Sarasotai Magyar Hirmondó, 2002 (8. évfolyam, 1-9. szám)

2002-02-01 / 2. szám

THE MESSENGER

Newsletter of the Kossuth Club February, 2002. Vol. 8. No. 2.

Hungarian Minority in Danger. According to a report by the Hungarian National Academy of Sciences the process of assimilation of ethnic Hungarians, living as a minority in Rumania, Serbia, Slovakia and Ukraine, accelerated dramatically in recent years. Representatives of ethnic Hungarians from the region held a conference in October 2001 in Nagydobrony (Ukraine) to try to find ways and means to preserve the basic human right of minorities to their ethnic heritage and to study and worship in their native language. The conference issued a proclamation asking for Hungarians all over the world, including government and social agencies in the Republic of Hungary, to support Hungarian minority schools in the region. Starting under the leadership of former directors Pál Szűts, Madga Szűts and Erzsébet Fésűs in 1991, the Kossuth Klub has been actively helping Hungarian schools and youth organizations in the Carpathian Basin. In the past 10 years financial aid to ethnic Hungarians from the club amounts to nearly $100,000. The on-site donation of $328 by our members for the benefit of the Hungarian Folk Dance Ensemble in Nagyida (Slovakia) at the January meeting was “rounded up” to a total of $500 in order to help this courageous group.

Mission to Moscow—the February Program. You are cordially invited to join us in the Selby Public Library Auditorium (1331 First Street, Sarasota) Thursday February 28 at 4:00 p. m. Our lecturer will be Géza Bánkuty, president and CEO of New England Machinery, Inc., a manufacturing firm in Bradenton that builds machines used in the packaging industry. At the invitation of the United States Department of Commerce, Mr. Bánkuty was a member of a high level delegation led by U. S. Commerce Secretary Don Evans on a trade mission to Moscow in October 2001. The purpose of the trip was to seek and develop opportunities for American business with Russia, just emerging from 70 years of Communist rule. According to Secretary Evans, American business executives have never been as optimistic or as hopeful as they are now regarding future cooperation with their Russian counterparts. Mr. Bánkuty wams, though, that progress will be slow. “The opportunity is there, but you have to be patient. It will be hard work. It is not going to be easy”—says Bánkuty. In the Business section of its October 26, 2001 issue The Bradenton Herald published an interview with Mr. Bánkuty about his trip. The impressions of a Hungarian-American businessman in Russia should provide interesting insight to the country that occupied Hungary for 45 years after the Second World War. Mr. Bánkuty’s lecture will be in English.

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