Oly távol, messze van hazám…
Csak még egyszer láthatnám.
 
 
 
 
President Bush visited Budapest today to commemorate the the 50th anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising. He is 4 months early (history lesson from the book Anarchy, A Graphic Guide).Â
It was October 23rd when the revolt began with demonstrations. It was November 1st when Kádár János betrayed Hungary by “inviting” Soviet troops to assist putting down the revolution. I remember my parents waking me in the middle of the night to look out the window of our main street apartment to see a long line of those tanks entering Hungary – each with exactly one soldier seated on top carrying a flaming torch. It wasn’t until my birthday on December 5th that we stepped outside our apartment for the last time and became refugees. By mid-December the borders were effectively closed.  Over 200,000 Hungarians had fled their country of birth.
 The “Daily Dish of Cosmopolitan Budapest,” Pesticide said this about Bush’s visit:
Snow’s statement that Bush’s trip “about visiting the Hungarian government and paying homage to what they went through 50 years ago” seems just a little odd, given that the current government is pretty much the same party that fought against the heroic ’56ers. Not that this should really matter, given that it’s all about a “tone poem,” whatever the f*** that might be.
They also said this about protesting (Bush, not Voldemort!):
Go to the main protest against you-know-who, which will be starting at 16:00 on Szabadság tér (Freedom Square), conveniently right in front of the American Embassy. While we can hardly fault anyone for showing up to let off some steam at Uncle Sam, do make sure to note the big, ugly-ass Soviet monument while you are there, and remember that if it wasn’t for the occasionally boorish Yanks, you’d all be speaking Russian. Or, even worse, Hungarian.
Now go see the dokumentumfilm OLY TÃVOL, MESSZE VAN HAZÃM (in Hungarian). Or better, visit Budapest and use Bob Dent’s book Budapest 1956: Locations of Drama as your guide.
