Just like in previous years, the current course will also focus on the Hungarian language. There will be classes offered at every level of fluency, ranging from beginner to advanced and near-native. Placement tests were given online and then evaluated during the weeks leading up to the course.
At the press conference held before the course, Director of DSS Péter Szaffkó underlined that the traditional summer programs had been promoting the Hungarian language and culture for almost a hundred years now. DSS, the non-profit enterprise owned by the University of Debrecen has been in operation since 1927 and continues to be the largest institution of its kind in Hungary today.
“Debrecen Summer School accomplishes a mission that keeps contributing significantly to friendship and mutual understanding among peoples. Although its students come from a variety of different backgrounds to join this unique community, they all share an interest in, a love for, or a deep-rooted commitment to the Hungarian language and culture.” Yet, as Director Péter Szaffkó pointed out, each one of them has a different personal objective.
The majority of the ninety-three students taking part in this year’s summer course are native speakers of English, coming from Canada, the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom. Ten students have German as their native language, another ten use Slovak, and yet another ten come from different countries in Asia. Two groups of five students each from Poland and Slovenia are primarily Hungarian language majors or teachers of Hungarian who have won scholarship grants. An interesting feature of the current student body is that there are three students in it from Mexico to participate in the course this year.
One of the official partners of our summer school is the Hungarian Reformed Diaspora Center. Director Attila Kocsis, speaking about the responsibilities of this institution, noted that the center’s chief mission is to conduct research within the diaspora and to preserve the historical documents it discovers.
“Currently, there are about two and a half million people of Hungarian descent living abroad, mainly in Western Europe, North and South America, and Israel. We hope to present examples to follow for the members of future generations, which they can use for learning from and drawing inspiration,” he said.
“Debrecen’s Summer School was founded in 1927 by three distinguished professors of the Faculty of Humanities (BTK) at the University of Debrecen, and the connection between the two institutions has remained tight knit ever since,” said Rector’s Commissioner of the University of Debrecen Károly Pető in his welcoming address.
“For almost a century, Debrecen Summer School has been building bridges between Hungary and other parts of the world through language and culture. Today, UD has thirteen faculties and thirty-five thousand students, while its program offerings cover nearly the entire academic spectrum. We do believe that, in addition to scholarship, it is mutual respect, openness and dialogue that make our university great. When individuals learn a new language, they get to know a new culture. Every culture we get to know brings us closer together,” said Károly Pető.
As regards the Faculty of Humanities at UD, it tries to do its best to familiarize international students with the characteristic features of the Hungarian language and the history of Hungary and Debrecen during both the fall and spring semesters.
“At the Faculty of Humanities, there have been more than a hundred international students enrolled in bachelor’s and master’s programs over the past three years. We are pleased about the fact that this number is on the growth, due in part to the close connection between the Summer School and the Faculty of Humanities. What is more, our faculty also provides scholarship grants in order to support participation in the Summer School,” said Levente Takács, Deputy Dean for General and Educational Affairs at the Faculty of Humanities.
Debrecen’s Deputy Mayor for Culture István Puskás first recalled his own personal experiences as an instructor at the summer school, following which he called the students’ attention to key cultural institutions and venues of recreation in our city.
“Debrecen Summer School is also an essential component of our city’s cultural life. I hereby encourage you to get to know Debrecen, its cultural heritage, including Déri Museum, MODEM and the pop music festival called Campus Fesztivál, which is to begin later this week,” said the deputy mayor.
During the four-week-long summer course, there will be some students who plant to spend all four weeks at the course. Others, however, will join either for the first two weeks or for the second two weeks only. In the former period, a total of seven groups will study Hungarian, while in the latter, ten groups will concentrate on the language, ranging from beginner to advanced or native-speaker levels.
This year’s opening ceremony, which was held in the University Church Building, was brightened by an organ recital performed by Dániel Sárosi. Certificates of scholarships were also handed out to the students afterwards. This summer, twenty of them received Tempus scholarships, while another nineteen were given local scholarships. These came from the city of Debrecen, the Rector of the University of Debrecen, the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, the Bishop of the Trans-Tibiscan Reformed Church District and the Director of the Summer School.
The language courses started on Monday morning, before the opening ceremony. For the rest of their stay, the students will attend classes in the mornings, while their afternoons will be made colorful by a variety of recreational activities. In accordance with recent traditions, every Monday is going to be dedicated to folklore. In the afternoons, students will not only try dishes from a variety of regions of the Carpathian Basin but also learn about the typical local folk songs and dances of these locations. On Fridays, gastronomy will be in the focus. At the event dubbed “beach party,” for example, participants will be able to relish lángos (fried flatbread) and learn the recipe for making dill pickled cucumbers. Day trips during the weekends are also on the agenda. In Sáránd, students will be able to try their hands at rolling traditional snail shell-shaped pasta and prepare a menu for wedding parties; at the open-air museum in Nyíregyháza, they will get a chance to take part in traditional village games; and at the local apothecary, they will be able to formulate and mix ointments for themselves.
Debrecen’s Summer School will celebrate the centennial anniversary of its foundation in 2027. In order to properly mark this upcoming occasion, the organizers are planning on hosting an international conference on the topic of teaching Hungarian as a foreign language in collaboration with the University of Debrecen, the announcement about which was made at the press conference held before the opening ceremony.
Press Center