House Speaker László Kövér has received the highest Polish state honor, the Grand Cross of the Polish Order of Merit.
The order is awarded by the Polish president and was given to Kövér by Marshal of the Sejm (Speaker of the House) Elżbieta Witek in Warsaw “for outstanding merits in furthering Polish-Hungarian parliamentary and bilateral relations”.
Rmx.news highlights that two countries share many common historical milestones and there is even a rhyme (both in Polish and Hungarian) that translates to English as “Pole and Hungarian brothers be, good for fight and good for party”.
In the 15th century, the two countries briefly shared a king: Poland's Władysław III of Varna, who died at age twenty, fighting the Turks at Varna, Bulgaria.
During the 16th century, Poland elected as its king Transylvanian nobleman István (Stephen) Báthory, whom many Poles to this day consider their greatest king ever. In the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, Polish General Józef Bem became a national hero of both countries.
During the Polish–Soviet War (1919–21), Hungary offered to send 30,000 cavalry to Poland's aid but the Czechoslovak government refused them passage.
In his acceptance speech Kövér said that the honor also binds him and his entire generation to live up to the thousand-year-old historical tradition of Hungarian-Polish friendship.
Photo credit: Origo