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KÖVÉR: HUNGARIANS TARGET OF CULTURE WAR

The 19th century armed struggle against Hungarians was replaced by a culture war after October 6, 1849, Parliamentary Speaker László Kövér said at an event commemorating the leaders of Hungary’s revolution and freedom fight who were executed by Austria in 1849, in Topoľníky (Nyárasd) in Slovakia over the weekend. That new war, Kover said, had been helped by political tyranny “and can still be observed today”. “The first targets of this culture war were the intellectual cornerstones of the revolution of 1848: the Hungarian language and its roots,” the speaker said. He added that the “conscious culture war” that had targeted Hungarians over the course of the 20th century was still being waged today.

Kövér said the ones being attacked were always those who “want to strengthen the identity of Hungarians, who want to remain Christian, Hungarian, men and women and want a Hungary that remains Hungarian and a Europe that will belong to Europeans” for generations to come. He said the Austrian retaliation that followed the execution of the Arad martyrs was aimed at depriving Hungarians of their national pride. “Because those who are meant to be subordinates shouldn’t be assertive, but should instead be struggling with guilt and an identity crisis,” he said. “Those who are attacking us call themselves progressive and label the ones they are attacking obscurantist,” Kövér said. “Or they get called nationalists, populists, xenophobes, exclusionary, or whatever creates the worst possible perception according to the public opinion of the time.”