Remembering Hungary’s Uprising

The world was so mesmerised yesterday by the capture and summary execution of Muammar Gaddafi that most people failed to notice the 55th anniversary of the Hungarian Uprising. Coincidentally the events in Budapest in 1956 were also overshadowed by North Africa so far as London and Paris and even Washington were concerned because of the Suez Crisis. But last night the Hungarian Embassy in London hired the circular great hall at Church House Westminster — the place where the Synod of the Church of England meets — to host a reception in memory of what is now referred to as the Hungarian Revolution. I mused that for well over half a century, the word ‘Revolution’ had been tainted by Communism, but the Arab Awakening — and in particular Egypt’s February 2011 Revolution — has given the term a new respectability, even chic. In case anyone present doubted just how firmly Hungary has returned into the European mainstream, Ambassador Janos Csak (who sports a moustache that would have graced the Austro-Hungarian Empire) led everyone present, including the Conservative junior Foreign Minister Lord Howell, in a rendition of the Hungarian and British national anthems.