A recently released film exposes the severe memory loss of Prince Charles, the heir apparent to the British throne. Moreover, it is a video about us Hungarians—more specifically, Hungarians from Transylvania. It’s a charming, almost magical video where the Prince tells the story of his Hungarian ancestors, the Rhédey noble family, but without actually even mentioning Hungarians. The silence is as deafening as the quiet that answered the Hungarians in Párkány on June 4th at 16:30 as they waited for the bells of the Esztergom Basilica to toll for a mere 100 seconds on the centennial anniversary of the Trianon peace dictate. And now we’ve received a great dose of “care” from the Prince who not long ago apparently considered Transylvania his second home. But did he actually mean Romania? There’s a big difference.
But what are we even talking about? Oh, just the complete erasure of our nation that has very literally contributed to Romania’s bloated territorial borders of today. It so happened that the aspiring British King undertook the role of narrator for this Romanian image film intended to promote domestic tourism in the Balkan Empire post-coronavirus. In the barely five minute film released a few weeks ago, Prince Charles encourages Romanians (!) to take their vacations in Romania. In the video, titled, “HRH Prince Charles’ message of support for Romanian Tourism”, Romania managed to have the Prince of Wales entirely ignore his Transylvanian-Hungarian roots, that is, the Count Rhédey family; in fact he did not utter a single word regarding the Szeklerland (Székelyföld) that cherishes him so – though there was ample opportunity. As a matter of fact, the “prince” has created an oasis for himself in the small Hungarian village of Zalánpatak (Valea Zălanului) in the Háromszék county where he retreats from the world for a week each year; the sincerity of the Prince’s awe of the near-untouched landscape of Transylvania has been captured on numerous occasions. Once, he even declared in an interview that Transylvania may be the key to saving the planet because its’ locals live in such harmony with nature. Well, could this region, detached from Hungary, that has suffered so much, have a better friend than the Prince?