The resetting of an anti-Hungarian plaque, placed at the statute to 15h-century Hungarian King Matthias in Cluj, amounts to „spiritual and political” sabotage, state secretary for cultural affairs Geza Szocs wrote in a Cluj Hungarian-language daily.Szocs wrote that the Hungarian government, which had agreed to co-fund the restoration of the statue, finds the „selective” text taken out of context unacceptable. For this reason, it „certainly does not wish” to reimburse the given costs of restoration.
„It is regrettable that a brutal intervention has taken place in the aesthetic space around the statue, which is at least as hurtful as the rusting of one hundred years […] a kind of spiritual and political sabotage,” Szocs wrote.
The plaque contains a quotation of Romanian historian Nicolae Iorga. Hungary had not be briefed or consulted about the text.
The Transylvanian Hungarian National Council (EMNT) on Tuesday wrote an open letter of complaint about the resetting of a plaque, whose contents, it said, are offensive to the Hungarian nation.
„We have noted with indignation that a bronze plaque has been placed again at the equestrian statue of King Matthias in Cluj, without permission, containing a historically distorted caption offensive to Hungarians,” the letter said.
The undersigned called both actions illegal and an open provocation.
