REINHARD OLT (1952) studied germanistics, history, political sciences, publicism and ethnography in Mainz and Gießen. He graduated in 1980 and worked for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung as an editor (1985–2012) and correspondent in Austria, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia (1994–2012). He held lectures at German, Austrian and Hungarian universities, and is the author of roughly 100 scientific publications. He was a board member of the Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache (Association for the German Language) between 1992 and 2008. He received the Ernest Hemingway Award of the region of Friuli in 1988, the Media Award of BdV Bayern in 1993, the Leopold Kunschak Award in 2003, the Otto von Habsburg Prize of the European Association of Daily Newspapers in Minority and Regional Languages (MIDAS) in 2004 and the Inge Morath Award of Styria in 2008. He was also awarded the Order of the Tyrolean Eagle in 1990, the Gold Medal of Styria in 2004, the Order of Merit of the Autonomous Province of Bozen–Südtirol in 2009, the Award of Excellence of the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2010 and the Grand Order of the Tyrolean Eagle in 2013. He received his honorary degree at Eötvös Loránd University in 2012 and the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art in 2013. He was the first recipient of the Friends of Hungary Award in 2017.