House Speaker László Kövér said there is no nation without common remembrance as there is no nation state without a nation.
In his address marking the 10th anniversary of the National Remembrance Committee (NEB) at an international scientific conference, Kövér called national remembrance one of the strongest components of a human community. “Today, in the western world every nation is a victim of mental and cultural aggression,” he said. “National remembrance today needs courage because in the Western world forces that seek to seize power again want to deprive nations of their remembrance,” Kövér said. He said it had to be ensured that “nobody could ever again colonise national remembrance”. The house speaker noted that NEB’s work over the past ten years had been marked by 71 scientific conferences, the publication of over 1,000 scientific papers and 70 Hungarian and English language studies, and the operation of 9 thematic websites and online databases. NEB also organised over 120 exhibitions across the Carpathian Basin and hosted more than 150 history classes, he said. Also addressing the conference, Ladislav Kudrna, director of the Czech Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes (USTR), Rafał Rogulski, director of European Network Remembrance and Solidarity (ENRS), and Jergus Sivos, chair of Slovakia’s Nation’s Memory Institute (UPN), underlined the importance of international cooperation and addressing young people.