Post Tagged with: "1956 Hungarian Revolution"

The failed 1956 Hungarian Revolution – the Soviets blamed the West just like Orbán does today

The failed 1956 Hungarian Revolution – the Soviets blamed the West just like Orbán does today

Sixty-five years ago Soviet troops crushed the Hungarian Revolution. The Soviet Union started a propaganda campaign blaming the West for the uprising and the bloodshed.  Howard Norton, a journalist with the Baltimore Sun reported from Moscow that the Soviets had spread their version why Russian troops were fighting in Hungary.  Not surprisingly, they put the blame unequivocally on the West […]

by · October 23, 2021 · Politics
The romance of the 56-er Hungarian refugee and Prince William of Gloucester

The romance of the 56-er Hungarian refugee and Prince William of Gloucester

The improbable romance of flamboyant Prince William of Gloucester and Zsuzsi Starkloff made headlines fifty years ago.  Starkloff was a 56-er, an ambitious, capable Hungarian refugee who loved glamour.  A recent documentary brought this romantic tabloid story into the spotlight again. The dashing Prince William of Gloucester was Queen Elisabeth’s first cousin and the page boy at her wedding in […]

by · May 17, 2021 · Diaspora
The new reconstructed monument commemorating the victims of the Red Terror.

Monument to the Terror: Red or White?

A statue of Imre Nagy was erected on the southeast corner of Kossuth Square in 1996, to commemorate the 1956 Revolution he led as the Communist leader of his country and for which he gave his life.  He is standing on a bridge looking towards the Parliament building.  That bronze sculpture stood there until the fall of 2018 when Viktor […]

by · September 24, 2020 · Politics
Ms. Réka Pigniczky (left) and Ms. Andrea Lauer Rice

Cold Warriors – a documentary film about right-wing nostalgia in America

Réka Pigniczky has made an important documentary film based on the “original idea” of Andrea Lauer Rice.   The film was released in 2017 and now it is available on the Web. Cold Warriors is about the friendly shooting reunion of small group of aging Hungarian immigrants on a rural farm in Pennsylvania. In 1960 they were members of a militia […]

by · September 8, 2020 · Culture
Steve Fonyo

Fonyo Beach, a 56-er story

The failed 1956 Revolution was a traumatic event in Hungary’s history.  Today the “Hungarian Diaspora” tends to paint a rosy picture about the fate of the 56-er immigrant families, those who were allowed to settle in Canada and the US after 1956.  They are often portrayed as “heroes” and “freedom fighters” and many of the 56-ers became very successful indeed.  […]

by · February 3, 2020 · Diaspora
Photo: György Lázár

Imre Nagy statue removed predawn from Budapest square

Imre Nagy is a hero of Hungary, prime minister twice, his second term during the tragic and failed revolution of 1956. Nagy was captured and tried by the Communists and executed in 1958. He was buried in an unmarked grave. Nagy’s name could not to be mentioned during the Kádár regime. At his reburial in 1989 a crowd of 200,000 […]

by · December 28, 2018 · Politics
Ex-Congressman Ernie Könnyű’s xenophobic speech at the San Francisco 56 commemoration

Ex-Congressman Ernie Könnyű’s xenophobic speech at the San Francisco 56 commemoration

81-year-old Ernie Könnyű, who is a former member of the U.S. Congress, has been the keynote speaker at San Francisco 1956 commemoration events since 1987. He is now retiring and his farewell speech was delivered on Sunday, October 28, 2018 at 3:00 p.m. at the State Office Building on Van Ness Blvd., San Francisco, California. After the full text of […]

by · November 6, 2018 · Diaspora
Eleanor Roosevelt and the refugees of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956

Eleanor Roosevelt and the refugees of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956

On October 23, Hungarians commemorate the Revolution of 1956. The uprising was an unplanned nationwide upheaval against the harsh Stalinist government of the People’s Republic of Hungary. It lasted from 23 October until 10 November 1956. Over 2,500 Hungarian citizens and 700 Soviet troops were killed in the hostilities and close to 200,000 Hungarians fled as refugees. About half of […]

by · October 23, 2018 · Focus
Marta and Henry Fuchs

Supporting immigrants – a letter from refugees of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution

On February 1, 2017 the Santa Monica Daily Press in California published a letter from Marta and Henry Fuchs, both refugees of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. Today we witness the inhuman treatment of migrants in Europe, especially in Hungary; the horrendous separation of children from their parents in the Unites States and now the latest news that the US Supreme […]

by · June 27, 2018 · Diaspora
Judy Young-Drache (left) and Bob Rae (right)

Flight to Freedom: Bob Rae gives keynote on anniversary of 1956 refugee crisis

The Honourable Bob Rae, former Premier of Ontario and currently special envoy to Myanmar, spoke at Saint Paul University on October 23rd, 2017, the anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. Chantal Beauvais, the rector of Saint Paul University, opened this day of the conference entitled Flight to Freedom: The Canadian Refugee Experience Since 1957 by noting the University’s strong commitment to […]

by · October 23, 2017 · Focus