Subscribe to our social channels to get the latest news about Hungary!
October 23 – Hungary commemorates 1956 uprising – Photo gallery
Change language:
Hungary’s national flag was hoisted in front of the Parliament building on Tuesday, in a state commemoration marking the 62nd anniversary of the anti-Soviet uprising which started on October 23, 1956.
The ceremony was attended by President János Áder, House Speaker László Kövér, members of government, military and civilian officials and diplomats.
Hungarian people wrote world history in 1956, the head of the Prime Minister’s Office said in Budapest, at a commemoration of the 1956 anti-Soviet uprising.
“The heroes of 1956 fought for a free, sovereign and independent Hungary, a country that stands independent from empires; they gave their lives for an independent Hungary that can stand up for itself and decide its own future,” Gergely Gulyás said at the memorial on Széna Square, an important site of armed resistance.
“The message of 1956 is that Hungary is capable of changing the course of history if it takes its own fate into its own hands,” he said at the 1956 memorial.
Hungarians are not the type to gamble, they do not gamble with their country, but if necessary they can fight when there is no hope, although they prefer to have heroism and common sense on their side, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said at a state commemoration of Hungary’s anti-Soviet uprising of 1956 in front of Budapest’s House of Terror Museum on Tuesday.
Orbán said “the freedom fighters of 1956 had made a sensible decision”.
The Soviets withdrew from Austria, the Hungarian communists were focused on each other and the free West was urging Hungarians to rise up and promised help, Orbán said.
“On one side there was the hopelessness of certain decay and on the other the once-in-a-lifetime last chance,” the prime minister said. “They had to try and they did. The only way we Hungarians know how. With death-defying bravery, by putting our bad disputes behind us, in complete unity and with a pure heart.”
The foreign minister expressed gratitude “to every hero of 1956” for their role in ensuring that Hungary “can today enjoy freedom”, in a video message addressed to Hungarian communities beyond the borders and Hungarian diplomatic missions.
Hungarian people in 1956 said no to tyranny and dictatorial rule, as they also said no to intimidation, Péter Szijjártó said in his message.
“They said it was enough of others wanting to decide Hungary’s future and dictating how they should live their lives in their own country,” he said.
“The Hungarian nation is a nation of freedom fighters. This was shown in 1956, too, when Hungarian people had enough courage to rise against a vastly superior force and, despite the absence of the much awaited help from abroad, they fought until the end for Hungary’s freedom”, Szijjártó said.
“We Hungarians will never accept that others should decide about our future. We owe that to the heroes of 1956,” the minister said.
The co-leader of green opposition LMP said at the party’s commemoration of the 1956 anti-Soviet uprising that the freedom of Hungary is threatened time and again but Hungarians will not allow their rights, “voice and thoughts” to be stifled.
Speaking at a memorial of the revolution, László Lóránt Keresztes said that “those who opposed the regime thirty years ago have become soldiers of treason, theft and destruction”. “They have learnt and implement everything they used to fight against,” he said, adding that “the unnamed operators of the Communist regime now sit among the ranks of [ruling] Fidesz”.
The leaders of the country boast of patriotism but in reality are reinstating the Communist regime they grew up in, he said. The incumbent “Bolshevik-type” government has brought a “grievous tragedy to our nation,” the emigration of several hundreds of thousands of Hungarians, similarly to the situation after the revolution in 1956, he said.
Hungary must however “step into the 21st century” and “remove the thieves betraying and robbing our country.”
Today’s youth has to use knowledge and information instead of weapons, although the ruling power is trying to strip them of those tools, Keresztes said.
