Our National Holiday Is Celebrated from Beijing to Istambul

The national holiday remembering the Hungarian Revolution of 1848-49 was not only celebrated in the motherland, but in China and Türkiye as well. The Liszt Institute Hungarian Cultural Center Beijing and its Turkish counterpart, the Hungarian Cultural Center in Istanbul both paid homage to the revolutionary poet, Sándor Petőfi.

On Saturday, the Liszt Institute, Hungarian Cultural Center Beijing commemorated the heroes of the 1848-49 Revolution and War of Independence at the Petőfi statue in the garden of the Beijing Lu Xun Museum.

The ceremony is held at this site every year, as it was Lu Xun, the renowned Chinese writer, who first translated Sándor Petőfi’s poems into Chinese.

During the commemoration, students from the Beijing Foreign Studies University, Beijing International Studies University and Tianjin Foreign Studies University who are majoring in Hungarian, recited Sándor Petőfi’s poems “One thought” (Egy gondolat bánt engemet…) and “To Freedom” (A szabadsághoz) in Hungarian and Chinese.

Fact

In our previous interview made with the Liszt Institute Hungarian Cultural Center Beijing‘s director, Anna Lujza Honecz told us that the institution’s goal is to present Hungarian heritage and cultural values in China and share these with the Chinese citizens.

Every year on March 15 in Türkiye, our heroes are commemorated by the Hungarian Cultural Center in Istanbul. After the fall of the War of Independence, Lajos Kossuth and his entourage fled to Türkiye, where they took refuge in the town of Kütahya, where this year’s event took place.

Kossuth lived and worked in this 18th century bourgeois building while dreaming of Hungary’s future. It was here that he wrote the draft Hungarian constitution, learned and spoke Turkish, and further shaped his political ideas. The Kossuth House is now a museum, where the Hungarian National Museum has an exhibition on this period.

Every year, the Hungarian community in Türkiye and the locals pay tribute to the heroes of the revolution with a wreath-laying ceremony.

In the capital, Ankara they also held a concert to celebrate this national holiday.

15 Mart 1848-49 Macar İhtilali ve Özgürlük Savaşı anma günü konseri, Ankara #Macaristan pic.twitter.com/VjZcPqzUxZ

— Liszt Enstitüsü Macar Kültür Merkezi (@MacarKultur) March 16, 2025