Budapest is a riot!

As a boy in 1956, he witnessed the street fighting of the Hungarian Revolution. Returning this fall, he saw a different kind of demonstration.

By Peter Hargitai
Special Correspondent
October 29, 2006

In the wake of recent anti-government demonstrations at the Hungarian Parliament, and two nights during which protestors set fire to cars and the state-run television station, a Hungarian travel channel came up with the outrageous slogan, "Budapest is a riot! That's why we love it!" The anxious traveler was reassured. "The people rioting are a tiny minority," one commentator noted. "Tourists are in no danger whatsoever -- although they may get some great photos."

Budapest is a riot. But it's not because the people can now practice their democratic rights of free speech and free assembly, or because a group of soccer hooligans hijacked the demonstrations. Budapest is a riot because it is a fun city, a city of lights, a riot of architecture where eclectic doesn't mean hodgepodge but a distinct style in which baroque, medieval and modern co-exist peacefully. Old statues with broken noses. Mosaics of art nouveau goddesses that turn gold in the setting sun. Contemporary expressions of Hungarian folk art on green and yellow ceramic tile rooftops. Frescoes of stylized Kalocsay tulips made to look like embroidery.

It is a city where bar talk is often of Bartók, where thermal springs gush from authentic Turkish baths, a city where Old World coffeehouses are still home to a new breed of poets who sip cup after cup of fragrant espresso as they ply their craft and sullen art, often in the still night just before closing time. It is a passionate city where poets are still revered the same way we Americans used to revere our statesmen. The faces of poets are printed on Hungarian money; there are more statues of poets per square kilometer than in any other corner of the world. Hungarian poets are famous for sparking revolutions and for leading entire regiments into battle, only to die a hero's death. Sándor Petõfi, 1823-1849? (the facts surrounding his death, probably in battle, are still debated), was one such towering poet. His poem Stand Up, Hungarians ignited a mob in 1848 to revolt against Austrian domination. In the square that now bears his name, Hungarians echoed the same fiery verses in the fall of 1956 when they rose up against communist tyranny and Soviet occupation.

Many Hungarians old enough to have lived through the 1956 Hungarian Revolution may have a different take on the travel channel's attempt at black humor.

I was a 9-year-old eyewitness when the revolution broke out. The demonstrations started peacefully enough until the Hungarian secret police (ÁVO) fired on the crowd milling around the radio station, killing civilians. Two days later, Soviet tanks massacred hundreds when their cannons opened up on a sea of demonstrators trapped in Kossuth Square in front of the Parliament building. For the next 12 days, Hungarian freedom fighters, including a remarkable number of teenagers, fought in a bloody revolution against overwhelming Soviet armor. They set up tank barricades, tossed Molotov cocktails and, with their confiscated Russian submachine guns, made a stand on the streets of Budapest, hoping to hold out until help arrived from the West. But there was no help; nobody came to their aid. Thousands of lives were lost, and hundreds of people were later executed or shipped off to Soviet gulags. The city of Budapest suffered irreparable physical damage.

During a recent trip to Hungary for an academic conference, I couldn't help but notice that some sections of the city still showed the bullet holes and shell marks of 50 years ago. Many buildings got a much needed face-lift, while many had to be rebuilt from scratch.

Among the latter were the Corvin Theater and the Killián Barracks, where some of the most intense fighting had taken place. My cab driver had no idea how to get to the Corvin Theater or the Killián Barracks, and I, a Hungarian-American who has lived in the United States for the last 49 years, ended up having to be his guide. Astonishingly, he had never heard of them, and, although he was old enough, he knew very little about the Hungarian Revolution.

The shot-up Corvin Theater, makeshift headquarters of the "kids" of Budapest -- a ragtag army of scruffy teenagers whose hit-and-run guerilla tactics forced an early Soviet retreat -- had to wait until the end of the Cold War to be restored. With the change of regimes, the city erected a monument in memory of the young martyrs, kids 14, 15, 16 who gave their lives for freedom.

Directly across the theater stood an old stone fortress called the Killián Barracks, the nerve center of the Hungarian army under the command of Major General Pál Maléter. It was from here that he was lured by the Soviet High Command to a meeting to discuss a timetable for the withdrawal of Russian troops, only to be promptly arrested and later executed in the Soviet Union. What followed after his arrest was an all-out attack on Budapest. After the crushing Soviet offensive, the Killián Barracks' thick walls caved in to repeated shelling by heavy artillery. Armed with little more than rifles and gasoline bombs, the freedom fighters inside never had a chance. It took several years after the revolution for the remaining shell of the fortress to be replaced by a grim Stalinist-era apartment house.

Civilian buildings, especially those along the great tree-lined boulevards, also suffered severe damage. The famous New York Coffeehouse on Lenin Boulevard (now called Erzsébet Boulevard), an illustrious architectural wonder built at the turn of the century, was riddled with bullets and deliberately rammed by a Soviet T-34 tank. For five decades, the building was allowed to stand in shabby disrepair before it was finally restored to its former splendor just this year. Now it is a five-star hotel elegant and sumptuous enough to warrant its rechristening as the New York Palace.

In the old section of the city, the buildings are four or five stories high, and just about every window and doorway is surrounded by ornate stonework of bearded gods or the heads of lions holding up an arch. Some doorways have strong women carved in stone holding up entire buildings, a signal at the turn of the century when they were crafted that women were coming out through the portal to be part of city life. Since much of the shooting during the revolution was from the cover of windows and doorways, these statuesque accents were damaged so badly that they had to be replaced by simpler yet still elegant designs.

Neither were centuries-old churches spared.

In October 1956, when there was a lull in the fighting and the curfew had been lifted, my aunt and I wandered into an empty baroque chapel to pray. Soon we heard bullets chipping the stone outside. We were caught in a crossfire. The secret police, who had been hiding in the city sewers, were exchanging fire with the freedom fighters on the roof. My aunt and I prayed even more fervently as we cowered in a dark corner by one of the side altars. The first time I returned to Budapest, after a hiatus of some 30 years, my family was amazed that the bullet holes were still there. Although a year after the revolution the chapel received a temporary roof, and a quick fix of cement and plaster, the holes are still there today.

The Citadella, an old fortress on top of Gellért Hill, even older than the Killián Barracks, still carries the scars (more like craters) of World War II, when the battle for Budapest raged between the Germans who dug themselves deep into Gellért Hill, and the Red Army shelling them from across the Danube. The Germans had blown up all the bridges, including one with a streetcar packed with civilians. In 1945, it was Budapest that was caught in a crossfire between two desperate armies.

Today, the Citadella is a hotel-restaurant-gallery. The current exhibit is of photographs on the theme of children's suffering during war. The period covered stretches from World War II and the Holocaust up to the present. There are pictures of children in Iraq under the threatening gaze of American and British soldiers. Remarkably, there is not one photograph of Hungarian children who fought and died in the 1956 Revolution.

I asked the manager about the conspicuous exclusion. He said the present Socialist government is in denial about 1956. He reminded me that the socialists are former communists. I asked him if that was why the government was so unpopular today. The man shrugged his shoulders and said whoever is in power is always unpopular in Hungary.

The real reason was to come out, or "leak" out, a few days later when Hungarians learned that their prime minister, Ferenc Gyurcsány, was caught on tape saying that he lied to them about the state of the economy just so he could get elected five months earlier. His torrent of vulgar expletives was too strong a spice even by Hungarian standards. So the people took to the streets; 80,000 gathered on Kossuth Square in front of Parliament. Some commentators in the Western media compared the demonstrations, and the two nights of vandalism, to the Hungarian Revolution.

Whether this is because the anti-government demonstrators have been using the revolution as a rallying cry, or because Oct. 23 was its 50th anniversary, I find the comparison irresponsible. First of all, the demonstrators in 1956 demanded free elections, the release of political prisoners and the withdrawal of Soviet troops. They only became violent when the secret police and Soviet tanks fired on them. In 2006, 17 years after the fall of communism, Hungary has a new constitution, a parliamentary process, free democratic elections, no political prisoners and no foreign power occupying the country. The only evidence of Soviet occupation is in a theme park outside Budapest, called Cold War Park, where you can take a nostalgic walk through a forest of Lenin statues.

The park is not far from a charming old Serbian town on the Danube called Szentendre, where red-tiled houses and narrow, cobblestone alleys meander up the hillside. Quaint restaurants along the river offer tantalizing dishes flavored with paprika. Its sweet, pungent aroma wafts through the air for no other reason than to prick your nostrils and whet your appetite. After a personal kettle of goulash, kept hot with a candle flame, you can enjoy red wine from the Tokay region, and there is none more robust than the famous Blood of the Bull.

After a short stroll along the Danube to the pier, you can take a ferry to Budapest to the accompaniment of gypsy violins or New Orleans jazz, depending on the cruise. There is even a cruise with rap music. Once you pass the stately neo-gothic Parliament building, you are ready to disembark into the heart of the city, take in a Franz List concert at the Vigadó, or join a mob of enthusiastic demonstrators (and hope that things get out of hand enough for a great photo opportunity).

Or you can play it safe and visit one of Budapest's popular attractions, such as the Torture Chamber at 60 Andrássy Street (not a tourist trap). Here the Gestapo, and later the communist secret police, tortured their victims in basement catacombs not unlike medieval dungeons in Transylvania. I guess Hungarians can't help it. Black humor is in the blood.

Budapest is a riot!

Peter Hargitai is the author of Daughter of the Revolution and a lecturer at Florida International University.

Budapest is a riot!

Florida newspaper Sun-Sentinel published an article about Budapest, the 1956 Revolution and recent events in Hungary. In “Budapest is a riot!”, Peter Hargitai gives useful information, travel tips and a personal insight of Hungarian life and history to potential visitors.