Boros Géza: Statue Park - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2002)

The endless promenade of the liberation monuments

y. Soviet Heroes' Monument (Péter László, 1951)

This monument once stood in Rege park on Széchenyi Hill. On the sides are two columns, each with a relief; one features a dauntless Soviet soldier, the other a Hungarian woman holding a wreath. The inscription in the middle used to say: Perpetual glory to the heroei who gave their lived in the /fight /for the /freedom and independence of the Soviet Union and the liberation of Hungary. That this was a centrally authorised, canonic', inscription is also attested by another, identical, inscription on exhibit No. 11. of the same promenade, the liberation monument from Angyalföld. (Guidelines for inscriptions on political monuments were issued by the Institute of Party History and the Museum of the Labour Movement.) During the 1956 Revolution, the figure of the Soviet soldier was so severely damaged that its reconstruction was not feasible, so the missing part was replaced with a newly made one in 1961. The monument required further renovation in 1979, but then its deterioration followed the path of the regime's own decline: the bronze letters were stolen bit by bit, which made the inscription illegible, rendering the whole instalment senseless. The indentations left by the missing inscription look like bullet holes. They are the undecipherable symbols of a bygone era.

■ Soviet Heroei'Monument by Péter Láizló. 1951

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