|
 |
 |
BUDAPEST -- The cold winter wind sweeping forth from a steel gray sky stirs little more than leaves and memories. Snow has fallen and the image evokes a black and white photo of another era. Shards of light pierce the late afternoon sky. Indeed, the bridges spanning the brooding Danube seem to beckon one to cross and explore, and so we shall.
Perhaps the world has forgotten but, in 1956, the Hungarians stood up to the Soviet Union in a courageous but ultimately doomed uprising. During those fateful days of late October, until the massive Soviet counterattack in early November, the torch of freedom burned defiantly in Budapest. The brave young heroes of Budapest having fallen in the tumultuous tempest of the Hungarian Revolution now seem a world away as Hungary is free. But those shadows of the past remain around nearly every corner.
A generation ago I stood in this same city, using James Michener's The Bridge at Andau as a kind of samizdat travel guide to the revolution a bit more than a decade before. Despite Hungary being the "freest barracks" in the Soviet Empire and the land of "goulash communism," the regime was still smarting from the revolt and thus trying to lure rather than smash people into submission.
The memories are worth revisiting. The imposing Liberation statue on Gellert Hill still lords over the city now minus the figure of the Soviet soldier. The proud neo-gothic Parliament buildings splendidly set aside the Danube are no longer crowned by a Red Star. The dreaded secret police headquarters at 60 Andrassy Street now houses foreign business offices. The once mighty military Warsaw Pact was dissolved at the American- owned Marriot Hotel. And now Hungary is a member of NATO!
Indeed, casinos replace military caserns and neon outshines the equally gaudy paraphernalia of the former People's Republic. Superficially, judging from the well-stocked shops and glitter of the city center preparing for Christmas one can say that consumerism has replaced communism. While East Bloc-era autos such as Ladas and Trabants are still ubiquitous, people shun them in favor of German and Japanese models. The monotone Marxist drabness and stupidity of state central planning has been happily supplanted by the traditional Hungarian joie de vivre.
Yet, beyond the overdue modernizations, the spiritual dimension of Hungary and its ancient traditions are equally strong. The historic Crown of St. Stephen, stored for safekeeping in the U.S. after WWII but returned by President Jimmy Carter to the "reformist" Janos Kadar regime, rests in the National Museum, a centerpiece of the collection. The remains of Josef Cardinal Mindszenty, who asked for political asylum in the U.S. Embassy after the Revolution -- spending fifteen years in the legation -- before the Vatican convinced him to leave Hungary in 1971, are interned in the Basilica at Estergom.
Political change has moved slowly but deliberately. While Hungary holds genuinely free elections -- there's currently a center-right coalition of the thirty-something Prime Minister Victor Orban -- the ex-communists, repackaged as socialists, still hold a strong bloc in Parliament.
But the ghosts of 1956 remain of the reformist Premier Imre Nagy who broke with Moscow and led the Revolution only to later fall into the Soviet executioner's hands. Today Nagy and the heroes of 1956, once dumped into a mass grave, are honored at the municipal cemetery in the famous Plot #301.
A monument near Liberty Square has a statue of Imre Nagy crossing a small bridge -- a symbol of his defection from the communists to the people. Looking back, the figure of the ill-fated Premier remains frozen in time. It again began to snow.
John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues who writes weekly for World Tribune.com.
