THE UNVEILING of the monument "Hungarian Calvary" by the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on June 4 in Satoraljaujhely caused some stir in Croatia.
Media attention was primarily focused on the monument itself, which depicts Hungary from the time of the Habsburg Monarchy when it ruled the territory which today belongs to the Republic of Croatia. The inscription on the plaque "Fiume - tengerre magyar" was an additional provocation. It is a quote by the Hungarian poet and politician Lajos Kossuth, who did not acknowledge the existence of Croatia. Translated, it would mean "Rijeka - to the sea, Hungarians!"
The attack by Orban's Minister of Foreign Affairs on Index
All of this was seen as the latest example of Orban claiming the Croatian territory, and it also turned into a diplomatic incident as Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs Peter Szijjarto directly attacked Index and other Croatian media that wrote critically about said events, thus trying to censor Croatian media.
Orban is just like Milosevic in Gazimestan in 1989
However, the content of Orban's speech during the unveiling of the monument in question remained unnoticed. The tone of his speech was reminiscent of the intimidating speech by Slobodan Milosevic in Gazimestan in 1989.
Index read the English translation of Orban's entire speech, which can be found on the official website of the Hungarian government.
Orban compared the historical destiny of Hungary to that of Jesus Christ, talking about the Hungarian "Way of the Cross," i.e., using the same rhetoric that philo-Ustashas in Croatia use when talking about the partisan retaliation after the Second World War.
"Yet we walk the Way of the Cross again. We seek remedy, comfort, hope, and encouragement. We know that we can only get it at the end of the Way. Only here and so can we rise above the pain," Orban said at the beginning of the speech.
Millennial Hungary as the "Millennial Reich"
After that, Orban went back to the past, mentioning "wandering tribes of the great steppe," many of whom disappeared "in the dust of history," but not the Hungarians, who fought for their place and then "opened their hearts to Christianity" and "heard the word of God." He mentioned that Hungary is "standing on this foundation to this day."
"We fended off the attacks of Western empires one after the other. We recovered from the devastating blows of the Eastern pagans," Orban continued his epic narrative, the Hungarian version of the "millennial dream," another historical fabrication that has plagued the Croatian society for 30 years with its lies. What's even worse, all of this is reminiscent of the story of the "Millennium Reich," the consequences of which need not be explained.
Then, of course, he touched upon the Ottoman Empire and Hungary as the Bulwark of Christianity. After that, perhaps the most bizarre part of the speech followed, in which he shouts "glory to Hungarian women" because they have given birth to a sufficient number of Hungarians throughout history.
Hungarian women and nation-building genes?!
"They always gave us what we needed. We owe it to our women if the art of survival and nation-building is in our genes. We owe it to them if we are the European champions of survival," Orban said, thus reducing women to national laying hens and blabbering on about genetics, which, of course, has nothing to do with whether someone is capable of "nation-building" or not. Given that Nazis also believed in special purity of German blood since the discipline of genetics was not as developed at the time, Orban's speech can be considered marginal Nazi rhetoric.
He continued his speech with another typical Nazi motif regarding the "stabbing-in-the-back" (the so-called Dolchstoßlegende) that Nazis used to explain the defeat of Germany in World War I. Orban is mentioning "conspiracies" and "stabbing in the back in Budapest." Then, he stated that "the West raped the thousand-year-old borders and history of Central Europe," referring to the establishment of independent states after World War I. After the war, a hundred years ago, Hungary signed the Trianon Treaty and lost two thirds of its territory where it had the role of the hegemon, from Croatia and Serbia to Slovakia, Romania, and Ukraine.
"Twisting in a multicultural grip"
However, Orban praised their great-grandfathers who "didn't give up," who didn't "kneel or ask for mercy," but endured various adversities: "the Nazi camps, the Soviet gulag, deportations, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia." Orban then pointed out that all those states have disappeared, and so did the imperial empire of Great Britain and France, "and what's left of them is now twisting in the multicultural grip of their vindictive colonies."
"Even the greatest cannot avoid the justice of history," Orban continued, rejoicing in the fact that the Hungarians survived to witness the funeral of those who wanted to bury them.
"We Hungarians, on the other hand, will remain, no matter how the wind turns. We remain because we are at home," he said.
In the next part of the speech, Orban once again celebrates the dissolution of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia and emphasizes that he is "happy to build the common future with Slovakia, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia, which are proud of their national identity." He points out that history has given perhaps the last chance to the people of Central Europe to defend themselves together "from the West and the East." He boasts that Hungary is the most populous country in the Carpathian Basin and that it hasn't been "this strong in the last hundred years."
Orban's apocalyptic vision
"There is not a single nation in the world that could have endured such a century," Orban says, even though hundreds of nations have endured the bloody 20th century. He also praised the Hungarians who live outside Hungary for their "endurance and loyalty to the Hungarian nation and their homeland."
Orban warned that "the world is changing" as well as that "changes are tectonic: the United States is no longer alone on the throne of the world, Eurasia is rebuilding with full throttle, the frames of our European Union are crackling, and now it hopes to save itself with a salto mortale. The ground is trembling under the feet of our eastern neighbor," Orban added to his apocalyptic vision, while also saying that "The Balkans are also full of questions that need to be answered. "
"A new order is being born," Orban pointed out, and in the next, rather frightening part of his generally fanatical speech, he called on the next generation of Hungarians, "the fifth generation after Trianon," to win the "decisive battle." Orban's generation, "the fourth after Trianon", brought Hungary to the "gates of victory," and the fifth generation should "approach God, who is infinite." This part is quite reminiscent of Slobodan Milosevic's rhetoric about "heavenly people."
Orban announces the final battle
"It will not be easy, and it will not be simple, but it will be worth it. Great times are ahead of you. Get ready and prepare every day. Hungary before all else, God above us all! Go Hungary, go Hungarians!" Orban concluded his manic nationalist speech.
Overall, Orban's speech is full of motifs typical of Milosevic's speeches of the late 1980s, as well as of Hitler's tirades. Nowhere did he explicitly say that "armed battles are not ruled out," but his entire speech was charged with war rhetoric, and his call for the "fifth generation after Trianon" also sounds like a potential call for war.
Croatia has been warned, one only needs to read with understanding
Orban is promoting the ideology of blood and soil (Blut und Boden), another Nazi invention. Although he is seemingly benevolent towards neighboring countries, and he mentions potential good-neighborly cooperation, Orban's speech is filled with emotions and statements reminiscent of Hungarian hegemony. It is not clear what kind of "last battle" the next generation of Hungarians should fight in, but there is a possibility that Orban refers to the territorial expansion of Hungarian borders to the borders existing before the Trianon Agreement, or to the political domination over Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, and Serbia.
Croatia cannot say that there was no warning. One only needs to read what Orban is saying with understanding.