PHOTOS, VIDEO: 1848/49 Arad martyrs commemorated in Hungary

Hungary’s national flag was hoisted then lowered to half-mast in front of Parliament on Friday as a tribute to the leaders of the country’s anti-Habsburg revolution and war of independence who were executed on this day in 1849.

The ceremony was attended by Justice Minister Bence Tuzson and other government officials.

6 October has been observed as a national day of mourning since 2001 in memory of 13 high-ranking officers of the Hungarian army who were executed in Arad, now in Romania, and count Lajos Batthyány, prime minister of the revolutionary government, executed in Pest on the same day.

Barna Pál Zsigmond, state secretary at the European Union affairs ministry, told a commemoration at Batthyany’s mausoleum in Budapest’s Fiumei Street Cemetery that the martyrs were “ever burning torches … the symbols of Hungarians’ love for freedom”.

“They show  us the way, the values that must not be made subject to bargaining,” he said. Those eternal values are “striving for freedom, love for the homeland, courage, and the willingness to make personal sacrifices,” he added.

In his address, the state secretary touched on the challenges Hungary had recently faced. “Many would not understand Hungary’s pro-peace position”, he said, adding that people now lived in a world where “even uttering the word peace requires courage”.

The government, he said, firmly held its position and “will not give in to any blackmail or pressure … we are a committed and reliable member of both NATO and the European Union, listening to and respecting the positions of our allies.” But, he added, “we will only give up as much of our sovereignty as we have volunteered.” “We will not give up our faith, education of our children, a sovereign economic policy, or our brethren in Transcarpathia,” he said.

At the ceremony, wreaths of commemoration were laid at tomb on behalf of President Katalin Novák, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, and the government.

On the occasion of the anniversary, Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony wrote on Facebook that “after 174 years we have not forgotten what we must do for a free Hungary”. The martyrdom of those heroes “teaches us that the homeland comes before everything else … national interests come before particular interests, and serving the homeland comes before individual ambitions,” the mayor said.