Bogyay recalled finding the home for the Hungarian Culture Centre in Covent Garden, one of the centres of cultural life in London.
?It was in February 1999 that I first walked down Maiden Lane and fell in love with this Adams house and its beautiful Wedgwood Room, and first imagined how it might prove a home to the Hungarian Cultural Centre,? Bogyay writes on the centre?s homepage.
Reflecting on her work, she writes, ?It was a pleasure to live and work here in Covent Garden, creating a cultural centre where ideas and art, thinkers, politicians and cultural figures could all meet and greet one another.?
Bogyay?s efforts have become an example to the other Hungarian cultural centres around the world. Her ?London model? involves first and foremost creating a kind of meeting place or salon where different cultures can meet and network.
Events are another priority. The centre?s events quickly gained popularity ? the Friday evening jazz concerts, the Thursday film clubs, the book signings, the readings and the many other cultural programmes. Special programmes organised by the centre, such as the Jewish Cultural Days, a celebration of Roma folklore and the Hungary in Focus series also proved remarkably successful.
The third aim of the centre is to present Hungarian culture at other events, such as the Edinburgh Festival.
?My aim has always been to show that our culture is both traditional and modern, that it can look the world in the eye - and that the world can reciprocate. I am fortunate to have been able to assemble an outstanding team, every member of which believed that our culture needed not to be isolated or insulated, but to become an organic part of this country?s cultural landscape,? Bogyay writes on the centre?s homepage.
Bogyay has been appointed Secretary of State for International Affairs in the Hungarian Ministry of Education and Culture, although she will continue to run the Hungarian Culture Centre until the appointment of her successor.
Applications for Bogyay?s post were invited at the beginning of November. The deadline for submissions was November 20. The ministry is expected to decide on an appointment within 30 days, and Bogyay?s successor is expected to take up the position from January 2007.
At the concert on Wednesday, Bogyay will award the Republic of Hungary?s Order of Merit, Officer?s Cross to Professor of the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at University College London George Kolankiewicz, as well as to Senior Lecturer and Head of the Department of Central and East European Studies at the University of Glasgow Richard Berry for promoting Hungary and the Hungarian language in the UK.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI) / Hungarian Cultural Centre London
