Former Hungarian MP Remembered in Parliament

Members of Hungarian Parliament have held a minute of silence to remember former MP János Horváth who died in Budapest last week in his 99^th year of age.

János Horváth was a member of the National Assembly between 1945 and 1947, and from 1998 to 2014. From 2003 to 2014, he was the oldest Speaker of Parliament.

János Horváth was born in Cece, Fejér County in 1921. A graduate in economics, he took part in the Hungarian National Independence Movement in 1944, for which the Gestapo arrested him, he was sentenced to death, but escaped from prison. From 1945, he was a member of the National Assembly, but in 1947, he was sentenced – on fabricated charges – to four years of forced labor and deprived of his parliamentary mandate. He was released in 1951.

He emigrated after the suppression of the 1956 revolution, and first he became an organizer of the Hungarian Revolutionary Council in Strasbourg and then as one of the founders of the Kossuth Foundation in New York.

He moved back to Hungary in 1997. He was a visiting professor at the Budapest University of Economics. Between 1998 and 2014, he was a member of Hungarian Parliament for the Fidesz. In 2006 he was awarded the Officer's Cross of the Order of the Hungarian Republic. In 2007, he was awarded the American Truman-Reagan Freedom Commemorative Medal, and in 2011 he was recognized with the Hungarian American Coalition for his outstanding work in promoting Hungarian-American relations.

In 2011, he was honored with the Grand Cross of the Order of the Hungarian Republic in recognition of his American emigration activities, public role and exemplary career. In 2013, received the Miklós Radnóti anti-racist award while in 2014, the Bajcsy-Zsilinszky commemorative plaque and the Mindszenty commemorative medal.