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Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s funeral oration for István Nemeskürty on 3 November 2015 in Budapest.

Bereaved family, fellow mourners,

So, all the great ones are leaving us. They are leaving one by one: those who gave us spiritual support and strength, those who helped us through the moments of faltering and wavering which emerge every now and then. We are struck by a thought which is unbecoming during the moments of our final farewell, because it is selfish. We are overcome by this feeling: “Now that we are soon to be left to ourselves, now that we can only rely on ourselves, how will we cope?”

Fellow mourners,

When standing before the grave of an immovable patriot, we feel overwhelmed. With all the frailty of our whole being we perceive that, while the Kingdom of God has become one man richer, we Hungarians have become one man poorer. I am ashamed to think how much we complain that we do not have time for this and we do not have time for that, while István Nemeskürty wrote more than fifty books, oversaw the production of over one hundred and fifty films, taught throughout his life and was our national culture’s most active organiser. He even had time to put together the spiritual alliance of the civic, national, Christian political community which we have today. We are simply amazed: how could so much be fitted into one man’s life? For István Nemeskürty there was not a moment’s doubt that, following in his father’s footsteps, he should embark on a career which, in essence, can be summed up by a short sentence which is one of the mottos of the Ludovika Military Academy: “For the motherland until death!” This succinct command demands all of a person. It demands dogged resolution for an entire life, demanding all of the heart, soul and mind of the soldier, the teacher, the husband and the father. We find no fault when we look back on the Professor’s life, which spanned nine decades shot through with the crises and troubles of Hungary’s one thousand-year history of statehood. Everything the Professor did and said was with his whole heart, his whole soul and all his strength – as befits a true Hungarian patriot who holds and accepts that his life is not his own, but belongs to his country.

István Nemeskürty remained a patriot when the German Tigers deployed on 19 March 1944, and he – as a cadet of Ludovika – was one of the few who did not hesitate on where to stand or where to run, but asked: “When are we going to shoot?” He also managed to remain a patriot under the communist dictatorship of the nineteen-fifties and the 1956 Revolution and Freedom Fight. In his mind, to survive and to remain in his homeland meant one and the same thing. This is how he was able to stand firmly at his post during the Kádár regime – a world full of imposed compromises – and also during the two troubled decades that followed the fall of communism. Those who saw him balancing precariously on the narrow plank of socialist cultural policy, never denying his Christianity and his Hungarian national roots, did not understand how he had the strength and the courage to persevere with the agility of a tightrope walker, but without compromise. Perhaps he was able to do so because  he saw the thousand years of the nation’s history at a single glance, with the matter-of-fact ease with which we see today or yesterday. And from this perspective he judged every event, every person and every idea with perfect self-assurance. When I asked him whether he would honour the nation by undertaking the duties of government commissioner for the millennium celebrations, his answer was that a job like that only comes up once in a thousand years – and therefore he agreed to take it.

Today we can see with perfect clarity that he was here, in this world, in order to be the Hungarian nation’s chronicler who could give the forgotten preachers and Bible translators of the 16th century a voice and a face, and who could deliver justice to an army condemned to death and oblivion. He was here in this world to convey and to inspire the history of Hungarian literature and Hungarian film in the most beautiful and purest Hungarian, which is perfectly understandable to all. He was here in this world in order to read Hungarian books, to think with a Hungarian’s head, and in his own way to offer a good many well-meaning but somewhat lost people a point of reference – indeed, a point of meeting – in times of rapid change. He was here in this world to teach others. We learnt from him, and we could learn from him how to be good Hungarians. Looking at his example, we cannot be good Hungarians without accurate and profound knowledge of our country’s history. This is what he taught us as a historian. If we look upon his example, we cannot be good Hungarians without loving and nurturing our mother tongue. This is what he taught us as a writer. If we look upon his example, we cannot be good Hungarians without protecting and enriching our national culture. This is what he taught us as a general of culture. As he said, “Either the Hungarian people will dare to become truly great by dreaming great things, or will once and for all crumble in the cruel competition of nations, in which only those nations with self-confidence and self-awareness stand a chance.”

Fellow mourners, Dear Friends,

There are many reasons why we should shrink from evaluating and praising such an enormous body of work and such an outstanding fellow human. Yet, with due humility, we can perhaps say that István Nemeskürty completed his service for the country, and retained his faith in God, nation and family. May God allow us to remain not simply his admirers, but also his followers and pupils on this path.

Farewell, Professor.