Hungary will celebrate tomorrow the 65th anniversary of the 1956 revolution and freedom fight. More than six decades before, the Communist regime collapsed in Hungary thanks to the people, mostly the young workers and students. The first protests started at the universities, where the students demanded freedom of speech, the rule of law and wanted the Soviet troops to leave Hungary.

The Rákóczi Szövetség (Rákóczi Alliance) commemorates every October 22 that heroic fight of the Hungarian youth with a march, the so-called ‘Gloria victis (Glory of the victims). Here are some photos of today’s march:

 

 
 
The ideals of 1956 and the hopes of 1989 must be preserved “every day”, Budapest Mayor Gergely Karacsány said on Friday, unveiling a memorial plaque of writer and poet Istvan Eorsi, who was also a freedom fighter in Hungary’s 1956 anti-Soviet uprising.
 
“We must never give up on the system of a republic which is under threat of being eliminated from our lives,”
 
Karácsony said. “We must insist on the eminence of diversity, on the rule of law with all of its criteria, on being humane and on solidarity.”

“And we also must insist on Europe, on equal opportunities and on rejecting that any power should ever come to defining itself as the country it rules,” the mayor said.

 
Hungary-revolution-1956
MTI/Szilárd Koszticsák

Erzsébet Gy. Németh, a deputy mayor, said that Eörsi as a writer showed an opportunity and morals to the readers. He also gave the idea of freedom a shape and filled it with content, she said. “Eörsi was a hero of 1956, a chronicler of 1956 during his life with his works representing the traditions of 1956,” she said.

 
 
Meanwhile, László Kövér, the speaker of the parliament erote in Magyar Nemzet today that the fall of the communist regime in 1989 was in part thanks to the heroes of the 1956 uprising. Kövér noted that the number of witnesses to the events on October 23, 1956, was dwindling. “We have come to a turning point,” he said. While today’s adults could still hear first-hand accounts from their parents, “only a few of our children were lucky enough to talk to their grandparents about it; and younger generations will not even have that possibility,” he said.
 
Hungary-revolution-1956
MTI/Szilárd Koszticsák
Hungary-revolution-1956
MTI/Szilárd Koszticsák
 
October 23, 1956, started with peaceful demonstrations, Kövér noted.

Those working on the regime change in 1989 were also proud to achieve a peaceful transition, Kövér said, “although I think now that

 
a few [slaps] would not have been out of place.
 
It isn’t always good if a people handles conflicts so peacefully,” he said.

The fact that Ferenc Gyurcsány, the one-time Socialist prime minister, now the leader of the opposition Democratic Coalition (DK), is still present in Hungarian politics, “is shameful for the entire Hungarian opposition”, Kövér insisted. The opposition should have rejected Gyurcsany for “ruining the country and dismantling his own political community,” he said.

Gyurcsány’s presence “also brings shame to the Hungarian justice system,” he said, as he “conspired to topple Hungarian democracy ahead of the 2006 elections,” he said.

 By threatening his political opponents with prison and financial ruin, Gyurcsány is doing the same today, Kövér said. Meanwhile, the West “would prefer to collaborate with a neo-Bolshevik group today,” he added.

Citing Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Kövér said:

 
“We thought Europe was our future but it turned out we were their future
 
— that is, if Europe deigns to actually tackle issues regarding its future and pay attention to us, rather than engaging in empty communication stunts and conferences.”