The Hungarian October

“The revolution made history even in its own time” – it is written in the preface of the book. October 23, 1956 will remain in the memory of people and nations forever. It was a day of courage, consciousness and victory. Since the beginning of history, there has not been a day that would show better man’s infinite longing for freedom, let the chance of success be rather small, or the sacrifice demanded all too big – said President Kennedy during the days of the revolution, at the UN debate of the issue of Hungary.

For over thirty years, the image of a falsified revolution has been living in most of the historical adaptations and in the history view of people. Luckily, this view has changed a lot during the past three decades, due to the growing number of facts, the formation of the spirit of age and a more subtle approach to the issue.

As a result of the cooperation of NSZL and Kossuth Publishing House, a book with a DVD supplement edited by János Rainer M., Head of NSZL’s 1956 Institute was published. The publication focuses on the preliminaries, course and aftermath of what happened sixty years ago. It takes us to places where all those things had happened and gives a portrait of well-known and anonymous main characters, taking into account versions of revolutionary action. The frame of onetime world politics is put behind the tableau of revolutionary Hungary. The book evokes images of Budapest and the countryside of 1956, even in the proper sense of the word, via more than 100 period photos made by famous cameramen and anonymous witnesses. With the exception of a British diplomat of the time, authors of the writings are our historian colleagues, the majority of whom did not focus on the evaluation of the Hungarian revolution of 1956. Instead, they made an attempt to collect a resource of knowledge, on the basis of which the nation can regard the Hungarian October as its own.

Data of the book:
A magyar október (The Hungarian October)
Edited by János Rainer M.
Photos selected by Réka Sárközy and Judit Topits
NSZL – Kossuth Publishing House, Budapest, 2016
144 pages + DVD supplement
ISBN 978 963 098 641 0
Price: HUF 3,400

The book is available at the Book Shop of National Széchényi Library, or it can be ordered from our Office of New Publications at the following contact: Tímea Budai-Király, Office of New Publications of NSZL’s Directorate of Research and Academic Affairs, National Széchényi Library; Wing “F” of Buda Royal Palace, H-1827 Budapest; Tel.: +361 224 3878, Fax: + 361 202 0804, email: kiadvanytar@oszk.hu.