“The communities of Hungary are condemned to live together” – stressed Deputy Prime Minister Tibor Navracsics at the premiere of the book titled ‘Between minority and majority – the Hungarian and Jewish/Israeli ethnic and cultural experiences of the past centuries’ in Budapest, this Tuesday.

At the event held by the Balassi Institute, the Deputy Prime Minister pointed out that a tendency can be observed regarding the development of civilization that the resolution of conflicts between communities gains institutional frameworks.

Tibor Navracsics stated that “even if it is sometimes difficult to live together, it is possible”, for which, according to him, much goodwill is needed.
As he said, “the most beautiful and tragic story” of living together with minorities is the history of the Jewish community in Hungary and the Hungarian-Jewish coexistence or the relationship of the Jewish Diaspora with the mother country.

He spoke of that the 20th Century is the century of nationalism, which is one of the most exciting topics among coexistence of people. The formation of a community begins when it defines itself facing another community, but as he added, then it’s easy to get from here to conflicts.

He reminded that the book is based on the conference organised three years ago – on which he observed patronage – and as far as the list of authors and subjects are concerned, the palette is very colourful. The book entails a musicological work, correspondences, processing of archives and a dissertation in political science regarding the relationship between majority and minority.

Pál Hatos, the General Director of Balassi Institute has said that the institution is responsible for “presenting Hungarian cultural heritage and making it interact with other traditions”. He said that “we need to break with the ‘we are alone’ approach”, because that’s the only real way in order to see the Hungarian culture being described to others.

He commented on that a very serious tragedy did happen in the relationship of Hungarians and the Jewish community in 1944 and the preceding decades; because the Hungarian state denied hundreds of thousands of its citizens, who have been deprived not only of their property but also their lives.

(Ministry of Public Administration and Justice)