The Hungarian Revolution of 1956: A Light to the Oppressed
23rd October 2024
It’s not an easy task these days to commemorate, as the world around us has accelerated. Everything and everyone rushes. For many, the only thing that matters is to seize and experience something instantly: a bite and a sip, a selfie and a post, a tweet and a share. Before you know it, before you could actually enjoy it, it’s already there, and the next one is right on the production line: the newer, the better; the faster, the trendier.
But recalling the memories and values of 1956 offers an opportunity to pause for a moment and reflect: there are things that are stronger than the passage of time and that resist being buried beneath it. These are, for instance, the heroes, their great deeds, or memory itself. Be it a 150, 100, or even 68 years, truly great heroes and feats must be commemorated. Because where heroes are remembered, there will always be new ones! For us Hungarians, 23 October 1956 is one such day in our memory, the cornerstone of our nation.
In the battle of ’56, the people became a nation. The country united. Young and old, man and woman, worker and intellectual, peasant and soldier shared the very same wish: freedom for Hungary, because Hungarians cannot live without freedom. No matter how many times we were deprived of it, sooner or later we regained it. If needed, we fought for it; if forced, we died for it. In October 1956, the freedom we reclaimed brought an end to the fear. If we take a look at the photographs and film footage taken in those late October days, and gaze at one of the faces for a longer time, we might picture what his life must have been like, what his aspirations were, what he hoped for. We shall recognize him as a fellow compatriot longing for freedom, one who has taken the hand of the person standing next to him, clinging to a stranger. He trusted the others, because he knew that they too wanted to be free.
The events of 1956, not only the suppression of the Eastern Europe revolts but Eisenhower’s humiliation of the British and the French over Suez, brought home to the slaves of Communism that No One Is Coming To Save You and that they couldn’t count on any useful help from the U.S. in trying to get free.