The László Nagy Memorial Evening entitled Hymn for All Times, organised by the National Library of Foreign Literature and Music Collection on the occasion of the Day of Hungarian Culture on 20 January 2013, was opened by Minister of State for Culture János Halász from the Ministry of Human Resources.

In his speech, Mr. Halász praised the organising institution, winner of the title of the Library of the Year in 2010. The institution’s activities were also acknowledged by the profession with a “For Librarianship” award in 2012. The Library is home to 400,000 documents in 148 languages, the Minister of State explained. In addition to books, the Library's collection includes 30,000 pieces of sheet music, CDs, DVDs and other multimedia tools, and 300 periodicals from 35 countries. Last year, the Library had 35 thousand visitors, while 430 thousand made use of the services provided online. Moreover, 119 events – literary evenings, nationality events, and exhibitions of art, applied art and photography – were organised in the library in 2013 with the participation of more than 5000 visitors.

As the maintainer, the State Secretariat supported the institution with funding of HUF 256 million last year.

Concerning László Nagy’s poetry, János Halász pointed out: “His poetry teaches us to listen to our language, because our language is our collective memory. Not only music, but language is our common treasure too”. Radnóti Award-winning reciter of poetry Mária Torma and the Sebő Ensemble also made special appearances at the László Nagy Memorial Evening.

(Ministry of Human Resources)