THE HUNGARIAN REVOLUTION 50 YEARS LATER
(Preview)

The 1956 Hungarian Revolution has continued to inspire new generations the world over. I have a select bibliography of close to one hundred books on the subject, published during the last 50 years in many languages. The latest one, prior to the present book, was published in 2003. The collection under review, The 1956 Hungarian Revolution 50 Years Later: Canadian and International Perspectives, complete with introduction, extensive references and biographies, will soon be released by the University of Ottawa Press in 2009.

The book of twelve research papers was selected from a number of presentations to a conference held at the University of Ottawa, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the revolution. One of the most important elements of the book lies in the fact that its authors, some of them directors of institutions, some of them university educators in history, economy, political science, sociology, have introduced new concepts pertaining to the revolution, new interpretations based on official documents unearthed from public archives and government holdings throughout the world. The collection is divided into two parts. Part I contains papers on various aspects of the freedom fight:

János Rainer, Director of the Institute for the History of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, tells the reader about the revolution within the context of Hungarian domestic politics. Csaba Békés, founding Director of the Cold War History Research Centre in Budapest, discusses whether the Hungarian Revolution could have succeeded? The subtitle of his paper is: Myths, Legend and Illusions. Susan Glanz, of St. John’s University, describes the economic history and the platforms of the political parties resurrected during the revolution. Julia Vajda, a research associate with the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, examines the subject of how the Holocaust survivors viewed the 1956 Revolution. Judit Keserű-Némethy, of the University of Argentina, presents the impact of the revolution on the South-American hemisphere. And finally, Heino Nyyssönen of Finland examines 1956 from the perspective of public memory. His excellent paper concerns with how the memory of the revolution lived on in Hungary, following the collapse of the single (communist) party system in 1989.

The papers in Part II are devoted to Canada’s role in handling the refugee problem, after the defeat of the revolution. Harold Troper of the University of Toronto describes the influx of the 1956 refugees versus the Canadian immigration history. Nándor Dreisziger, formerly of the Royal Military College, offers a monograph-length study of the 1956-57 immigration wave, in the context of the 150-year Hungarian immigration to Canada. Peter Hidas, of Dawson College, Montreal, (retired) writes about the process of the arrival and settlement of the 1956-ers. He has based his study on archival documents and daily reports published by the Canadian media. Greg Donaghy, Director of the Historical Section of the Canadian Department of External Affairs and International Trade, offers an excellent study on Canada’s response to the Hungarian revolution from the perspective of Canada’s diplomatic policy and international relations. Christopher Adam, a Ph.D. history candidate at the University of Ottawa, and lecturer at Carleton University, examines the revolution as seen by the Kanadai Magyar Munkás of Toronto, a newspaper, now defunct, of communist affiliations. There were several other presentors whose papers did not make it to the volume.

The summary of the main concepts of the book are as follows: (a) the political, economic and social cause of the outbreak and defeat of the revolution; (b) myths, legends and illusions relating to the revolution – based on the international political climate of the day; (c) the role of the various social elements in the revolution and their response to its outcome; (d) Canada’s political, economic and social conditions during the nineteen-fifties; (e) psychological affects of large-scale refugee migrations on the refugees and on the host society. Some other significant subjects discussed are: the nature of annual commemorations of the revolution - the upshooting of memorials, street names dedicated to the freedom fighters and to the memory of the revolution; and the politicization of the revolution - the ways the media, the historians, the politicians and the general public have managed to make the revolution a political matter.

The only comparable publication to the present book on the subject is a collection entitled Breaking Ground: The 1956 Hungarian Refugee Movement to Canada, edited by Robert H. Keyserlingk (1993). Its authors were primarily interested in the influence the Hungarian refugees had on Canada’s immigration policy. The present book, however, owing to its dual subject approach, goes beyond Breaking Ground, insofar as its authors take a fresh look at the evidences and offer new interpretations on the revolution and on related Canadian policies, due to new discoveries of information not avaible prevously. From half-a-century perspectives, the authors have arrived at the conclusion that the 1956 Hungarian Revolution was such a dramatic event that it had exerted lasting consequences not only on Hungary’s history, but on that of other nations as well. They have demonstrated on the one hand, that the Canadian Government of the day acted on a humanitarian basis in accepting more than 37,000 Hungarian refugees, and on the other, it also acted in the best interest of Canada. That’s why the immigration policy revised in 1956-57 has proved to be so lasting, and that’s why it made Canada a role model for the rest of the world.

The collection is well organized. The papers are properly researched and are relevant to the subject. They are stylistically correct and quite readable. The book should be of interest to the student of history and political science, as well as to the related educational and government departments. Although its editors have emphasized a scholarly approach, the general public, and especially the Hungarian refugees, should also find it of great interest. As mentioned above, at the conference there were several other presentations on such topics as contributions made by Hungarian refugees to Canadian cultural expression in creative writing, music, the film industry and the fine arts, papers that did not make it into the book. The decision not to include these made the collection somewhat poorer, as many of these works have been devoted to the memory of the revolution and to the Hungarian experience in Canada.

Apart from some of the few shortcomings, the organizers of the conference and the editors of the collection, and most specifically Judy Young Drache, President of the Canada-Hungary Educational Foundation, and editor-in-chief of the web site Hungarianpresence, deserve the credit for putting out an updated and lasting book on one of the most significant historical events of the last century.

John Miska

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