Friend of Hungary Award

The Friends of Hungary Foundation established the Friend of Hungary Award in 2017. Members of the Friends of Hungary Foundation can nominate candidates for the award: any Hungarian living in the diaspora and Hungarian organizations who have contributed to a more positive international perception of Hungary in recent years. The Board of Trustees of the Friends of Hungary Foundation decides on the awarding of the awards based on the nominations.

The Award was designed by István Madarassy, ​​a Kossuth Prize-winning goldsmith and sculptor. The blue ball (Lapis Lazuli - the stone of the sky) symbolizes the blue planet, the Earth seen from afar. The five leaves made of oxidized copper plate on it symbolize the Hungarians scattered across the five continents.

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Winners of the Friend of Hungary Award

2017

Béla Lipták, Head of American-Hungarian Lobby

Reinhard Olt, journalist

Amerikai Magyar Szövetség/The American-Hungarian Federation

2018

Mrs. Annamária Heddad-Nagy, presbyter of 90-years Hungarian Reformed Parish in Paris

Marika Radda, President of Club Pannonia

Andrea Lauer Rice and Réka Pigniczky, for establishment of Memory Project: a Hungarian Visual History Archive

2019

Zsolt Bede-Fazekas, Editor-in-Chief of Independent Hungarian Radio of Toronto

Christopher Ball, Honorary Consul of Hungary in Connecticut és a Quinnipiac Egyetem Széchenyi Chairman of Quinnipiac University

Külföldi Magyar Cserkészszövetség/Foreign Hungarian Scout Association in Exteris

2020

Miklós Czaun, president of US West Coast Hungarian Sciencists' Club

Annamária Friedrich Ireghy, President of Hungarian Union of Hamburg

Andreas Unterberger, journalist

2021

Aniko Gaál-Schott, „the bridge between Hungary and Washington DC Region community”

Zsuzsánna Haynal-Kesserű, journalist

„Europa”-Club of Vienna

2022

János Miska (†), the Founde of Canadian Hungarian Literature Archives

Dr. Zsuzsanna Papp Aykler, President of Canadian Rákóczi Fundation, Editor-in-chief of journal “Canadian-American Hungarity”

Amerikai Magyar Koalíció/ Hungarian American Coalition

2023

Prof. Béla Bollobás, academician, Széchenyi Prize-winning mathematician, professor at the University of Cambridge

Dr. Judit Kerekes, mathematician, teacher, scout

József Komlóssy, former vice-president of the Federal Union of European Peoples and the Society for the Protection of National and Ethnic Minorities

Hungarian Youth Association

2024

Katalin C. Szabó, Head of the Hungarian Book Friends Heritage Library in Toronto

Zoltán Fodor-Lengyel, painter, graphic artist, and sculptor, member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Cádiz and the Hungarian Academy of Arts

The Bocskai Radio of Cleveland