Szijjártó holds conversation with Lavrov about controversial Russian history textbook
Pravda Ukraine
Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of the session of the UN General Assembly have discussed a Russian history textbook where the revolution of 1956 is called “fascist”.
Source: Péter Szijjártó, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Hungary, in an interview with Magyar Nemzet.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Hungary stated that he raised this issue during a conversation with a Russian counterpart. Szijjártó says that it is unacceptable to label the Hungarian heroes of the 1956 revolution as fascists.
Quote: “The fact that the people who defended Hungary’s freedom and sovereignty are heroes is something we don’t even want to discuss at any level, because it is a fact,” Szijjártó stressed.
Szijjártó said that Lavrov made it clear that Russia perceives as authority the statement made by Russian President Vladimir Putin a few days before their meeting, in which a clear position was laid out.
“How can we find common ground with those who perceive as liberation what we perceive as occupation?” Szijjártó said.
At the same time, he called it clear that Hungary will never have a common position with Russia regarding the past, so they should shape their relations with the Russian Federation keeping this in mind.
Background:
- Szijjártó became the first Hungarian official to comment on the Russian propaganda textbook which calls the participants of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 “fascists”.
- Asked how the Hungarian government assesses the distortion of historical events in the textbook officially approved for use in Russia, Szijjártó said that “there are some issues that the government does not even want to discuss”.
- In a history textbook for graduating pupils officially approved for use in Russia, the participants of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 are called fascists and “insurgent radicals” who fought against Soviet monuments.
- “The catalyst for the Hungarian crisis was the actions of the Western special services and the domestic opposition they supported,” the “history textbook” claims, and additionally criticises the Hungarians for “deciding to abandon the Stalinist legacy”.
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