Prime Minister Gyurcsány thanked President Putin and all those who assisted in returning the books to their home in the Sárospatak Reformed Church Library. Gyurcsány said he was pleased that both countries had decided to set aside national grievances in order to build a new future.
President Putin, who arrived for an official visit to Hungary on Tuesday, said it was welcome news that the cultural and intellectual treasures represented by the books had been returned to their rightful owner in Sárospatak. This development reflects a thorough change in the political relationship between the two countries, he added.
The Russian people also lost a significant part of their cultural treasures in World War II, therefore they understand Hungary?s loss resulting from the displacement of the Sárospatak collection, President Putin said.
Also at the opening, President Putin granted awards to Hungarian personalities who had contributed significantly to the development of Hungarian-Russian cultural relations. Film director István Szabó, ELTE University Finno-Ugric department head Péter Domokos and ELTE University Russian department head Gyula Szvák received the Pushkin Award.
The exhibition opening was also attended by parliamentary speaker Katalin Szili, former Presidents Árpád Göncz and Ferenc Mádl, former Prime Ministers Viktor Orbán and Péter Medgyessy, Budapest Mayor Gábor Demszky and Chairman of the Hungarian Academy of Science Szilveszter E. Vizi.
Representatives of the Hungarian government and representatives from the Reformed Church of Hungary, which owns the Sárospatak collection, opened the seven boxes containing the 136 books in the National Széchényi Library last Thursday, after their return from Russia a day earlier.
At the weekend, the books were transported to the Hungarian National Museum, where they have been placed in 13 displays set up in the great domed hall. The most precious pieces of the collection are in the central displays, including Hartmann Schedel?s Libri Cronicarum, a history of the world printed in 1493.
In a sense, these volumes have found their way back to the museum, considering that in 1938, after part of the collection was moved from Sárospatak to Budapest, the books were kept for some time in the National Museum. From the museum, they were taken to the vaults of two Budapest banks, and, according to Hungarian researchers, they were taken to Russia by special units of the Red Army in 1945.
MTI
