Waclaw Felczak Institute director awarded high state honour

The honour was presented to Szymanowski by Orsolya Zsuzsanna Kovacs, Hungary’s ambassador to Poland. In her laudation, Kovacs praised Szymanowski’s loyalty to Hungary “in these difficult times” as well as his merits in deepening Hungarian-Polish cultural and social relations.

In his acceptance speech, Szymanowski said he considered the award a recognition of the entire staff of the Waclaw Felczak Institute.

He also said he believed that “there have never been so many people working so hard” to tarnish Hungarian-Polish relations “at least a little bit”. He said the ties of the two countries, members of NATO and the European Union, made them “an island of peace, calm and rapid development, unlike western Europe, which we have overtaken by some margin in development in recent years”.