Dobrev and Laszlo Varju, DK's deputy leader, headed a torch-lit march on the eve of the March 15 national holiday. Besides DK lawmakers, the event on Friday was attended by Peter Jakab, the leader of Jobbik.

At the commemoration after the march at the statue of revolutionary poet Sandor Petofi in Budapest's 4th district, Dobrev said 2024-2026 would go down in history as "the years that changed the world".

She said the world order that had ensured peace and freedom for millions of people seemed to be turning on its head. "Force and violence seems to be in vogue instead of talks, dialogue and debate," she said.

"Meanwhile, Hungary's prime minister is strutting towards the fate of the country with a broad smile on his face," she said.

Dobrev said fundamentalist conservatives and multi-billionaires were conspiring to create a world where "everyday, people have no voice any more". "In this world, they will struggle so a couple of dozens of people can earn inordinate amounts of money."

At the same time, Dobrev said it had been "uplifting" to be European in the past fortnight. The European Parliament voted "with a huge majority" for a more united and stronger continent and a joint defence system. "The majority of European countries has picked up the gauntlet and seems to be saying 'no' to the world of tech billionaires and arch-conservatives," she said.

Laszlo Varju, DK's candidate for the by-election in the district, said the 1848 revolutionaries had received word of the Vienna revolution on March 14. Poet "Sandor Petofi and his companions were seized on that day by the idea that Hungarians could one day live in equality, freedom and fraternity", he said. They "realised they are not afraid of a power basing its rule on violence that is terrified of free speech and legislates for its own good..."

He called on voters to "say yes to equality, freedom and fraternity ... in the voting booth".


March 15th - National flag raised in front of Parliament

The national flag was raised with military honours to mark the March 15th national holiday on Saturday in front of Parliament.

The flag was raised and the National Anthem performed in the presence of President Tamas Sulyok and Speaker of the Parliament Laszlo Kover.

Government members, representatives of state and military organisations and the diplomatic corps were also present.

The square was full of spectators wearing cockades in the national colours and some waved red-white-green flags.

A hussar procession to the Hungarian National Museum followed, where a ceremony will begin at 10.30am in the Museum's garden and Prime Minister Viktor Orban will give a speech.

From 2pm to 6pm, families are invited to the museum to take part in national holiday programmes. Also, the Dome Hall of Parliament and other areas of the building will be open to the public from 10am to 6pm.

March 15th marks the beginning of the 1848-49 revolution and war of independence, and was declared a public holiday in 1989.


March 15 - Orban: Brussels abusing its power, as Vienna in 1848

"There is always an empire trying to take away the freedom of Hungarians, and right now that power resides in Brussels, which is abusing its power as Vienna did in 1848," Prime Minister Viktor Orban said in a speech commemorating the 1848-49 revolution and freedom fight.

"They want to rule us just like the governors of the Vienna court used to," Orban said in his speech delivered in front of the National Museum on Saturday.

Orban said the remedy "is not to turn our backs on the European Union and walk away from it, but rather we should go further in, occupy it and change it."

He said history would take a turn in Brussels, too, "and the time will come when we will settle all scores."

"We will break down all excesses, reclaim our rights unlawfully taken away from nation states, and send back their Brussels-paid vassals..."

March 15 - Magyar: 'Let us lay the cornerstones of our homeland’s future together'

"Let us lay the cornerstones of our homeland’s future together," the leader and MEP of the opposition Tisza Party said at a commemoration of Hungary's 1848-49 revolution and freedom fight on Saturday, announcing that his party will seek the opinion of Hungarians in a survey dubbed "Voice of the Nation" containing 12 plus 1 questions.

The party, he said, will organise the largest ever common movement, allowing every Hungarian citizen older than 16 to say what kind of Hungary they want.

"I ask every Hungarian for whom family, their home and their homeland are important, to participate in our referendum dubbed Voice of the Nation," Magyar told the event in Budapest.

"Let us lay the cornerstones of our homeland’s future together and let us decide about the following questions together," he said. "Let us set the tasks of the next Hungarian government together."

The questionnaire contains 12 plus 1 questions and can be filled out in person or online by April 11, the party leader said.

Preliminary registration is already available at the website www.nemzethangja.hu, he added.

"History is in the hands of those who are brave enough to take action to answer the call when the time comes," Magyar said. "Our time is now; we’re the ones laying the bricks to build up our homeland."

A year ago, he said, "a whole new era began". "We said that we are no longer willing to live in fear in our own country."

"A year ago the message of the revolution made us committed and brave," Magyar said. "Since then, the slogan of spring, change and hope has been Tisza," he said, adding that "patriotic Hungarians continue to dream the dream of the March revolutionaries".

"The March revolutionaries never gave and never give up. We are the March revolutionaries," he said, adding that it did not matter "how old we are or where we live, what matters is that we want to do something for our country".

"Our rules are simple: we love our home, Hungary," Magyar said. "We consider it our eternal right that we shall define together the pillars of our common life".

He called the Hungarian nation "indivisible", vowing that "like it or not, Tisza will reunite the nation".

Magyar said Hungary’s place was in a strong Europe where the country was respected, valued and regarded as an ally by its neighbours.

He called health, happiness, self-fulfillment and dignity the most important values, saying that "a successful country can only be built together, by joining our forces". "Homeland and progress, those are what we believe in," Magyar said.

"Hungary wants to be alive again. Spring has kicked in, it is the spring of Hungarians and together we will end the Orban winter," he said.

"We, Hungarians actually want peace, here at home, and also in the world," he said. "We really do mean it seriously that there should be peace, freedom and accord."

He said that if Tisza got into power it would join the European Public Prosecutor’s Office with immediate effect, declare "zero tolerance of all forms of corruption", establish an independent anti-corruption prosecutor’s office, set up a separate investigative unit within tax and customs authority NAV and double the punishment for corruption-related crimes.

Magyar also vowed that a Tisza government would "restore the independence of the judiciary", "close the gender pay gap", restore people’s right to choose their doctor and midwife and "take steps to curb domestic violence".

Tisza would also introduce an exemption from paying personal income tax for those over the age of 65, scrap the VAT on medicines and introduce a SZEP voucher card for pensioners with an annual top-up of 200,000 forints, he said.

"There’s a cost-of-living crisis today, which requires immediate action," Magyar said. He vowed that Tisza would address the crisis immediately and "rein in the Orban inflation".

"We’ll work to bring home the EU funds of which every Hungarian is entitled to 800,000 forints," he added.

He said his party was asking for "a real alliance and a real mandate so that we don’t just have a change of government but a real change of regime".

Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi, the former chief of staff, said the government "doesn’t understand the interests of the Hungarian people or the armed forces". He insisted that "instead of caring for the Hungarian people, they oppress themand keep them living in fear, and punish anyone whose opinion differs from the truth of the state party".

He said recent government measures only served "to hurt morale in the armed forces, which comes close to the notion of treason".

"Improving the living and working conditions of our men and women in uniform is inevitable," Ruszin-Szendi said. "Even more so because the country’s security and the safety of the people depends on the defence forces."

March 15 - Karacsony: Standing up for human dignity 'our freedom fight'

Standing up for human dignity "remains our freedom fight here in Budapest", Gergely Karacsony, the city's mayor, said in a speech on Saturday. "A free society means that its citizens stand up for each other's freedom as well as their own," he said.

Speaking in a video uploaded to Facebook, commemorating the 1848-49 revolution and freedom fight, Karacsony said the legacy of the revolution "is a moral compass that we can only see if we hold our heads high".

"It is time to grasp that by defending the rights of ethnic, religious or sexual minorities, we are defending our own, because we can only speak of freedom when everyone's dignity, faith, religion, conviction and orientation is respected," Karacsony said.

"We are different ... but that can't mean we are not equal," he said.

He said standing up for the "ideals of freedom and moral compass of 1848" was a responsibility and required effort.

"We can't let go of the conviction that fundamental questions of our lives ... that determine our place in Europe can only be answered on moral grounds. We will need a lot of patience, tact and caution to bring peace to our nation, to ventilate the increasingly suffocating, stale air around us so that Hungary and Budapest can finally breathe freely and become our shared home."

Karacsony said that the approach of powers-holders had often "tried to suppress the power of March" in Hungary. "They tried banning it and expelling it, but the celebration of freedom and the wish for freedom was always stronger. That is worthwhile remembering in these troubled times, when the dominant power is threatening those whose longing for freedom has moved them to oppose or criticise it."

He said "the new threats have the same root [as the ones against the 1848 revolution]: a scared power, anxious to maintain its aging, cemented ideals and structures in the face of the hope and wishes of millions, and the repressed anger of a growing mass of people." Karacsony said such a power had two tools at its disposal: "to ban and expel, and to divide and incite people, groups and localities against one another."

"They are strong enough to weaken others and to demolish institutions, regulations, norms and laws ... but not to build something new and better instead... That remains the task of those faithful to 1848 and 1956, the revolutions of human dignity."

"If we do not abandon those who have the courage to stand up for their sense of self-worth and freedom, quiet statements can become thunderous... That is how we can bring about peace, freedom and accord. Long live freedom, long live the homeland!" Karacsony concluded.


March 15th - Gyurcsany: Sacrifice is the peak of selflessness

It is barely comprehensible that people can sacrifice their lives for the sake of a better life for others, opposition Democratic Coalition (DK) leader Ferenc Gyurcsany said on Saturday, marking Hungary's March 15 national holiday.

"Today, we are commemorating great people, great Hungarians, whose own lives they saw as less important than the freedom of their people," Gyurcsany wrote in a post on social media on Saturday.
 

"What the people did with the freedom lost at the time, but later gained -- what the heroic blood was for in the end -- is another story," he wrote.

He added: "We are among the fighters. Honour and integrity for the cause of freedom!"


March 15 - Orban: Fight for freedom, like in 1848, 'not just a matter for Hungarians'

"Our fight for freedom, like in 1848, is not just a matter for Hungarians," Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Saturday, marking Hungary's March 15 national holiday. "Today's fight is in fact for the soul of the Western world."

"The empire wants to mix the indigenous inhabitants of Europe with invading masses from a foreign civilisation and then replace them," Orban said in his speech held in the gardens of the National Museum to mark the 177th anniversary of the outbreak of the 1848/49 revolution and freedom fight.

He added that "the empire" also sought to drive "our children and grandchildren away from a healthy" way of life towards "the chaos of unnatural lifestyles" and "kick away the order and culture of Christian life".

"It wants us to serve the gods of war instead of peace," he declared.

Orban said the Western world was being wrecked by "the imperial machine". "But we've managed to stop this at the borders of Hungary," he said. "We haven't given up."

"We haven't allowed them to occupy the country, parliament or the government, either," he said, adding that for 15 years "all their weapons" of "blackmail, threats, mercenaries, and Brussels" targeting Hungary had not succeeded in undermining it.

"We have won four elections in a row, and our lines of defence have not been eroded in fifteen years," the prime minister added.


March 15 - Sulyok: Nation yielding 'exceptional people, values'

"The Hungarian nation yields exceptional people and Hungarian culture exceptional achievements," President Tamas Sulyok told a ceremony in Parliament on Friday.

The president handed over the Kossuth and Szechenyi prizes as well as the Order of Merit of Hungary on the eve of Hungary's March 15 national holiday.

"Studying and further improving our culture, protecting the nation's freedom and strengthening the homeland not only with blood and sacrifice but through work, a fruitful life and creation is an obligation and responsibility at the same time," the president said in his address.

Recipients of the high awards "have created lasting values, contributing to our national culture and strengthening the nation," the president said.

"You are crucial builders of today's Hungarian culture ... what you have created will be a shared asset for the next generations," he added.
 

Source: 
MTI - The Hungarian News Agency, founded in 1881.

*********************************

You're very welcome to comment, discuss and enjoy more stories via our Facebook page: 
Facebook.com/XpatLoopNews + via XpatLoop’s groups: Budapest Expats / Expats Hungary

You can subscribe to our newsletter here: XpatLoop.com/Newsletters

Do you want your business to reach tens of thousands of potential high-value expat customers? Then just contact us here.