About the Composer

So, immediately after completing my last post, I went on to do my usual cursory scan of current news, and discovered that my last post was the wrong post.

As I was writing, throngs of thickheaded people were in the middle of making a mockery of the 1956 uprising by disrupting the day’s events, chanting inane nationalistic slogans and provoking the police to resort to teargas, rubber bullets and water cannons.

So much for national unity.

Just in case you happened to read about this in the American press, I must clear up a few things, because the reporting has been fairly shallow and misleading.

• There is no parallel between this and what happened in 1956
• There is no parallel between what happened in 1956 and what happened in 2003 in Iraq.
• Yes, the Socialist Prime Minister recently stepped in dogshit, and he’ll need to face that sooner or later.
• No, he shouldn’t resign
• What happened today was clearly planned carefully by extreme-right elements, hoping to exploit the PM’s current weakness.

You might say I have a point of view on this, I guess.

Thanks to Scott for use of the photo above.

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.

Hey buddy, siddown, will ya? You’re blocking the view!

President Bush’s attempt to draw a parallel between the Hungarian freedom fighters of 1956 and the Iraqis of today struck me as a bit freakish.

The 1956 uprising was largely about ejecting the military occupation of an invading foreign power, namely the Soviet Union, who invaded Hungary toward the end of World War II and flushed out the oppressive Nazi-installed regime.

Now, in Bush’s analogy who are the Hungarians and who are the Soviets? Weird, huh.

Making things worse was the 800-pound gorilla there on Gell�rt Hill with the President: Bush was completely silent about this country’s failure to act in any way on the Hungarians’ behalf during the 1956 uprising, despite hints that they might. But then, I suppose if any U.S. President is going to apologize for that, it’s not going to be this one.

(Sorry for the off-topic post. I just had to share.)

On this day in 1956, what began as a small student demonstration snowballed into a national uprising. The students were joined 100,000 angry citizens as they marched to more impromptu demonstrations at various sites around Budapest. At the Parliament building they were met by Soviet tanks who fired on the crowd. The demonstrations then escalated into street battles between average citizens with Molotov cocktails and a force of Hungarian security police and the Soviet army.

In response, the Hungarian Communist Party installed a new Prime Minster, Imre Nagy, who they believed would placate the people to a degree. Nagy almost immediately announced plans to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact and hold multi-party elections. On November 4th, the Soviet Union sent tanks and airstrikes to take back control of Hungary. Nagy, who had taken assylum at the Yugoslav embassy, was tricked into surrendering (they promised him safe passage out of Hungary), and eventually executed.

The political circumstances and the events of these eleven days were too complicated to describe in detail here. However, dozens of good books have been written about what happened in Hungary in 1956.

Fast forward…

I went to Budapest in September, 1989 for what would be a three-year adventure in cake consumption (oh, and composition lessons too, I guess). On October 23rd, I had only been in Budapest for about six weeks. That evening, a crowd gathered in front of the Parliament building, where police had fired on the crowd 33 years earlier, and quietly held candles as they received the news that the People’s Republic of Hungary was now to be known simply as the “Republic of Hungary”, and that national multi-party elections would be held in May, 1990. During the next three years, I got to witness up close the beginning of an amazing transformation.

Until 1989, the 1956 uprising was never discussed officially. The official line was to clear your throat and stare at the floor while mumbling something about a “counterrevolutionary incident”. But starting in 1989, the uprising was officially acknowledged, and now October 23rd is a national holiday.