An unexpected find while walking through Boston‘s Financial District: a statue commemorating the failed 1956 Hungarian uprising against communist rule. Commissioned by the Hungarian Society of Massachusetts, the statue was dedicated on October 23, 1986, the 30th anniversary of the start of the uprising.
The Hungarian Revolution, the 1953 East German uprising and the 1968 Prague Spring were the strongest threat to Soviet hegemony over the Warsaw Pact nations prior to the 1989 revolutions that culminated in the fall of communism.
The statue’s presence surprised me as I don’t associate Boston with Hungarians; even today, Massachusetts only has the 25th largest Hungarian population in the US. Ohio tops the list and is the only state with more than 1% of its population have Hungarian heritage. Not a large diaspora, but apparently with enough funding anything is possible, such as this statue.
