Time Magazine's 1956 Man of the Year: "The Hungarian Freedom Fighter."

The Montréal Hungarian community’s annual commemoration of the 1956 Revolution in Hungary, and its eventual suppression by Soviet forces, is quite possibly the most important yearly observance for Hungarian Canadians. The majority of Canadians with Hungarian heritage trace their roots back to 1956, in one way or another. Most members of the older generation arrived in Canada as refugees following the revolt, while many younger Hungarians have a parent or grandparent who fled Hungary following the Soviet re-invasion of 4 November 1956.

Organized by the Hungarian Committee of Montreal, this year’s commemoration of the revolution is set to take place at the Our Lady of Hungary Church on 19 October 2008, at 1:00pm. One of the event’s highlights will be a speech by Balázs Izsák, president of the Szekler National Council, who travelled to Canada from Romania. Balázs’s organization promotes regional autonomy for two adjacent counties in eastern Transylvania where ethnic Hungarians constitute a majority of the population. The event’s keynote speaker will be Dr. János Szanyi, while pianist Éva Csarnay will provide the commemoration’s musical component. The ceremony will also feature the participation of Montreal’s Hungarian scouts and girl guides, the students of the Hungarian School of Montreal and the Bokréta folk dance ensemble.

The 1956 Hungarian Revolution was by far the bloodiest and the most dramatic rebellion against Soviet domination in Eastern Europe, as well as a stinging rebuke of the country communist leadership. The revolt broke out on 23 October 1956 in Budapest and ultimately led to the re-establishment of multi-party democracy, Hungary’s withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact, its declaration of neutrality and the release of political prisoners. The removal of communist symbols–such as red stars–from public buildings from the Hungarian flag, as well as the demolition of Stalin’s statue in Budapest, became iconic symbols of the revolution. The uprising, however, was crushed when the Soviet army invaded Hungary on 4 November 1956, using 6,000 tanks and approximately 150,000 troops. An estimated 2,500 Hungarians were killed during the revolution and in the days following the Soviet re-invasion, a period often referred to as either the Hungarian „freedom fight” or the Hungarian War of Independence. Hungary’s revolutionary Prime Minister, Imre Nagy, was executed in 1958 for his role in the uprising and was secretly buried in an unmarked grave. Nagy was re-buried and exonerated in 1989, as the country transitioned towards multi-party democracy. The 1956 Hungarian Revolution has often been viewed as the „first crack” in the Iron Curtain that divided continental Europe.

Canada accepted more than 38,000 Hungarian refugees following the suppression of the uprising, out of a total of 200,000 Hungarians who fled to Western Europe, the Americas and Australia. According to some calculations, Canada accepted one out of every six Hungarian refugees following the uprising; proportionally the largest number of any country. The aftermath of the 1956 Revolution was also the first time that the Government of Canada chartered airplanes to transport refugees across the Atlantic. Among the initial wave of refugees was the entire faculty and student body of the University of Sopron’s forestry department. Nearly 200 students and 28 faculty members fled to Canada in January 1957 and continued their forestry studies at the University of British Columbia.

Hungarian 1956 refugees arrive in Canada

Noel Kinsella, Speaker of the Senate of Canada, participated in the fiftieth anniversary commemorations of the 1956 Revolution two years ago, when he spoke about the importance of remembrance. „Those events have since passed into the pages of history, but many of us still remember it well, especially those here today that lived through the ordeal, came to Canada, and in making their new lives here, greatly contributed to the social fabric of our nation; a nation you can proudly call your own. To those of you who were born Canadian-Hungarian, I hope you are proud of the heritage from which you come and the struggle and sacrifice made by your parents and grandparents so that you could enjoy a life free from oppression. Though the revolution may have passed into history, the impact that it had is forever present through people across the world like you,” said Kinsella.

In addition to the commemoration in Montreal, a wreath-laying ceremony will take place at Ottawa’s Beechwood Cemetery on 26 October 2008, followed by a commemoration at the Ottawa Hungarian Community Centre at 5:00pm on the same day. Toronto’s Hungarian community will begin a series of commemorations by taking part in a flag-raising ceremony in front of the Toronto City Hall on 23 October 2008 at noon, followed by a wreath-laying ceremony at Budapest Park. These two events will be followed by a commemorative celebration at the Hungarian Canadian Cultural Centre on St. Clair Avenue.

Canadian Hungarian Journal