Joined by Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and a large crowd gathered in front of the Hungarian National Museum, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that it was the Hungarian people who held out the longest in 1848. They were also the ones who dared to rise up against the world’s largest army in 1956.
“And it was also us who stopped at our southern borders, the migrant invasion directed at Europe. And we are also those who want a strong Europe, strong nation states and new, strong leaders at Europe’s helm, who won’t bring the trouble here, but take the help there,” PM Orbán said.
According to the PM, one of the key takeaways of 1848 is that “in Hungary, if there is freedom, there is everything.” But without Christian culture, he added, there is neither Hungarian freedom, nor a free Hungary.
“We wish for the peoples of Europe that their night blindness heals,” PM Orbán said, “so they realize that in a liberal European empire, we would all lose our freedom.” In the PM’s view, one can only be free if born as a “son of a free nation”, not as a dependent in an empire.
PM Orbán argued that freedom, in fact, has its origins in Christianity, as all peoples and all nations are equal before God. Therefore, he warned, it’s high time that Europe understood that without Christianity and Christian culture there is no freedom in Europe.
“Without the protection of our Christian culture we will lose Europe, and Europe will no longer belong to the Europeans,” the prime minister said.
Regarding the March 15th National Day that commemorates the 1848-49 Revolution, Prime Minister Orbán said that the celebrations always remind the Hungarian people of the single most important goal: that there should always be a free nation living in its own, independent state of Hungary. “Hungarians have the right to their own homeland. They have the right to the Hungarian way of life,” PM Orbán said.
“Poland and Hungary fight again for the future,” said Polish Prime Minister Morawiecki in his address, “and today, just as in 1848-49, we stand on the side of justice, solidarity and equal rights.”
“We are preparing for a spectacular Central European ascent, repeating our old-time grandeur, a sweeping Central European renaissance,” PM Orbán, adding that Poland, as a regional leader, will play a key role in the region’s future.
“When Brussels attacks Poland, they attack the whole of Central Europe and us, Hungarians, too,” said Prime Minister Orbán. “Those imperialists, who wish to extend their shadow over Central Europe, will always have to reckon with the Polish-Hungarian bond.”