Speech by President Katalin Novák in Melbourne on the occasion of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and War of Independence
2023 OCTOBER 23.
“We agree with the Members of the first free Parliament, who stated in their first resolution that our current liberty was born out of our 1956 revolution.
The state structure based on the rule of law, established in accordance with the will of the nation through the first free elections held in 1990, and the previous communist dictatorship are incompatible. The Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party and its legal predecessors and the other political organisations established to serve them in the spirit of communist ideology were criminal organisations, and their leaders shall have responsibility without statute of limitations for:
-maintaining and directing an oppressive regime, violating the law and betraying the nation;
-suppressing with bloodshed, in cooperation with Soviet occupying forces, the Revolution and War of Independence which broke out on 23 October 1956, the ensuing reign of terror and retaliation, and the forced flight of two hundred thousand Hungarian people from their native country; “
(Extract from the Fundamental Law of Hungary)
Dear Heroes of 1956, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Dear Commemorating Audience!
Thank you for inviting us, thank you for the opportunity to celebrate together. It feels good to be here. I have travelled 15 thousand kilometres to celebrate with you today. I salute the heroes of 1956 who are still alive and celebrating with us today. We are grateful to you and proud of you. I greet the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those who emigrated after 1956, with whom we speak the same Hungarian language and who have absorbed the stories of the revolution and of distant Hungary together with folk songs and folk tales.
I welcome those who emigrated from what is now Hungary, and I welcome those who came here from Transylvania, the Délvidék, the Felvidék or Transcarpathia. I also welcome those who arrived long after 1956 or were born here. I welcome the leaders and members of the Hungarian community.
As President of Hungary, it is my constitutional duty and responsibility to maintain our relations with the Hungarian diasporas in the world. That is why my first trip here in Australia was to you, the Hungarians living in the diaspora. During the five years of my presidency, I have visited all the major Hungarian communities scattered in remote parts of the world. I have visited Hungarians living in Brazil, those who have emigrated to the United States and Canada.
Let me emphasize that on these occasions, we do not just spend time together, and do not only celebrate together what we have in common, but we also keep enriching it. We opened a church and a community centre in Toronto just as we did in Brisbane a few days later. I have come here directly from the Árpád Home for the Elderly, where I met Aunt Eva, Aunt Marika and Uncle Sanyi, and they told me about their very personal experiences of October 1956. It felt good to be with them, it felt good to talk to them.
Ladies and Gentlemen!
Today we celebrate what unites us in a self-evident manner. We share a common language, a common history and we have special days in common. October 23 is embraced by Hungarians living in the motherland, in the Carpathian Basin and in the diaspora. As the youngest ever President of Hungary, I belong to the generation of the grandchildren of the heroes of 1956. I am also here today on their behalf, and I thank the Lads and Lasses of Pest for making it clear to the whole world that communism is irreparable and irredeemable, because it disregards the individual and their freedom, and does not shy away even from the most vicious violence.
Because, in addition to physical freedom, it also seeks to deprive us of the spiritual and intellectual freedom that is essential to life, because it does not build but destroys, because it intrudes relentlessly into every area of life, so that the nation is replaced by an empire, the family by a party state, and love by hatred.
23 October is the most important celebratory day in the diaspora. On this day, we have a lot to celebrate and a lot to mourn. We celebrate our Hungarian national identity. We celebrate our love of freedom, and we celebrate the Hungarian nation’s self-evident unity across borders.
We mourn those who gave their lives for the freedom we now have. We are saddened by the physical distance wedged between us, and we lament the lives spent in struggle, the families torn apart, the forced emigration.
Dear Celebrating Audience!
Hungarian is the language of freedom. It is our common language, we speak it, we understand it, we sing, dream and pray in it. And anyone who truly understands the essence of the Hungarian language will never submit to oppressive dictatorships, because Hungary has never been a place where dictatorships were conceived. Authoritarian regimes have never been able to take deep root in Hungary, either.
Here in Melbourne, we cannot forget that although the revolution was crushed, its fire lived on in the Olympic flame. The 1956 Summer Games in Melbourne became the most dramatic, rather than the most successful Hungarian Olympic Games of all time. A boycott, a water polo victory over the Soviets who had just crushed the revolution in Budapest, the unforgettable image of Ervin Zádor’s bleeding head in the world press, the success of the now 102-year-old Ágnes Keleti, life-changing decisions to return home or stay, nine gold, ten silver and seven Hungarian bronze medals. This is Melbourne, this is 56, this is our story.
1956 gives us a moral basis on which to predicate our decisions today. This is why we have reunited the nation in a legal sense, and why we grant Hungarian citizenship and the right to vote to our fellow Hungarians living outside our borders. We have shouted to the winds that all Hungarians are equal, wherever they live in the world, because a Hungarian is a Hungarian, period.
During my visit to the Árpád Home for the Elderly I chatted with Uncle Laci, who is over 90 years old. It moved me deeply to hear from him that he has only one wish for his life. His only regret is that he does not yet have his Hungarian citizenship. Uncle Laci does not want Hungarian citizenship so that he can travel with a Hungarian passport to places where it would otherwise be more difficult, but because it is important for him to feel that we belong together in this way.
This is why Hungarian citizenship is important, and this is why we are doing everything we can to ensure that everyone who can has the opportunity to become a Hungarian citizen if they so wish. We Hungarians are a world nation, and we have become a world nation not because we wanted to, but because our history made it so.
Ladies and Gentlemen!
We must also remember the difficult times we are living in, surrounded as we are by warfare. There is war in our immediate neighbour, and there is war far away. War in Ukraine and war in the Middle East. We clearly and unequivocally condemn the aggression of Russia and Hamas and stand with the victims. We want to avoid further escalation. That is why we are providing humanitarian aid to those fleeing the war. We are helping beyond our means and our strength. Thank you for being our partners in this. We are for the innocent victims and for peace, because peace is what the people here want.
We Hungarians want peace. We want to preserve our hard-won peaceful life. We, mothers and grandmothers, do not want to send our children and grandchildren to the battlefield. The memory of 1956 obliges us to act in this way, and reminds us that the freedom we have won must be fought for again and again. For us, taking action day by day for what the heroes of 1956 fought for, i.e. for a free and strong Hungarian nation, is not an option, but an obligation.
Thank you very much.
Subject: Hungarian Revolution and War of Independence
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