The Hungarian Right has been using the anniversary of 1956 for political capital; comparisons with the demonstrations that followed Ferenc Gyurcsány’s leaked “We lied in the morning…” speech have been lapped up by the international press. But if the Right has made it possible for all those disgruntled with the Gyurcsány government to cast themselves as heroic heirs to the revolution, the Left is guilty of having failed to take ’56 seriously enough.
Péter György
is professor of aesthetics and media at ELTE University Budapest, and at the department of sociology, Budapest University of Technology and Economics.