Steven N.In a “guerilla act,” opposition party Momentum covered the Soviet monument in Budapest’s Freedom Square with a twenty-meter-long Hungarian flag.
The monument is one of the most shameful statues in the country, said Momentum politician Dávid Bedő, one which “falsely presents the Soviet occupying troops as the liberators of the country.”
In a video shared on the party president’s Facebook page, the Momentum MP stated that ruling party Fidesz is assisting to make sure this symbol continues to stand in one of Budapest’s main squares.
Another of the party’s MPs, Lajos Lőcsei, said that the Soviet monument is used to falsify Russian history today, as the Russian government still refers to Hungary’s 1956 uprising as a “counter-revolutionary coup.”
“There was no price too high for the Soviet authorities to stifle and suppress the Hungarians’ desire for freedom,” said Momentum President Ferenc Gelencsér in the short video. And 66 years after the revolution, “the country is plastered with Russian propaganda paid for by Hungarian taxpayers’ money.”
“There is no place in Hungary for a monument to the Soviet occupation,” Gelencsér declared. [Telex]
I would like to quote one Gábor Képes from a Facebook comment:
“Lord in Heavens, Feri. This is not a 56 but a 45 monument. It’s not a statue, but actually a tombstone. And I really don’t quite understand why you can’t stand the fact that in one city you can find traces of different historical eras. Will the era between 45-90 be the exception? P.S. And yes, liberation from fascism also meant occupation; they saved the lives of many of our compatriots, while they took the lives of others, and yes, before that we declared war on them and we entered their country with soldiers, causing enormous damage to civilians as well. So it is a (tomb) monument of a complicated historical era.”
Important article as the Soviet monument obfuscates the actual historical process just as the nearby regime monument regarding nazi occupation of Hungary obfuscates the complete historical process including Hungarian complicity in the Shoah. Professor Paul A. Hanebrink, a leading authority regarding Hungarian history, has commented on the problem of “double occupation” and the attendant historical falsification and mythology of this regime. Neither “occupation” is accurately addressed by this regime. Sadly, the Soviet monument is -thanks to this regime- the best maintained in the former communist empire in eastern Europe. The other monument showing Hungary as a “victim” of nazi Germany is obscene. Of course, the casual tourist, let alone the average Hungarian is simply unaware.