The National Theater of Budapest is hosting a six-day festival at the end of March gathering productions from eight national minorities.
According to Rmx.news, theaters from the eight national minorities - Armenian, Bulgarian, Croatian, German, Greek, Roma, Serbian and Slovakian - are showcasing their productions at the Jelen/Lét (Presence) festival of the Budapest National Theater between March 25th-30th.
The above mentioned nations make up two thirds of all the minority languages recognized in Hungary. While that number seems high, according to a 2011 census 99 percent of the country's citizens speak Hungarian as their first language.
The festival was originally established in 1993 by the then director of the national theater and went through several name changes, it has been organized every year since in one form or another.
The Association of Hungarian Nationality Theaters currently has 17 members, with an estimated total of 150,000 visitors a year.
András Csasztaván, director of the Slovak Theater in Szarvas said these theaters serve a double purpose: on the one hand, they help preserve minority languages while also making contemporary Hungarian drama available in the languages of the minorities.