Hungarians Commemorate Anniversary of 1956 Revolution
Budapest (MTI) – State commemorations of Hungary’s anti-Soviet revolution and freedom fight of 1956 started on Thursday by the hoisted national flag in front of Parliament.
President Janos Ader paid tribute to Imre Nagy, the martyred prime minister, at his grave in eastern Budapest’s New Public Cemetery.
Ader later said at a gala event held in the Budapest Opera House that the revolution of 1956 was proof that the sacrifices were worthwhile and it was worth “taking a brave, moral stance,” in 1956.
Parliamentary Speaker Laszlo Kover attended a ceremony marking the anniversary in western Hungary’s Kapuvar and said the revolution had demonstrated that “there is a way to fight oppression”.
“Hungarians always knew that their country cannot be crushed,” Mihaly Varga, the economy minister, told a commemoration at Szena square, one of the famous sites of the revolution, in Budapest.
Agriculture Minister Sandor Fazekas said in Karcag, eastern Hungary, that Hungarians were the first nation to raise arms against the Stalinist authoritarian rule and communism.
Deputy leader of the radical nationalist Jobbik party Janos Volner called for a “freedom fight in a spiritual sense” and pointed to negative demographic trends, and the danger of Hungary’s soil being purchased by foreign investors as examples at a commemoration in Corvin place. The commemorators later moved on to stage a torch-lit demonstration at Hungarian Radio headquarters near the National Museum, another site of the revolution.
Civil groups urged a more active civil society at an anti-government demonstration staged at central Budapest’s Lujza Blaha square. Speakers addressing the event under the slogan “Make yourself free!” spoke out against the government’s planned tax on internet tax, among other government measures.
An opposition E-PM politician said Hungary will be a successful country only if it recognises that a lack of freedom is the source of all problems by the Jozsef Bem statue. The freedom fight of 1956 shows that even the most feared power can be confronted amid the most hopeless situation, the opposition green LMP party’s co-leader said at a gathering in the 2nd district of Budapest.
The revolution was commemorated in many Hungarian communities in Europe and North America. Cities where commemorations were held included Uzghorod and Beregovo in Transcarpathia, western Ukraine, Paris, London, Rome, Prague, Krakow and Warsaw. Vojvodina Hungarians marked the revolution in Subotica (Szabadka) and Hungarian parties and organisations in Transylvania held rememberances in Miercurea Ciuc (Csikszereda), Snagov, where Imre Nagy had been exiled, Targu Mures (Marosvasarhely), Cluj-Napoca (Kolozsvar), and Oradea (Nagyvarad). Hungarians in Slovakia gathered to mark the anniversary in Szepsi (Moldava nad Bodvou).
Washington, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Laguna Woods, and San Diego joined in the events in North America. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto attended a naturalisation ceremony and a commemoration in Toronto.
Photo: MTI
Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters
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