Géza Szőcs (67)

Géza Szőcs was an ethnic Hungarian poet and politician from Transylvania, Romania, who served as Secretary of State for Culture of the Ministry of National Resources in Hungary from 2 June 2010 to 13 June 2012.

From 1986 to 1989, after working in the scientific literature seminar of the Babeș-Bolyai University, Géza Szőcs went into political exile in Switzerland, where he worked in Geneva as a journalist. Between 1989 and 1990, he conducted the Budapest studio of Radio Free Europe. In 1989, he joined the staff of the magazine Magyar Napló of the Hungarian Writers’ Association.

In 1990, Szőcs returned to Cluj and was active in the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania (RMDSZ), for which he sat from 1990 to 1992 in the Romanian Senate. From 1993 to 2010, he was editor of the magazine A Dunánál in Hungary. He was co-editor of the magazine Magyar Szemle and a member of the supervision of the Hungarian state television Magyar Televízió (MTV). Szőcs was a founding member of the Hungarian Civic Cooperation Association since 1996.

In May 2010, he was appointed Hungary’s Secretary of State for Culture by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. In 2011, he was elected president of the Hungarian Pen Club. He resigned from his position in June 2012. He was replaced by László L. Simon. Szőcs became chief cultural adviser to Prime Minister Orbán. In 2013, He was appointed government commissioner for the Hungarian pavilion in Expo 2015. This activity was accompanied by a number of criticisms and scandals. The Hungarian pavilion, the “Shaman drum” cost HUF 2 billion of public funds. The design of the eclectic building received serious criticism. Szőcs was appointed Prime Ministerial Commissioner for Culture in 2018.

He died of the coronavirus on November 5, 2020 after being on a ventilator for weeks.