Hungary will be soon welcoming a new Ukrainian ambassador, after a long period of time when the Ukrainian mission went without a chief in Budapest. Many look forward with anticipation to the new appointee, as the former ambassador, Liubov Nepop had done a lot to worsen relations between her and the host country. She was recalled by President Zelenskyy in July last year, and left the mission in August 2022.
The new ambassador to Hungary, Sándor Fegyir (in Ukrainian: Шандор Федорович Федір) was born in Ungvár (Uzhorod) into a Hungarian Ukrainian family in 1975. He became a tourism expert, then a sociologist and university professor in his home region, Transcarpathia. When Ukraine was invaded by Russia, Sándor Fegyir volunteered to fight for his country immediately. His training started in April 2022, and
he has been on the front ever since as the leader of the so-called ‘Transcarpathian Dragons’ unit.
Recently, however, he was selected for a radically different role: to serve as Kyiv’s ambassador in Budapest.
Part of the reason why Fegyir was selected must have been his deep understanding of Hungary, Hungarian culture as well as his knowledge of the Hungarian language. In addition to his intimate familiarity with the country, since the outbreak of the war he has also gained some fame in Hungary for his involvement in multiple civil actions to strengthen Hungarian–Ukrainian relations. For instance, he took a leading role in a donation campaign launched by Hungarian civilians through which over ten million HUF was collected to support a fighting Transcarpathian battalion. As part of the campaign in January accumulators, winter cloths and money were donated to ethnic Hungarian soldiers fighting near Kharkiv. Some of these 400 ethnic Hungarians fighting on the front lines became famous for filming a video in uniforms with a Hungarian flag with a hole in the middle, a symbol of the 1956 revolution, sewn onto the sleeves of their jackets upon the liberation of some territories.
Since the beginning of the war Fegyir has garnered public attention not only in Hungary but in Ukraine, too. Especially after he was photographed in the tranches dressed in uniform carrying a gun while teaching a lecture online to his students. The photograph of Sándor Fegyir teaching widely circulated on Ukrainian social media and
even prompted the creation of a mini statue of him.
The statue is located in Uzhhorod, which is his hometown and also the site of the Uzhhorod National University where he used to work. It is uncertain who the creator of the mini statue is, but it is attributed to Mihály Kolodko, an Uzhhorod-born Hungarian Ukrainian sculptor whose works enjoy great popularity in Budapest.
Fegyir has also proudly celebrated Hungary’s birthday both in 2022 and 2023. In 2022 he posted pictures of missiles with ‘for 1956’, ‘for Budapest’ and ‘for Hungary’ written on them, while this year he posted a photograph of himself with a loaf of bread wrapped in a Hungarian flag (else than Hungary’s birthday, 20 August is also the festival of the New Bread).
Fegyir’s nomination arrived at the Sándor Palace three months ago but the declaration of acceptance was not signed until recently. President of Hungary Katalin Novák signed the document on 8 August, and the ministerial signature of Péter Szijjártó was added on 22 August. As Fegyir’s credentials are now accepted, soon he will be arriving in Budapest.
The three months that elapsed between the arrival of the acceptance request and the consent may seem long, but were not accidental.
President Zelenskyy had made himself unavailable to Novák for months earlier,
not to mention that Hungary’s ambassadorial nominees had been made to wait for six and eight months respectively. Those two moves were diplomatically impolite and unwarranted considering the enormous amount of humanitarian aid provided to Ukraine since the beginning of the conflict, and Hungary having served as a temporary safe haven for over two million Ukrainian refugees.
Eventually, however, Katalin Novák did sign the acceptance document before her trip to Ukraine, that is, before her one-on-one meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Her gesture demonstrated that the quality of the two country’s relationship depends on Kyiv’s behaviour, and that Hungary is eager to improve the relationship.
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