The Hungarian Ambassador to Canada paid tribute last week to the early Hungarian settlers of the Esterhazy area with a visit to the Kaposvar Historical Site on May 3.
“We value very much our diaspora, those people who remember their ancestry and who have some Hungarian relatives still because I think those people are very important to build bridges between Canada and Hungary,” said Bálint Ódor, who was appointed ambassador in August of 2014.
Ódor is a 41-year-old economist and expert on the European Union who served as Hungary’s deputy state secretary from 2010 to 2014 and director general of the Hungarian Parliament’s Foreign Office between 2007 and 2010.
The Kaposvar Historical Site is a 10-acre municipal heritage site on a hill five kilometres south of Esterhazy. It features a fieldstone rectory (1901), church (1907), a beautifully groomed and maintained cemetery, a one-room schoolhouse and various other historic buildings. The defining characteristic of the grounds is a fieldstone grotto, which serves as a shrine to “Our Lady of Lourdes” and as the destination of an annual pilgrimage that attracts people from all over the world.
During a brief ceremony inside Our Lady of Assumption Church before touring the grounds, Ambassador Ódor presented the Kaposvar Historical Society with a plaque that reads:
“In commemoration of those Hungarians who left the first footprints on Canadian soil here, in Saskatchewan in 1886. Their legacy contributed to a large extent to the success of Canada.”
It was an emotional experience for Ódor.
“It’s really very important to be aware that the first Hungarians who arrived to Canada arrived to this beautiful area, a long time ago, 130 years,” he said.
“I’m really proud because I think that to keep your original identity and culture for not just one generation or two, but four or five as I saw here is amazing. It’s difficult to say it in words, but it’s really very special.
“Imagine when they arrived here how hard the conditions were and how harsh, and what they did here, they created a village, a community where they were able to grow different agricultural products and they contributed with their activities also to the development of this country.”
Later, the ambassador attended the symbolic opening in Esterhazy of the new Mosaic K3 potash mine.
