Today, October 23rd is the 50th anniversary of the 1956 uprising. Ordinary citizens took to the streets, temporarily forcing Soviet tanks out of the capital, Budapest. For a two-week period, Hungary was free. Of course, the Soviets returned on November 4th with reinforcements, and that was that.
I lived in Budapest in 1989, when the uprising began to be discussed freely for the first time since it happened, and I’ve been fascinated with the topic ever since. Over the past summer, I helped out a bit with some translation-related work on the upcoming documentary film Torn From the Flag and had the priviledge of seeing some unbelievable archival footage. You can view some similar footage, as well as photos and other information, on the 1956 Portal.
Related Goodies
- What happened (Wikipedia)
- Books about the uprising
- Excerpts from Time, whose 1956 “Man of the Year” was the Hungarian Freedom Fighter
- Archived BBC Coverage
- More links
