"Long live Hungarian freedom, long live the homeland!"
Videomessage from Ambassador József Czukor PhD on the occassion of the National Day of Hungary (15th March)
Dear Swiss friends, dear Hungarians in Switzerland!
Let me greet you in this form, perhaps the most beautiful national holiday of our country, but above all on the occasion of a holiday that fills all Hungarian hearts with warmth, it lifts us up. On the eve of March 15, in the hours leading up to the 173rd anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution and War of Independence, I would like to present and convey our best wishes to you.
In 1848, a long struggle ensued, which we failed. It is rare, but sometimes it can happen in European history, that the fate of the people of Europe is coincidentally such, that the people can achieve their most important goals. There was such a positive, good favourable historical coincidence in 1848 between the people living in Switzerland and the Hungarians. Switzerland succeeded. Switzerland adopted a constitution in September 1848, which includes values that both Sándor Petőfi and the youth of March put on paper in the days of the revolution on March 15, 1848.
People demanded in 12 points sovereign equality before the courts, a parliament, national sovereignty, the national bank etc. All these important values have also become components of the Swiss federal constitution. This also shows that we Hungarians and the people of Switzerland have always been on the same side, namely on the right side, in the turning points for Europe. The memory of 1848-49 connects us with Switzerland in other respects as well.
We are grateful and thankful to the Swiss for taking the widow and orphans of the first Hungarian Prime Minister into Geneva, for General Klapka being able to find refuge in Geneva, but the Foreign Minister of the Hungarian Revolutionary Government, Count Teleki, was also able to flee here.
We thank all our friends here for helping us with our work and I hope this will continue in the future. To this, I wish you all the best on the eve of our national holiday. Thank you very much!
