Varga László - Lugosi András (szerk.): URBS. Magyar Várostörténeti Évkönyv XIV. - URBS 14. (Budapest, 2020)
Recenziók
318 Abstracts the new political elite tried to form the new Socialist capital of the country, that looked to Moscow as an example to follow. Similar trends can be seen in other capitals of the satellite countries, for example in East-Berlin and in Warsaw. In the beginning of the 1950s in Budapest, apart from the new national stadium, the People’s Stadium (Népstadion), the largest investment served the creation of the new Socialist festive venue. The hugely enlarged Stalin Square (later Parade Square) linked to the City Park was to imitate the Red Square in Moscow, with its several metre-tall Stalin statute. It was aimed to serve the needs for mass events and be the venue for mass parades. The present paper aims to study the interaction between the urban places of Budapest and the special needs of the Socialist regime through the example of Stalin Square. It illustrates the Soviet model of the Socialist festive venues, why the Socialist systems had special needs for celebration, how the new Hungarian system ended the earlier customs of celebrations and its venues and how the Hungarian decision makers tried to apply the Soviet model in the historic Budapest. Dávid Kiss Celebration in the phalanstery. 1 May 1957 and its background During my research new sources came to light on how 1 May was celebrated after 1945, and how other holidays were organised in the City Park and in the vicinity of it. According to the sources when organising the events, earlier programs were often followed. There are considerable similarities between the May 1 events of 1948 and of 1957. The 1948 took place just before the formation of the Hungarian Workers’ Party, the event was considered as important from the point of view of the merger of the two parties. The venue of the event were the Parade Square, as it was called later, and the City Park, the program was preceded by an organised march, during which the participants walked across the entire city. The performance of the 1957 event is very similar to this. No wonder, as the message was: they wanted to return to the 1948 basics. The event was a symbol of this message, how it was executed in the field of politics, is a different question. May 1 events from 1945 to 1947 serve as examples to the 1948 holiday, when the two working parties organised the event jointly. The study aims to focus on how different the 1948 and 1957 events were, as both can be regarded an opening of an era. The analysis of the background must be an important topic in the research. However, the 1957 celebration differs from both the earlier one (1950s) and also from the later ones.
