Őszöd speech


The Őszöd speech was a speech Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány delivered to the Hungarian Socialist Party's 2006 party congress in Balatonőszöd. Though the May congress was confidential, Gyurcsány's address was leaked and broadcast by Magyar Rádió on Sunday, September 17, 2006, igniting a nationwide political crisis.
Liberally using vulgar language, Gyurcsány criticized the Socialist Party for misleading the electorate and that its coalition government had enacted no significant measures over its tenure. The mass protests the speech's release precipitated are considered a major turning point in Hungary's post-communist political history. MSzP's inability to contain the speech's political fallout led to the popular collapse of MSzP and, more broadly considered, of the Hungarian political left, paving the way for Fidesz's supermajority victory in the 2010 Hungarian parliamentary elections.

English translation of the controversial parts of the speech

Ferenc Gyurcsány's speech given in Balatonőszöd during May 2006 starts with an approximately one-hour-long overview of the first proposed steps of the new social-liberal government. English translation of the controversial part of the speech:

Excerpts from the speech with their translations

Profane excerpts

Not only the content but also the profanity of the speech has been heavily criticized. In response to the criticism concerning the profanity, Ferenc Gyurcsány stated that "these words were the words of objurgation, passion and love".
While giving the speech, he has used – among others – the Hungarian word szar or its related terms eight times and the word kurva seven times. The following table presents some of the profane remarks – of which not everything has been translated by the foreign press in general – with their corresponding translations. Although 'fucking country' is the best idiomatic translation because of the strength of the words, kurva ország literally means 'whore country', and the connotations of immorality, unprincipled pursuit of money and therefore corruption are very strong in Hungarian.
in Englishin Hungarian
"My personal story is: we must change this fucking country; otherwise who else will?" "Az a személyes sztorim, hogy változtassuk meg ezt a kurva országot; mert ki fogja megváltoztatni?"
"Go to hell with that. Let's move on." Note that the original Hungarian phrase is much stronger language than this and corresponds roughly in meaning to "to the ass"."Húzzatok már a picsába ezzel. Gyerünk előre."
"There aren't many choices. That is because we have fucked it up. Not just a bit, but much.""Nincsen sok választás. Azért nincsen, mert elkúrtuk. Nem kicsit; nagyon."
"That it doesn't have to hang its head in this fucking country. That we shouldn't shit ourselves in fear of Viktor Orbán and the Right, and learn finally to compare itself not to them but to the world." "Hogy nem kell lehajtani a fejét ebben a kurva országban. Hogy nem kell beszarni Orbán Viktortól, meg a jobboldaltól és tanulja most már meg magát nem ő hozzájuk mérni, hanem a világhoz."
"Will we say, that fu… goddamn it all, a few people came along who dared to do it and didn't fart around with things like how the hell will we get our travel costs refunded; for fuck's sake! A few people came along and didn't give a shit about whether there will be a place for them local governments or not, but they understood that this fucking country is about something else." ""
"And of course we can think for a very long time and conduct a whole fucking load of analysis about how certain social groups will end up; this is what I can say to you."""
"And I will write fucking good books about the modern Hungarian left.""És írok majd kibaszott jó könyveket a modern magyar baloldalról."
"... that I make history. Not for the history textbooks; I don't give a shit about that.""... hogy történelmet csinálok. Nem a történelemkönyveknek; arra szarok."
"You cannot name any significant government measures that we can be proud of except pulling our administration out of the shit at the end. Nothing!""Nem tudtok mondani olyan jelentős kormányzati intézkedést, amire büszkék lehetünk, azon túl, hogy a szarból visszahoztuk a kormányzást a végére. Semmit!"
"Has the healthcare system improved, my son? I reply: that's a load of bullshit, mom! They just recognise your name.""Megjavult az egészségügyi rendszer, fiam? Mondom: egy lószart, mama! Csak felismerik a nevedet."
"What if we didn't lose our popularity because we are fucking about in between ourselves but because we dealt with great social issues? And then it wouldn't matter if we temporarily lose the support of the public; we will win it back again afterwards.""Mi lenne, hogy ha nem az egymás közötti faszkodás miatt veszítenénk el a népszerűségünket, hanem mert csinálunk nagy társadalmi ügyeket, és nem probléma, hogy elveszítjük akkor egy időre a támogatásunkat; aztán majd visszaszerezzük."

Other excerpts

, then-chairman of Fidesz, called Ferenc Gyurcsány "a compulsive liar" whom his party considers as "a person who is a part of history and the past".
In addition to the excerpts above, the following table contains excerpts from the speech for which Ferenc Gyurcsány has received heavy criticism.
in Englishin Hungarian
"Divine providence, the abundance of cash in the world economy, and hundreds of tricks, which you obviously don't need to know about, helped us survive this situation.""Az isteni gondviselés, a világgazdaság pénzbősége, meg trükkök százai, amiről nyilvánvalóan nektek nem kell tudni, segítette, hogy ezt túléljük."
"Let them protest in front of Parliament. Sooner or later they will get bored of it and go home.""Lehet tüntetni a Parlament előtt. Előbb-utóbb megunják, hazamennek."
"If there is a scandal in the society, then it's the fact that the upper ten thousand are building themselves up again using public money.""Ha van társadalmi botrány, akkor az, hogy a felső tízezer termeli magát újra közpénzen."
"And we should try to take these issues forward, to maintain the cooperation and good will between us, to assure the support of the coalition partner , to prepare the managers and leading publicists of the most influential newspapers about what they can count on. To involve them in this process.""És egyszerre kell megpróbálni előre vinni ezeket az ügyeket, fenntartani közöttünk az együttműködést, a jóhiszeműséget, biztosítani a koalíciós partner támogatását, fölkészíteni a legbefolyásosabb lapok vezetőit, és vezető publicistáit, hogy mire számíthatnak. Bevonni őket ebbe a folyamatba."
"No European country has done something as boneheaded as we have. Obviously, we lied throughout the last year-and-a-half, two years.""Európában ilyen böszmeséget még ország nem csinált, mint amit mi csináltunk. Nyilvánvalóan végighazudtuk az utolsó másfél, két évet."
"And meanwhile, by the way, we've done nothing for four years. Nothing.""És közben egyébként nem csináltunk semmit négy évig. Semmit"
"I almost perished because I had to pretend for 18 months that we were governing. Instead, we lied morning, noon and night.""Majdnem beledöglöttem, hogy másfél évig úgy kellett tenni, mintha kormányoztunk volna. Ehelyett hazudtunk reggel, éjjel, meg este."
"There are several matters, where I have no clue what the sixth step is; I don't even know the third. I know the first two.""Hogy egy sor ügyben fogalmam sincsen, hogy melyik a, nem a hatodik lépés; még a harmadikat sem tudom. Tudom az első kettőt."