Budapest Pride? Munich 1938? No, it is Saint Stephen’s Day 2021 in Budapest

Half-naked body-painted men are pulling a giant aluminum Turul bird on Budapest streets.  Shamans, elk-costumes and a Greek female phalanx are marching.   Bystanders are scratching their heads.  What is going on?

Larger (and stranger) than life.

August 20th is Saint Stephen’s Day in Hungary. It is the celebration of the foundation of the Hungarian State.  It is also known as Constitution Day, the end of the grain harvest, the Day of the New Bread.   For many reasons it is an important National Holiday in Hungary and always celebrated with the traditional fireworks. (Read more about the Holiday here)

This year the Orbán “Viktatorship” organized “the biggest celebration ever” with hundreds of events financed by the Hungarian taxpayers.  The programs started on 18th August and ended on 22nd August with the main attraction of a giant Budapest fireworks at 9pm on August 20th. The firework took place over between Margaret Bridge and Petőfi Bridge spreading 3 miles along the river Danube. It lasted for 35 minutes, and used 40,000 firework batteries.

The über-nationalist parade on the streets of Budapest was grotesque and somewhat disturbing. Social media compared it to Hitler’s Nazi cultural parades.  In the 1930s Germany staged extravagant parades in Munich celebrating Aryan nationalism and promote the new Nazi vision of German history, culture and national belonging. These mass public spectacles had obvious propaganda purpose and it seems that Hungary has copied some of the ideas.

In the Hungarian Spectrum Eva Balogh wrote that her friend called attention to the similarities between Orbán’s August 20 kitsch parade “and similar events in Nazi Germany in the second half of the 1930s.”  (Read Eva Balogh’s thoughts about the parade here)

Overall, I think it is a bit unfair to compare the Budapest parade to the Nazi event.  In the 1930s tens of thousands of Germans cheered on Munich streets, now only a few Hungarians bothered to come out to the Budapest streets.

Happy (belated) St. Stephen’s Day!   Here is a video clip.  Enjoy!

 

 

 

György Lázár

 

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