine was strong enough to produce it. I find that it is too salty.
When we visited Kadar’s restaurant in Klauzal ter it was too soon for it but he provided uborka I much preferred. Less salty and slightly sweet.
I had similar with my salt beef sandwich (corned beef in US) in London.Harry Morgan in St Johns Wood is a good place to try it.
Cucumber salad which I had with our lunch today is a lengthy process to prepare because we always leave it in salt for about an hour to extract the liquid. It is delicious with lemon juice, raw garlic and sour cream.
Aida, I’m getting hungry!
Garlic and sour cream are of course also the base for Tzatziki which my wife also learned to make .
Funnily enough in our family I’m the person who likes more garlic and csipös stuff, paprika, kolbasz etc. So I often joke that I’m the real Hungarian here!
Even more OT:
That was a really big experience for my wife to try local stuff from all around the world as we traveled. Some things she had read about but of course you couldn’t buy those under Kádár, others she didn’t even know the name and how to prepare it.
So this international cooking is another really great aspect of globalization just like other customs.
But of course simpleminded people like O1G etc see globalisation as a threat – they wouldn’t eat anything but their kovaszos uborka … 🙂 🙂
Or as we say as Schwabs:
Was der Bauer et kennt des frisst er net!
What a paraszt hasn’t experienced yet he won’t try to eat …
Just to ask. Is kovaszos uborka only available at certain time of the year? Not too many etterems as I recall being on the road there in Kadar days. When we did find one we asked for some but they said they didn’t have any. We were traveling then in the fall.
No uborka. But plenty of utlevel. We were the ‘Utlevel Kids’.Things were very ‘friss’ there with the ‘Savanyu Boys’. We found ourselves how can we say it , ’in a pickle’.
Well, wrfree first you have to find good ripe uborka, not too big – or grow your own.
Then you add water, old white bread (for the sourdough) and some spices (that’s my wife’s job) in a 4 or 5 l glass and put it outside – of course the temperature must be right.
ad.
Our Lidl hasn’t announced them yet in an ad, so we’re still waiting.
What you need is what we call here kirby cucumbers. Those small ones which are not bigger than about 4 inches. Not the big waxy kind for salads or the long English cucumbers.
The short ones are the best. The
Thx all on the cucumber business. Very important to get the uborka right! 😎☝️
Lidl: a very very good German import here. Outstanding value for the food products. We get many German products in the store just wish the Magyars could help us a bit by trying to piggyback on Lidl and perhaps get some of their exportable products on shelves here.
Totally OT (or not?) to lighten up your day:
Steve King, one of O1G’s extreme right wing admirers who often speaks about Satan Soros will soon not be in the senate any more :
http://hungarianfreepress.com/2020/06/14/rep-steve-king-of-iowa-viktor-orbans-admirer-in-congress-loses-primary/
And demoted Sebastian Gorka is now doing advertisements for fish oil pills … 🙂 🙂
https://www.mediaite.com/online/suffer-from-debilitating-back-pain-so-does-seb-gorka-according-to-his-new-gig-as-spokesman-for-fish-oil-pills/
This article also has some funny facts about Alex Jones.
So it seems that even in the US right wing not every idiocy is tolerated.
„one of O1G’s extreme right wing admirers“ So if O1G = Trump there is a problem a mathematical one because O1G < Trump.
Igor Matovič seems like a unifying force for nationalities based on Eva’s discussion of him, which is encouraging. Chicago in the time of my Grandfather and great uncle became a hotbed of Slovak and Czech nationalism even prior to WWI. But honestly Hungarians here in Chicago prior to WWI functioned in what could be called a Bohemian world mixed up with Slovaks, Czechs, and Poles to a lesser degree. In fact Chicago Hungarians of my Grandfather’s generation were commonly called Bohunks by non-Central Europeans who lived in Chicago. It was of course here in Chicago that Antonín Josef Čermák who brought together all the ethnic groups who were once part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire plus some African Americans to overthrow the Irish power structure here in Chicago as I have written about before. Before Cermak, the Democratic party in Cook County and Chicago was run by Irish Americans. The Irish first became successful in politics because they spoke English and because, coming from an island on the edge of Europe, they had few ancestral enemies. As the old saying went, “A Lithuanian won’t vote for a Pole, and a Pole won’t vote for a Lithuanian. A German won’t vote for… Read more »
Some time ago I watched a us tv series about organized crime and the society in baltimore called The Wire. It is pretty bad there if the series is accurate but its a lot worse here in svk. Hopefully with the slovak new govt it will get better.
Interesting information, but a lot of it should have been tagged as quoting from Wikipedia…
Actually I used a number of sources Stevan, including material from the Pilsen National historic site in Chicago which if you are ever here I would recommend visiting. Bohemian National Cemetery is about a mile and a half from our home, and I have most of my Hungarian family buried there, except for my one grandmother who is buried in Esztergom, the grandmother and grandfather from my mother’s side are buried in a Catholic Cemetery also not far away. Of course I have several histories of those days in Chicago and used some of that material too. I did use Wki for some biographical data on Cermak because its convenient and honestly did not want to pull out books. I have my father’s collection on his time in office. We also have a city of Chicago history museum which has a vast collection on this period in Chicago history that my father spent a lot of time studying after he retired. I am a member of that museum myself and financially support it. I hope that helps with attribution Stevan, in general we have not been citing materials taken and used when posting on HS in every case.… Read more »
Just to correct you a little bit. Matovic is not sad that small hungarian parties (or any other for that matter) are not in parliament. Thats just rhetoric. He was happy to forge the coalition of 4 not 6 or more parties. He stated after the election that hes happy that ” plankton” – meaning small parties – havent made it. He said mkp results sadden him but thats just because there is a great animosity between him and bugar from hid. Now that mkp proposed territorial authonomy he is done with the good relations with mkp “They spit on a helping hand “. He eventually waits whether there would emerge some new party of slovak hungarians.
And strange enough Orban does not go into offensive but instead showers him with attention and praise.
Despite all the Trianon talk, nationalism, irredentism etc. the fact is that Orban looks determined to improve HU’s relations with its neighbors. Perhaps the ideological affinity (and solidarity) is what is decisive here.
Maybe he is more interested in the votes from slovak hungarians for fidesz than moving the borders. Now only the nationalists have hun passport in svk cause its risky so i guess there are not many votes for opposition here. If this was hungary people could vote whichever way. Or he just wants a v4 without arguments. I dont see into his head. But slovakia has nothing really to be ashamed of I think we treat hungarians quite well. You can finish your education entirely in hungarian here incl. university and then work at an office where a diploma is needed or e.g. if you dont go to the college work as a skilled laborer for some company where almost everyone speaks hungarian and basically dont use slovak in your everyday life ( if you dont want to become a manager or ceo).
And no doubt this ideological affinity and solidarity will cause a high-speed railway to be soon built between Transylvania and Budapest, and not between Transylvania and Bucharest.
https://dailynewshungary.com/high-speed-railway-between-budapest-and-kolozsvar-cluj-napoca-on-the-way/
There’s a similar article on the planned link Bp/Warsaw linked to – both sound like fairy tales! 🙂 🙂
“Planning will start in the next 2 years” with tunnels and bridges under the Danube …
Maybe in 2040 the project might be realized – if they find the money for it somewhere …
Wait – the EUSSR will surely pay for it and the Fidesz gang will at least earn 30% of the costs!
[…] geenisekoittimen” sisältöön. Tätä ei voisi paremmin havainnollistaa kuin Éva S. Balogh blogissaan viitatessaan lahjaan, jonka Orbán ojensi Matovičille: purkilliseen itse hapatettuja […]
Re: ‘All Europeans came from the East’. Considering the Magyar penchant to be always concerned more about what they can do about the past rather than the present we must be appreciative of the scribbling of the great early historian Herodotus trying to catalogue and understand all the ‘ barbaros’ he was running into on his European and Asian travels. If the Magyars got hold of him back when they’d probably would have taken umbrage in seeing all those non-Greek groups listed. How could he! Is he crazy? They are barbarians! Magyars then would have said , ‘We only we of the ‘Ananino’ are the ones who drink the waters of the Great Steppes and by right should be only in your books’. There was ‘Hercules Unchained’. Think ‘Herodotus Chained’ until he would acquiesce. Not sure if Herodotus actually had conversations and interviews with early people of the Magyars. (he probably was the first oral history ‘interviewer’ ever and the first good historian who wrote things down). In any case at least he was honest to the Magyars who read him later as he showed that there were many others who just like them thought they too had… Read more »
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off-topic: most Hungarians and Poles don’t think their countries are democratic, according to this story: https://www.politico.eu/article/minorities-in-poland-hungary-think-their-countries-are-democratic-report/