Serbia, Hungary to cooperate in culture

BELGRADE - The newly-opened Hungarian cultural centre in Belgrade, Collegium Hungaricum, has hosted a discussion titled A new Beginning, on culture as a possibility for reconciliation and cooperation between Hungarians and Serbs.

Thursday's event followed in the wake of a book on Serbian-Hungarian reconciliation, published by the Hungarian foreign ministry in three languages - Serbian, Hungarian and English.

It was an opportunity to present the new Hungarian cultural centre to Serbian officials, as well as introduce the new Hungarian ambassador Attilla Pinter, who presented his credentials to Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic earlier in the day.

Representing the Hungarian side in the discussions were Zsolt Nemeth, chairman of the Hungarian parliamentary committee on foreign affairs, who initiated the work on the book, Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians leader Istvan Pastor, the director of the cultural institute of Vojvodina Hungarians Jene Hajnal and the director of the Hungary-Serbia IPA programme Peter Racz.

The state secretary of the Serbian Ministry of Culture and Information Sasa Mirkovic and Milan Djuric, director of the cultural and documentation centre of Hungary's ethnic Serbs, addressed the conference on behalf of the Serbian side.

During a break in the event, Janos Dezso, director of Collegium Hungaricum Belgrade, showed the participants an exhibition of sculptures by Zoltan Horvath titled Homage to Jules Verne, which also featured paintings by guest artist Emil Kadric.

Kadric, a Subotica-based artist, has exhibited across Europe, and the French institute in Budapest this year invited him as a guest artist.

The event was opened by Ambassador Pinter, who said that culture has an...