While watching the victory of the Hungarian football team against Greece (2-1) in a friendly match on Monday November 20, played at the Puskàs Ferenc stadium in Budapest, the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orban , posted on his Instagram account a photo of him wearing a scarf with a map of "
Greater Hungary
".
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This photo sparked outrage in Ukraine and other neighboring countries of Hungary.
“
Greater Hungary
” indeed corresponds to the national territory of Hungary before the First World War, when Hungary was still part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The map therefore includes regions currently under the sovereignty of Ukraine (Transcarpathia), Romania (Transylvania), Slovakia, Austria, Serbia (Vojvodina) and Croatia.
All these regions are populated by strong Hungarian minorities, who are sometimes in the majority in these territories.
Hungary lost its territories in 1920 with the Treaty of Trianon, one of the five major peace treaties that ended the First World War.
Since then, many Hungarians have cultivated a resentment towards this treaty, accused of having ratified “
the dislocation
” of Hungary.
Read alsoHungary commemorates its “dislocation” with the centenary of the Treaty of Trianon
Since his return to power in 2010, Viktor Orban has constantly denounced
the "injustice
" of the Treaty of Trianon and has pursued an active policy of
soft power
towards the Hungarian minorities in the countries bordering Hungary, with in particular the massive distribution of Hungarian passports. and economic aid - a method similar to Russia's policy with Russian-speaking minorities in Donbass since 2014.
Hungary and the Hungarians in 2010. Le Figaro
After the disclosure of the photo of Viktor Orban sporting the "
Greater Hungary
" scarf, the spokesman of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, Oleh Nikolenko, announced the summons of the Hungarian ambassador, demanding an "
official apology
of Hungary and the end of the "questioning of
the territorial integrity of Ukraine
".
Oleh Nikolenko also declared that "
the promotion of the revisionist idea does not participate in the development of relations between Hungary and Ukraine
" and that "
it does not correspond to the policy of Europe
".
Read alsoTo critics of Zelensky, Orban opposes “the interests of Hungary”
For several years relations between Ukraine and Hungary have been strained over the Hungarian minority living in the Ukrainian region of Transcarpathia (about 150,000 people).
In 2017, kyiv passed a law in the Ukrainian Parliament which gradually banned public schools by 2023, the country's minority languages.
This law was mainly aimed at Russian after the annexation of Crimea and Russia's support for the Donbass separatists, but it also had repercussions on Hungarian and relations between Hungary and Ukraine have since deteriorated.
Today, Hungary is one of the only European countries to refuse to supply arms to Ukraine and Budapest still wants to import Russian gas and oil, despite the large-scale invasion of
The Romanian Foreign Minister also denounced a
"revisionist gesture"
by Viktor Orban which is
"against the tide of reality"
.
Finally, a spokesman for the Austrian Foreign Ministry ironically told the
POLITICO
website that "a
quick glance at the historical maps of the Viennese Foreign Ministry confirmed the initial suspicions, according to which Translithania (the Kingdom of Hungary) ceased to exist about 100 years ago.
»
Faced with the outcry caused by his photo, the Hungarian Prime Minister wanted to respond on his Facebook page.
He thus declared that “
football is not politics.
Let's not see what's not there.
The Hungarian national team belongs to all Hungarians
,
wherever they come from!
".
A statement that does not really amount to an apology, but rather a reaffirmation of the natural link that would bind, according to him, the Hungarians living inside and outside the current borders of Hungary.