This page deals with three further significant days in the communist calendar: the first (August 20th) is still celebrated today. The other two dates were problematic....
August 20thAugust 20th was already a national holiday in pre-communist times. It was St. Stephen's Day - the patron saint of Hungary. The communists simply kept the date as Hungary's national day, but changed the purpose of the celebration - it now became a celebration of the (communist) constitution and of the new bread, i.e. the communist harvest.
The date was marked then, as now, with various displays on the Danube as well as fly-pasts, and the whole day culminated with the still traditional fireworks along the banks of the river. |
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March 15th
March 15th is the anniversary of the Hungarians' 1848 uprising against Habsburg rule.
The problem for the communist government was that this specifically national, Hungarian celebration, offered no communist interpretation. More importantly, as a day that celebrated the nation's attempt to free itself from a foreign oppressor, it obviously lent itself to expressing the people's wish to rid themselves of Soviet rule. For this reason, March 15th was not a national holiday and it was forbidden to celebrate it, though school children had a day off. Hungarian flags around the statue of Petőfi were interspersed with the red flag and the statue was watched night and day, to make sure no-one removed the socialist flags. |
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October 23rd
October 23rd, 1956 was a taboo topic in communist Hungary. The uprising against Soviet rule was rarely if ever referred to, and when it was, it was called a 'counter-revolution'.
In everyday life, people mentioned it only in a whisper and never in public places. This was a subject they feared could have dire consequences if they were to be overheard discussing it. Thus, there was no official acknowledgement of its anniversary and it did not appear in school history books - but every year on this day there was a palpable tension in the air. Click here to see reviews of my
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