Honorable Madam President, Mr. Rector, Professors, dear Faculty and Students, esteemed University Community!
I warmly welcome you to the academic year opening ceremony of your university. It is a great honor for me to be here today as the President of the Hungarian Rectors’ Conference.
“As we teach today, so shall tomorrow be.” These are the words of Nobel laureate Albert Szent-Györgyi, a former student of Semmelweis University. Few sentences express the true stakes and significance of education more succinctly. And the tremendous development of your institution, achieved under the exceedingly difficult conditions of war, demonstrates the power of education and science more profoundly than anything else. Having originated in 1996 as the Transcarpathian Hungarian Teacher Training College, your now-independent institution—having attained university status—educates professionals in the Hungarian language as the Ferenc Rakoczi II Transcarpathian Hungarian University; professionals that this region profoundly needs. The work of the students studying here and the graduates—teachers, kindergarten educators, primary school teachers, humanities scholars, natural scientists, psychologists, interpreters, and tourism professionals—is not merely the practice of a given profession. They are the ones who, through their knowledge and daily labor, are present in the schools, institutions, businesses, and communities of Transcarpathia. This is a highly challenging, yet noble undertaking. This university serves as an empowering and courageous example that, even amidst difficult circumstances, one can build, develop an institution, teach, and learn.
Every year, the opening of the academic year is a celebration of a new beginning. This is especially true here in Transcarpathia, where recent years have taught us that starting anew is not a given condition, but a decision made day by day. And perhaps that is precisely why the language in which we learn, teach, and think holds such special significance. The Hungarian language is not a wall that separates you from the world, but a faith through which values, knowledge, and experience can be passed on. To think and learn in Hungarian means preserving the cultural foundation from which we can set out to face the world with an open mind.
Dear Students!
You are not merely beginning another academic year. You belong to those whose knowledge Transcarpathia will profoundly need in the coming decades. Therefore, your education is simultaneously a personal endeavor and a communal asset. At the same time, we cannot pretend that you are starting this academic year in the same world as you studied in just a few years ago. There are those among you whose family members are far away, who carry the burden of loss, and who live in uncertainty. That is exactly why our being here together today holds such special significance. In this situation, the university is more than just an institution that imparts knowledge. It is also an environment where predictability, encounters, collaborative work, and human dignity have their place. The university itself is the safe space. A community can only be truly strong if its members are free to make their own choices while managing to preserve their sense of belonging to one another. Education can serve this freedom and this solidarity in a unique way. It provides knowledge that allows individuals to choose their own paths, and a community that one can remain connected to even if life temporarily takes us in a different direction.
Esteemed University Community!
The war will end one day; however, the kind of Transcarpathia that follows is already being shaped today in the lecture halls, laboratories, libraries, and dormitory rooms. Every class held, every successfully passed exam, every degree earned is a small but highly crucial building block of a future that today we can perhaps only imagine. Special gratitude is owed to those instructors and staff members who impart not only the curriculum, but also serve as examples of perseverance, adaptability, responsibility, and humanity.
Dear Students!
When you step through the gates of the university today, you may not yet know exactly where your path will lead. You do not need to know. Ask questions, debate ideas with one another, learn from each other and from your professors, and seek the knowledge that you yourselves will later be able to pass on. It is my hope that this academic year will serve as proof that knowledge creates community. And community, in turn, provides the strength to ensure that even in the most difficult times, there is a foundation to build upon. We wish you all the strength, perseverance, and success for this endeavor, and a peaceful academic year.
