Orban sends condolences to poet Arpad Farkas's family

Prime Minister Viktor Orban has extended his condolences in a letter to the family of ethnic Hungarian poet Arpad Farkas, who was buried on Wednesday. The letter was published online by Transylvanian daily Haromszek, of which Farkas was chief editor for nearly 20 years. In his letter, Orban referred to the deceased poet as a "watch-fire for Haromszek, for Transylvania and for all Hungarians". Farkas, during Romania's communist era and after that country's revolution "refused to accept any order other than which followed from the eternal commandments of community with the Hungarian language, the homeland, and our ancestors", the letter said. Farkas was proud rather than terrified that, as an ethnic Hungarian, he "had to swim with a millstone on his neck rather than with a life-jacket". Farkas died at the age of 77 on Sunday.