In 1989, a young Viktor Orbán delivered a fiery speech at the reburial of Imre Nagy — the reformist communist prime minister executed in 1958 for leading the 1956 Hungarian Revolution against Soviet rule. Before a crowd of 200,000, Orbán demanded free elections and the withdrawal of Soviet troops. That moment launched his political career.
In 1996, a bronze statue by sculptor Tamás Varga was erected on a small pedestrian bridge at Vértanúk tere (Martyrs’ Square), steps from Parliament — with the support of Orbán’s own party, Fidesz. Nagy stood on the bridge looking toward Parliament, symbolising that he had taken Hungary „halfway to freedom.”
On 28 December 2018, before dawn, authorities removed the statue. In its place, the government reconstructed a memorial to the victims of the 1919 Red Terror — a monument that had originally stood there during Miklós Horthy’s pro-Nazi regime (1934–1945). Nagy’s statue was relocated to Jászai Mari tér, about a kilometre north, on the spot where statues of Marx and Engels once stood.
The same political leader who built his legitimacy on Nagy’s grave ordered his statue moved from the centre of democratic memory to the periphery — replacing it with a monument from the authoritarian interwar period.
Few episodes illustrate the politics of contested heritage more vividly: monuments don’t just commemorate the past; they are instruments for rewriting it.
(Photo: Adam78 / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain)
Sources:
BBC — Hungary removes statue of anti-Soviet hero Imre Nagy, 28 dec. 2018
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46704111
France 24 — „Hungary’s Orban under fire for removing statue, 28 dec. 2018
https://www.france24.com/en/20181228-hungarys-orban-under-fire-removing-statue
Say It With Statues: Brick-and-Mortar Revisionism in Orban’s Hungary, 11 feb. 2019
https://warontherocks.com/2019/02/say-it-with-statues-brick-and-mortar-revisionism-in-orbans-hungary/
USC Center on Public Diplomacy (universitar):
https://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/blog/say-it-statues-reconstructing-hungarys-political-history
Daily News Hungary — Imre Nagy memorial removed from Martyrs’ Square, 28 dec. 2018
https://dailynewshungary.com/imre-nagy-memorial-removed-from-martyrs-square/
Deutsche Welle — Hungary removes statue of anti-Soviet icon, 29 dec 2018
https://www.dw.com/en/hungary-removes-statue-of-anti-soviet-icon-imre-nagy/a-46891712
Krastev, I. & Holmes, S., The Light that Failed: A Reckoning, Allen Lane, 2019
