Similar to last year, people from 16 counties of Romania joined the marathon, however, the number of the participating settlements and readers are much higher: more than 33.000 people applied for reading in 167 settlements of the country, more than 200 institutions, organizations participate in the public reading in several settlements of Transylvania and Székely Land, including the remote dispersal area and Bucharest.

As regards the foreign readers, their number approaches 5000, they applied for the reading from five countries and 29 settlements: besides Hungary, Highland (Slovakia) and Transcarpathia (Ukraine), reading marathons will also take place in Belgium, in the Hungarian House of Brussels and in Germany as well.

The number of readers this year within Harghita County is higher than ever: nearly 20.000 people applied for the reading marathon from 70 settlements of the county; in Csíkszereda there are about 4500 readers in the county library and in several schools, with the participation of more than 20 institutions and organizations.

This year, Edit Török as the colleague of the county library was the host and organizer of the reading marathon, who welcomed those who applied for the public reading. She pointed out the attractiveness of the event in the welcome speech given by Tihamér Barti, the vice-president of Harghita County Council. On the behalf of the Hungarian Consulate General of Csíkszereda, the first Consul, dr. Balázs Farkas greeted those present, highlighting the idea, that the name of Petőfi Sándor inseparably intertwined with the concept of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, that has its 170^th anniversary this year. The first reader was Mária Katalin Kopacz, the manager of the Kájoni János County Library of Harghita, who started the lecture with Petőfi Sándor’s ars poetica, “The Poets of the Nineteenth Century”. Zsolt Iochom recited a poem entitled “Miért zárjátok el az utamat?”, who was followed by László Balog, the library director of the  Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania in Csíkszereda, contributing with three genre-type poems in order to evoke the humorous side of Petőfi’s poetry.

The co-workers of the consulate continued the reading. Foremost, dr. Balázs Farkas read a poem entitled “Éj van”. Furthermore, not only the journalists of a newspaper called “Hargita népe”, but the members of the band “Role” have read in the following minutes.

The 7^th – 8^th grade students of the Nagy Imre Elementary School arrived at 10 o’clock into the library’s lecture hall, they quoted several parts of “John the Valiant” during the reading, then the students of the Petőfi Sándor Elementary School continued with, who weren’t only reading, but singing the musical settings of Petőfi’s poems, among them the poem entitled “Fall is Again, Fall is Here”.

The students of the Segítő Mária Roman Catholic High School arrived around noon into the library’s reading room. Similarly to previous years, readers have constantly coming: local schools, cultural institutions, NGOs, groups of associations. The members of the library’s student readership called “Lázadó Muglik” have read out this year as well. A group of students of the Nagy István High School of Arts are arriving in the library in the afternoon as well; then adult groups, NGOs, representatives of associations are coming to read out in the afternoon: the Németh Géza Cultural Association and the members of the Romanian Scout Association are about to read out. The lectures are taking place not only in Csíkszereda, but at the same time in many other locations on this day. The High Schools, the Elementary Schools and the kindergartens of Csíkszereda mostly organize their reading marathon at their own seat, though the delegation of several schools also read out in the library of the county. More than 4500 people showed interest in the reading marathon out of the town’s 20 institutions.

Thank you all, who helped us this year as well in promoting the marathon in schools, kindergartens, cultural institutions, libraries, be it among young or elderly people.

The marathon’s opening ceremony and its numerous locales will be reported by the media in order to get an image of the size and the mood of the event.

After the marathon is over, will we get a whole image of the complete number of the participants, and the detailed report will be published on our website as well.