Géza Nagy Kemény, grandson of Baron János Kemény, gave the Hungarian government’s foreign policy a score of six out of five and considers Hungarian-Romanian relations to be of historic proportions in an interview with Mandiner.

Nagy Kemény sharply criticized the opposition Tisza Party, spoke about its leader, Péter Magyar’s failure in Transylvania, and why he considers the April election to be crucial.

As a Transylvanian, how would you classify the current Hungarian government’s foreign policy?

Five out of six. I am satisfied as a Transylvanian Hungarian. Some people accuse Hungarians abroad of receiving money from the mother country. To this, I usually say that Transylvania gets a handful from the budget sandbox, and that is enough for us. And it is a fantastic thing that Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó regularly visits Bucharest and invites Romanians from Bucharest to Budapest. 

There has never been such a good relationship between Romania and Hungary since these two nations existed. 

This is true; whoever denies this, I will defend it.

You are known as a critical person, obviously there is something you don’t fully agree with.

Regarding the Borderless! program, I think that children from the mother country arriving in Transylvania should be better prepared for where they are arriving, many of them do not even understand why they speak Hungarian in Romania. There is plenty of time for this from Budapest to Marosvásárhely, even on the bus. Regarding the program, I criticize not only the Hungarian government, but also the Hungarians in Transylvania, who are capable of doing anything for accommodation, but the main message, the content, is lost in the process. This is not worthy of the Hungarian nation. The goal would be for children returning from Transylvania to say at home that “I was actually in the old Hungary.”

The other is that we do not have a representative living in Hungary who deals only with Transylvanian Hungarians. Furthermore, there would be a need for an office that anyone from Transylvania could call and tell about the problems of Transylvanian Hungarians. Also, the election law should be changed so that those living in the diaspora can send one representative to the Hungarian parliament. 

Speaking of electoral law: “If you don’t pay taxes, why do you vote? What does it have to do with you?” – these are the words used by Péter Magyar’s Transylvanian ally, Attila Gáspárik, regarding the voting rights of Hungarians abroad. What is your opinion on this? 

Let’s stop for a moment: We didn’t migrate to Transylvania, but they pulled the ground out from under our feet, packed us into a big box, tied with a blue-yellow-red ribbon. We have to live here. 

And let me not disparage Attila Gáspárik, who claimed that my grandfather, Baron János Kemény, the founder of Erdélyi Helikon, which kept the entire Transylvanian literary world alive after Trianon, was an informer. I can go even further: Gáspárik was the director of the theater that my grandfather founded with his wealth. Regarding the right to vote, I would like to say that not only Fidesz and Tisza could benefit from the votes of those from across the border, since you can also vote for them. Come here and convince us why it would be a good idea to vote for them. 

But then, Péter Magyar visited Transylvania and the Partium in the summer.

Yes, and it really stuck: in Oradea, only cars with Hungarian license plates could be seen when he was there, and they brought the “crowd” with them. He also discredited himself in Praid, not daring to take a photo at the salt mine, because the Székely patriots were waiting for him there. He was escorted through the forest on a side road so that he wouldn’t have to meet foreigners who thought differently from him. He was afraid; he knew that they wouldn’t welcome him here.

Do you know any Hungarians from Transylvania who would vote for Tisza?

I have never heard of a Transylvanian Hungarian voting for Tisza.

Is there anything at all that you think the Tiszas are right about regarding Transylvanian issues? 

Let me think, it’s not that easy to find one… Yes, I can’t criticize them for one thing, which many people did anyway: When (Tisza MEP) Kinga Kollár said that the Hungarians in Transylvania should speak Romanian better. But this is also the invention of the Spanish wax, something that we have already done ourselves – by the way, I have to praise the RMDSZ at this point, since Béla Markó is gone, they have finally managed to teach Romanian as a foreign language to the Hungarian children in Transylvania. The problem is that there are no Romanian teachers, but how would a Romanian teacher be found in a Hungarian village? Who should teach the child Romanian? But that’s another question.

We know that not all Hungarians in Romania are RMDSZ (Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania) supporters. They face a lot of criticism. Do you think that the alliance of RMDSZ and the Hungarian government parties can decide who – from Transylvania – someone will vote for in the Hungarian elections in April? 

I think there are few people who would connect this so much. I myself hated the RMDSZ for a long time, but since Béla Markó has been gone, it has been able to achieve changes in the country that I previously thought were unimaginable in Romania, for example, Hungarian history is taught in Hungarian schools, officially. In fact, they give you a printed history textbook in Transylvania, which I also think is better than the Hungarian one. And now you can get a driver’s license in Hungarian. What the Hunors have done recently is very good, and I can highly praise Barna Tánczos. And in national politics, they have made strategic decisions that are favorable to Hungarians, such as the pension adjustment. As a pensioner here, nothing is free; you have to pay half of the train ticket, and that little extra money is very useful. All of this together can help the RMDSZ, and it can also help the Hungarian governing parties in April.

Tisza would like to position itself as a party that would continue Fidesz’s policies even after the hoped-for change of government, wherever it sees fit. What do you think would be the fate of the subsidies from the mother country in this case? 

This is clear: They will be reduced to a minimum. The Hungarians of Transylvania could lose everything, especially spiritually, but also institutionally. 

The biggest such loss would be the Bethlen Gábor Foundation, but the Határtalan! program, Sapientia, and other universities that have been maintained or supported by the Hungarian government so far could be in danger. But I also have concerns about Péter Magyar as a person.

For example?

The lack of credibility. I was at least as outraged by the “ Romanian grounding” as its opposite, the demonstratively carrying around the Székely flag in Szeged, with which the leader of the Tisza marched, as if this could erase the mistakes made, even though we know that for him the flag is also a stage prop, which is distributed at the meetings and then collected afterwards. By the way 

Péter Magyar did all this after a few years earlier, two rows ahead of me, he had shouted “Viktor, Viktor!” in Tusványos. 

It was impossible to take a photo with his ex-wife without Péter Magyar, who was always bustling around Judit Varga, being in the picture. He has a very strong desire for power, which makes him artificially create hatred.

I have never received so many attacks from Hungary in my life as I have this year. They often threaten me with death, hanging, and if I wanted to, I could even go and file a complaint after some of the comments. 

Speaking of denunciations: What do you think of the opposition’s “road to prison” program?

As a scion of a judicial family, Péter Magyar knows very well that you can’t put people in prison the way he advocates. Even Ferenc Gyurcsány wasn’t put in prison. That’s not how it works. 

You can’t put people in prison for thinking differently; this is not the Ceaușescu era, where they were put in prison or even murdered, as happened to my family members. 

If someone says in their main message, “To jail with Orbán and his team!” when that’s impossible, then why should I believe their other messages?

The adaptability of the Transylvanian Hungarians is legendary. I think they are prepared for every eventuality.

If the government wins, then we will continue with it on the steep mountain that it has been carrying us up until now, and sooner or later, we will approach the summit. If the Tisza wins, then we will have to come up with a new strategy. We will get there, just like in the time of Béla Markólo – please describe it this way – who was the first to congratulate Ferenc Gyurcsány. If the Tisza wins, then the Hungarians of Transylvania really need to pull up their pants: They will trample us into the swamp.

It’s not necessarily Péter Magyar, but those who don’t care that there are Hungarians elsewhere in the world, because they don’t care about Hungarians in Hungary either, such as the Kinga Kollárs, Zoltán Tarr, Ervin Nagys and I could list more. The current Hungarian government has symbolically restored Greater Hungary, since it stated that the nation has no borders. If the Tisza wins, it will be the second Trianon for Hungary. And Hungary doesn’t want another Trianon. The country cannot be divided any smaller than this.