Viktor
Orbán’s revision of the 1956 revolution
‘Our
responsibility is to prevent Brussels from Sovietizing,’ says the
Hungarian leader.
By LILI BAYER
10/23/16, 8:42 PM CET Updated 10/23/16, 9:00 PM CET
BUDAPEST —
Celebrations of the 60th anniversary of Hungary’s revolution
against Soviet rule ended with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s
speech in front of parliament Sunday being drowned out by protesters
whistling and shouting “dictator.”
One of the country’s
most prominent historians, Krisztián Ungváry, who turned up to
protest against the speech, was bleeding from the face after a
pro-government member of the crowd punched him.
In the preceding
days, Hungarians received recorded phone messages urging them to
attend the rally to hear Orbán address the crowd. In a throwback to
the government-sponsored commemorations of Communist rule, the
streets of Budapest have been filled with large billboards portraying
young 1956 street fighters carrying arms.
The government has
spent tens of millions of euros on the event, commissioning
songwriter Desmond Child, who has worked with bands like Aerosmith,
to write a theme song. Hungary’s youth are the “target group,”
said Minister for Human Resources Zoltán Balog, who was charged by
the prime minister with organizing the year’s celebrations.
“Before the risk
was lies about 1956, now the risk is disinterest,” he said.
“Our
responsibility is to prevent Brussels from Sovietizing” —
Viktor Orbán
But for many of
Orbán’s critics and some surviving revolutionaries, the
government’s campaign — coinciding with significant spending on
an anti-refugee campaign — is seen as an effort to boost
nationalist sentiment and distract the public from more urgent
challenges.
“Most participants
in 1956 already passed away, and now the anniversary is only used for
propaganda and political purposes. They didn’t even talk to the
remaining participants,” said Imre Mécs, a 1956 revolutionary who
was sentenced to death for his role (the sentence was later commuted)
and served as a member of parliament between 1990 and 2010.
Stop Brussels
‘Sovietizing’
Orbán has a long
history of manipulating the memory of 1956 and first drew public
attention as a political actor when he spoke at the 1989 reburial of
Imre Nagy, the leader of the revolutionary government whose bid to
make Hungary independent from Soviet rule cost him his life.
Now, the prime
minister is attempting to draw parallels between Hungary’s struggle
against Moscow and his own struggle against the European Union. “Our
responsibility is to prevent Brussels from Sovietizing,” Orbán
told the crowd of thousands gathered outside parliament Sunday.
At the same time,
some of Orbán’s critics believe that his party is changing the
history of the revolution to serve the prime minister’s political
purposes.
A day before Orbán’s
speech, a small group of protesters — including the children of
some members of the revolution’s short-lived government —
gathered in front of the House of Terror, a controversial history
museum commissioned by Orbán during his first term in office. They
carried banners portraying what they believe the official narrative
has ignored. One showed the faces of dozens of executed revolutionary
leaders. Another showcased photos of the original demands of students
who sparked the revolution, including the withdrawal of Soviet
troops, freedom of the press, re-examination of political show trials
and Nagy’s appointment as leader.
“The crowd kept
demanding to hear Imre Nagy,” recalled Péter Kende, who was a
29-year old journalist standing with the protesters in front of
parliament on the day the revolution broke out. “I left eventually
… and then someone ran in and told us there was shooting outside
and protesters are dead.”
“There
are many interpretations of 1956 … but this government’s is a
fraud” — former dissident László Rajk Jr.
No mention of Nagy
Neither the
billboards covering Budapest buildings nor the plethora of
government-sponsored memorial events mentioned Nagy or other
revolutionary leaders who were later executed or imprisoned. The
protesting students and their reform messages are nowhere to be seen.
“There are many
interpretations of 1956 … but this government’s is a fraud,”
said László Rajk Jr., a former dissident whose father — a
Communist minister of the interior — was the most prominent victim
of the bloody 1950s show trials which set the stage for the
revolution. The government campaign makes out that only a select
group “are the heroes — no one else,” he said.
The Fidesz
government is trying to “monopolize the revolution” and create a
“new story,” argued Maria Vásárhelyi, a sociologist and expert
on Hungarian historical memory, whose father was a member of the
revolutionary government. The Orbán administration’s narrative
erases the “role of left-wing politicians and actors and denies the
left-wing character of revolution,” Vásárhelyi said.
Some members of
Orbán’s government admit that there has been a conscious shift in
how the revolution’s legacy is presented to the public.
“The people have
come to the fore. In the past the focus was on the intellectuals:
what writers did, what the reform Communists did, what the
anti-Communist politicians did, what the Church did … Now we talk
about the simple people, the local level,” said Balog, the human
resources minister.
But some Hungarians
believe Orbán’s government is violating the dreams of the 1956
revolution — as well as generations of Hungarian freedom fighters,
from the 1848 revolution to 1956 and the 1989 transition to
democracy.
A protester holds a
placard which reads, “Europa yes! Orbán no!” as activists and
sympathizers of several civil organizations protest in Budapest on
October 23, 2016 | Gergely Besenyei/AFP via Getty Images
The plan to disrupt
Orbán’s Sunday speech emerged a week earlier, at a rally
protesting against corruption and the closure of the largest
opposition paper, Népszabadság. Péter Juhász, the opposition
politician who led the initiative and whose party distributed
whistles to protesters, was physically prevented from entering the
rally.
Protesters yelled
“dictator” and “democracy,” while some held copies of the
now-defunct Népszabadság.
Mécs, the
revolutionary who was sentenced to death for his role in 1956, fears
the government is undermining the ideals he fought for. “I am quite
depressed, because many people sacrificed their lives for 1956 …
and now the government is sweeping it all away,” he said.
Authors:
Lili Bayer
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