Goethe-Institut: Ambassador for the German Language

Named after German poet and statesman Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the Goethe-Institute is a nonprofit German cultural organization operational worldwide with more than 150 cultural centers across 99 countries. One of those is Hungary where the Institute has been present since 1988. Its goal is to promote the German language abroad and encouraging international cultural exchange.

“The one in the Hungarian capital is among of the first Goethe-institutes to have been established before the fall of the Berlin Wall in this part of Europe – and we're very delighted for having been here for such a long time,” the Director of Budapest Goethe-Institute, Miriam Bruns tells Diplomacy&Trade. She adds that their mission and vision are basically very much the same as at the beginning: promoting international cultural exchange and understanding. “We do that through language courses, cultural programming, one-on-one exchange and bringing people together on a people-to-people exchange basis basically or through the programs and courses we do. We really hope to establish that interpersonal connection between the people here in Hungary and Germany, including Germans living here.”

Bubbles
She points out that international understanding has always been at the core of what the Institute is doing. “In recent times and political developments, I think it is more and more clear that, as our chairman of the board now says, cultural exchange plays a vital role also in international security as it is stated in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal No. 16. Apart from that, we traditionally do the exchange of artists or bring German artists and experts over, bring them together with Hungarian artists to see what the discussions of the current times, what the artistic practices are. We also have a focus recently a lot on freedom of media and media literacy. Learning becomes more and more important in this current, very political ambience where the rise of social media and resulting bubbles that people seem to be in – not just in private life and social interaction that you stay in your bubbles, but also in political interaction. In the old days, we brought people together, sit at the table, come to a workshop, discuss together and you get people from all walks of life and political affiliation. Nowadays, you have this added dimension of the social media and the tendency that we are more and more in our own bubbles where we only get exposed to certain similar opinions or similar experiences and people are increasingly exposed to the rise of fake news.”

New location, new inspiration
The Goethe-Institute has recently moved to a new building, after almost two decades, in the Hungarian capital. The Director hopes that this new space will bring some new inspiration and some new opportunities for the Goethe-Institute as they are now close to some other international cultural organizations and other European cultural centers that are in the vicinity. “In the first half of 2026, we will have a grand opening with a large space and also larger space for the public, larger auditorium and some open library space because we're currently in an interim space, at the same address though. Everything will be in-house.”

Language education
Similarly to other foreign cultural institutes, language education is one of the signature activities at the Goethe-Institute. “It's also the core of what we do. We have a very stable and very successful language program with a little over 1,500 course participants and about 5,000 exams every year. We also have some of our language exams in schools. We have a very active teacher training workshop department where we do it in-house here. We're happy to welcome students here and classes with their teachers here at our location, but we also go to them and assist them and work with them in their language classes. We have active partner schools all over Hungary, and we're very happy to engage with them,” she adds.

Library of Things and others
The Goethe-Institute in Budapest is renowned about its special library that has a unique collection in Hungary. “Many of our library books are available even in the interim space, which is mostly the current German literature and newspapers. A very special as part of the library is what we call a ‘Library of Things ’where you cannot only check out books but also things such as a JBL speaker, etc. It's mostly objects that you wouldn't necessarily buy for yourself because you need it once in a year or once every other year. It is part of the sustainability ideas that we have at the Goethe-Institute.” Another very special feature of this particular library is what the Director calls ”check out a story.” They often organize events such as a ‘living library’ where they have eyewitnesses, say, for example, from the fall of the Berlin Wall. “We had some amazing people that were here and you could engage them in a conversation. May not be the correct term but we could “check them out” for 20 minutes to get that story, a life story interaction. So, you would basically talk to a person or more for 20 minutes, listen to their stories, ask them questions, and that is an event we do quite regularly.”

Not just in the capital
As to how much Budapest-centered are the activities of the Institute, Miriam Bruns reiterates that they have partner schools and even partner libraries all over Hungary and whom they regularly do workshops and programming together with these. “We also work very closely with some of the cultural organizations all over this country, and we reach out in some of our programming as well. So, for example, we have a film festival that reaches out to university cities like Debrecen Szeged and Pécs. We also have our teacher training workshops throughout Hungary as have – together with other organizations in the spring – a week of highlighting German language and culture, which we make sure that it's not only in Budapest.”

Cooperation in promotion
Bound by the common language, there is close cooperation here with the Austrian Cultural Institute and the Swiss Embassy. A fine example of that is the longstanding German language Sehenswert film festival that has been around for 15 years already. The same goes for their participation at the International Book Festival in Budapest, always with a joint presentation. The Director highlights that in 2026 German will be the ‘guest language’ of that event next year. Another annual program of cooperation is the Wunderbar Festival. “During that week, we are promoting German language, German culture together not just with the aforementioned partners but also with others like the German Embassy, with the remote learning university FernUni Hagen and other partners such as the German Academic Exchange, putting up a week of workshops and other events in schools.”