Flag of the Hungarian Revolution
1.65 x 1.05 m
Donated by Hungary in 1999
With: Catherine Horel, historian, research director at the CNRS (French national research centre), expert in Hungarian history
Sound archive: Gilbert Lauzun
Authors: Charlotte Roux, Antoine Auger, Anne Kropotkine
To find out more:
François Fejtö, 1956, Budapest, l’insurrection : la première révolution antitotalitaire, éditions Complexe, 1984; re-edited 2006
Catherine Horel, Histoire de Budapest, Fayard, 1999
Catherine Horel, Histoire de la nation hongroise, Tallandier, 2021
Transcription
Opening titles: L'Atelier de l'Europe, discovering the Council of Europe’s art collection.
Flag of the Hungarian Revolution, donated by Hungary in 1999, situated in the lobby of the assembly chamber in the Palais de l'Europe, with Catherine Horel.
Catherine Horel: Looking at the glass display case, the eye is immediately drawn to two objects. One is a photograph of one of the first demonstrations of the 1956 revolution, and the other is a red, white and green Hungarian flag with a hole in the centre. The Hungarian tricolour is very old. It began to be widely adopted in the 17th century but historically, red-white and green-white combinations were used much earlier, possibly even as far back as the 13th century. The defining moment in the history of the Hungarian flag, however, was the revolution of 1848. It is generally said that the red signifies strength, the white stands for loyalty and the green - hope. When the communists came to power in earnest with the 1949 constitution, they imposed a flag that was clearly an emblem of communist power. A circle was sewn onto the tricolour featuring the hammer and wheat surmounted by the red star.
Sound archives: On 23 October 1956, tens of thousands of Budapest residents took to the streets in response to a call from students, demanding the return to office of Imre Nagy, who had been forced out of government the year before. The flags waved by the demonstrators had holes in the middle. The communist emblem had been torn out.
Catherine Horel: One of the first acts of the insurgents, starting on 23, 24 and 25 October 1956, was to topple the red stars from any buildings where they could be removed. Before long, someone took the decision to cut out what was seen as a symbol of subjugation to Soviet power from the Hungarian flag, and to reinstate the tricolour. The first unifying symbols of the 1956 revolution, too, hark back to 1848. Photos of the revolution show Hungarian army tanks coming over to the side of the insurgents. And on the tanks, crudely painted in white paint, we see the Kossuth coat of arms. Lajos Kossuth had been a key figure in the 1848 revolution and went on to lead what became known as the War of Independence in 1849. Later, echoes of the Kossuth coat of arms were to appear in the Cross of Lorraine in France during the Second World War. On 23 October 1956, the demonstrators gathered in front not of the communist party headquarters, but of Parliament, thus marking a return to normal political life through genuine parliamentary representation and the end of single-party communist rule. Now let’s cross the Danube and gather around a statue of General Bem. Joseph Bem was a Polish general who led many of the Hungarian armies to victory in 1849. Why Bem? Why a Pole? Because June 1956 saw moves towards liberalisation and democratisation in Poland, and the first demonstration, on 23 October 1956, was held in support of Polish students. Here you can see the hole in the flag, you can even see the people through the hole, which is quite astonishing. They are crossing the Margaret Bridge and heading for Bem Square. It is truly a scene of mass protest, with youngsters, men and women, representing all sections of Hungarian society.
Sound archives: There seems to be a ceremony taking place in the square. I don't know exactly what the people are doing. Perhaps it's a passive demonstration, because they're just standing there, masked, carrying their flag. “Ruszkik haza! Ruszkik haza! Ruszkik haza!”, “Russians go home! Russians go home!”
Catherine Horel: One of the first slogans was “Ruszkik haza!”, “Ruszkik” meaning Russians. It's a slightly derogatory term. A bit like “Russkis” in English. “Go home!”. “Haza!” “Go away!” The demonstrators sang La Marseillaise in French and they also sang the Hungarian national anthem, which wasn't banned but had been replaced by the Internationale, sung in Hungarian obviously. And the national anthem was a hymn to independence. It was banned in all but name, not least because the opening line of the anthem is: “God, Bless”, “İsten, áldd meg a Magyart”, which translates as “God bless the Hungarians”. The rest of the anthem is about the Hungarian people, their suffering and despair. It is also an anthem that is entirely out of sync with the communist ethos. The crowd began calling for Imre Nagy: “We want Nagy! Nagy for head of government!” and the communist party leadership had to give way.
Sound archives: Panic-stricken, the government finally decided to appoint a prime minister. But at the same time, it called in Soviet troops to restore order. The arrival in the Hungarian capital of Russian tanks at dawn on 24 October merely escalated tensions. On 28 October Imre Nagy secured the withdrawal of the Soviet tanks but it was too late: insurrection spread throughout the country. The Hungarian government's announcement that it was restoring a multi-party system prompted the Kremlin to intervene a second time. On 4 November, the Soviet army returned in force with 2 000 tanks. There would be no quarter given to either the insurgents or Nagy. And perhaps now you can hear more clearly the sound of the tanks crossing the Danube and the machine-gun fire and cannon fire.
Catherine Horel: When Nagy learned that Soviet troops were on their way back to Hungary, he drafted a statement, which was read out by someone on the radio in the early hours of 4 November 1956. The appeal was immediately picked up by other radio stations and rebroadcast in German, English and French, ending with the words: “Segítség, segítség, segítség!”, “Help, help, help!”
Sound archives: This is the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. “The Assembly, deeply moved by the tragic radio appeal of the Hungarian freedom fighters – “We are about to die for Hungary and for Europe”, reaffirms that Hungary as well as the other countries of Central and Eastern Europe from the Baltic to the Black Sea are part of Europe and that the free countries represented in the Council of Europe must hold themselves responsible for the future of those members of the European family now subjected to Soviet rule. […] Calls upon the Governments of Member States of the Council of Europe […] to press jointly for the immediate withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungary and for an international police force to be sent there under the auspices of the United Nations in the immediate future.”
Catherine Horel: There's a desire to show that, at the time, these countries - because you can also include Poland and later Czechoslovakia - these countries were the ones that defended the European idea in a sense. The intellectuals, everyone who was part of the opposition in these countries, wanted to bring Europe closer together in order to differentiate themselves from the Soviet Union. For them, the Soviet Union was not Europe. And so, "European" meant "European values that were not the values of Soviet Russia”.
Closing credits: That was Flag of the Hungarian Revolution, a Council of Europe podcast, created by Charlotte Roux, Antoine Auger and Anne Kropotkine, with the historian Catherine Horel. Other episodes are available on the Council of Europe website.
