“When thinking about the heroes of 1956, it is young people that we see first,” Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said kicking off his speech in memory of the martyrs of Hungary’s 1956 Revolution and Freedom Fight, delivered this evening at the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest.
“They knew – or at least felt,” he added, “that should the communist era continue there wasn’t going to be anything left of the Hungarian way of life.”
“There was only one way, the way that meant fighting for the land we have,” PM Orbán said, reminding those gathered that, “we, Hungarians, have only one homeland; there isn’t another one. We have no other place under the sun.”
The PM noted that this is the only land where our dreams are born. The Carpathian Basin is the only place where we can produce “the great common creation that we call Hungary and Hungarian culture.”
Speaking about the requirements for a nation to survive, PM Orbán said, “It is the rule that a homeland can only exist as long as there are people who love it” and “people who are willing to make sacrifices for it.”
“It is the law,” the prime minister continued, “that there’s a homeland only if there are patriots. And a homeland can only exist as long as the patriots outnumber those that align with foreign powers.”
“But the Hungarian miracle didn’t come cheap,” PM Orbán said. “We demanded an independent Hungary in a Europe of nations.” And the Hungarian independence, according to the prime minister, didn’t come as a gift. “We didn’t win it by playing the lottery,” he said.
“But how many folks have existed over the course of history? How many of them have managed to find and keep their homeland?” Prime Minister Orbán asked. “Nearly two hundred,” he said, adding that “these two hundred countries include Hungary.”
“Because water flows on, and the rock remains. But the rock remains,” said the prime minister in closing. “Gloria Victis! Glory to the heroes!”