Elizabeth Pagan
Hungarian Heritage Award
The Board of Trustees of the Bethlen Gábor Foundation awarded the Teleki Pál Medal of Merit to Erzsébet Pogány, the founder and director of the Felvidék Ma news portal, on November 14, 2010, for her launch and five-year operation and maintenance of the first Hungarian news portal in Slovakia. Sándor Lezsák, the chairman of the Board of Trustees, wrote in a letter about the award: “I am pleased to inform you that in recognition of her decades of dedicated work in Hungarian advocacy organizations, the establishment and high-quality operation of the Felvidék Ma news portal, and her service to Hungarians,” the Board of Trustees decided to award Erzsébet Pogány the Teleki Pál Medal of Merit. The award was received by the honorees on November 14, 2010, at 3 p.m., in the Ceremonial Hall of the URÁNIA National Film Theater in Budapest. The Bethlen Gábor Foundation commemorated the 430th anniversary of the birth of Gábor Bethlen here, and congratulated this year's honorees of the Foundation launched in his name thirty years ago. "I graduated from the University of Economics in Bratislava in 1987. In 1992, I graduated from the Századvég Political School in Budapest, and I obtained a certificate from the human rights seminar at the Budapest College of Public Administration. I worked in various positions at the Somorja town hall for ten years, and for three years I headed the local economic department. In 1990, I became the head of the central office of the Political Movement of Coexistence, and then its press secretary. For six years, I was the Felvidék councilor of the World Federation of Hungarians in Budapest, and since 2001 I have been working as the director of the Federation for Common Goals, and in this position I work for the www.felvidek.ma news portal. I also perform the duties of the responsible publisher of the Hungarians in Slovakia. For several years I have been actively involved in the social, political and cultural life of the Hungarians in Slovakia. I am known as a community person, and this may be due to the fact that my siblings and I were orphaned at an early age and were raised in my sister's family. Many people watched my fate unfold with loving care, and I received special attention from my teachers. I was born into a community in what was then Somorja, where they did not let go of the hand of a person in trouble; I can also thank this for the fact that my life has reached a crossroads. I felt good at school, I was always organized, I was active a lot - this is what I received from my teachers. My first job was at the Somorja town hall, and there, too, I have been dealing with solving community problems ever since, I come into contact with people” – this is how Erzsébet Pogány, who is known by many in the Upper Carpathian Mountains and the entire Carpathian Basin, described herself as a member of the board of trustees of the Carissimi non-profit fund. nothing is impossible.
This “nothing is impossible” approach also launched the first Hungarian news portal in Slovakia. It is worth browsing its pages and seeing what path the portal has taken during its five years of existence. For us, who are its employees and who experience good and bad days, sometimes in joy, sometimes in annoyance and debate, it is particularly significant that somewhere, someone has noticed Felvidék Mára and, considering its moral and human value, is rewarding its creator, Erzsébet Pogány, who maintained it even in difficult circumstances, with a significant award.
In a world where Hungarians do not have much laurels, where we are mostly occupied with everyday antics and we believe that we can only ensure our own prosperity and existence by stifling and denigrating the other, others, we have to stand our ground not in a headwind, but from time to time in a whirlwind, a tornado. Working amidst soul-destroying constant suspicions and slander, our relationships often sink to a kind of “shell-and-shell” level. Not here, within the narrowest community – because the team is smaller than the smallest – but in our Hungarian community in the highlands…
Such exceptional days, such as today’s – courtesy of the award of Erzsébet Pogány – however, give us wings to rise from the “dunghill” and see something different and in a different way. Let's see how in this one-television-one-radio-one-paper-one-perspective world of ours, Felvidék Ma has grown up in five years, for Hungarians with a different perspective, committed to national survival, and who do not give up. As a reading material and a forum.
Yesterday, one of our talented colleagues wrote – let me call him that too, although his name is not on our list –: A message to everyone: the truth sets you free! Few people can receive greater recognition for their tenacious struggle than this – and the ever-growing readership.
I think that this is what we, the named colleagues, are most grateful for. We congratulate you from the bottom of our hearts on the recognition, Erzsike!
The colleagues of Felvidék Ma
(Source: www.felvidek.ma)
This “nothing is impossible” approach also launched the first Hungarian news portal in Slovakia. It is worth browsing its pages and seeing what path the portal has taken during its five years of existence. For us, who are its employees and who experience good and bad days, sometimes in joy, sometimes in annoyance and debate, it is particularly significant that somewhere, someone has noticed Felvidék Mára and, considering its moral and human value, is rewarding its creator, Erzsébet Pogány, who maintained it even in difficult circumstances, with a significant award.
In a world where Hungarians do not have much laurels, where we are mostly occupied with everyday antics and we believe that we can only ensure our own prosperity and existence by stifling and denigrating the other, others, we have to stand our ground not in a headwind, but from time to time in a whirlwind, a tornado. Working amidst soul-destroying constant suspicions and slander, our relationships often sink to a kind of “shell-and-shell” level. Not here, within the narrowest community – because the team is smaller than the smallest – but in our Hungarian community in the highlands…
Such exceptional days, such as today’s – courtesy of the award of Erzsébet Pogány – however, give us wings to rise from the “dunghill” and see something different and in a different way. Let's see how in this one-television-one-radio-one-paper-one-perspective world of ours, Felvidék Ma has grown up in five years, for Hungarians with a different perspective, committed to national survival, and who do not give up. As a reading material and a forum.
Yesterday, one of our talented colleagues wrote – let me call him that too, although his name is not on our list –: A message to everyone: the truth sets you free! Few people can receive greater recognition for their tenacious struggle than this – and the ever-growing readership.
I think that this is what we, the named colleagues, are most grateful for. We congratulate you from the bottom of our hearts on the recognition, Erzsike!
The colleagues of Felvidék Ma
(Source: www.felvidek.ma)