’56 Revolution: A Day of Remembrance. Commemorating the 60th Anniversary of the 1956 Revolution

The Fulbright Commission held a commemoration conference and walking tour in honor of the 1956 Revolution. The event took place at the House of Dialogue in Budapest in front of more than 35 current and past US Fulbright grantees, Hungarian alumni, Fulbright partners and friends.

US Embassy Cultural Attaché Christopher Machin opened the conference showing photos taken from the Embassy balcony in 1956. Fulbright board chair and multiple Fulbright alumn Professor Tibor Frank spoke about the events of 1956 in an international context: the Suez crisis, the Austrian state treaty, the US presidential election as well as the general cold war climate. Professor Donald Morse, a founding board member and chair of the Fulbright Commission discussed the impact of 1956 on literature, and in particular on poetry written in English and its parallel emigree and underground iterations in Hungarian. Professor Morse played a recording of ee cummings reading his “Thanksgiving, 1956” poem, a powerful piece portraying both heroism and treachery. Professor Tibor Glant, another multiple Fulbrighter lectured on the impact of ’56 on Hungarian and US popular culture, including comic books, novels, movies and music. This day featured two videos as well. Hungarian-American filmmaker Réka Pigniczky‘s documentary werkfilm from the Memory Project showed excerpts from interviews with 56-ers living in the US and elsewhere.

The highlight of the day was Fulbright alum Bence Ságvári‘s own film on the VIII-th district, where the Fulbright office is located, which served as the basis for the walking tour that paid homage to the everyday people who fought and died in the streets that surround Fulbright’s offices.

We thank our speakers and all the participants for this special day of remembrance.

For more photos see: www.flickr.com/photos/fulbrighthungary