1989. március (számozatlan) / HU_BFL_XIV_47_2

that the buildings must be decorated wit’n red flags on this day. In this year and in 1952 a further four church celebration days are prohibited, including the second day of Christmas. March 1952: Hungárián towns are decotaed with flags fór Mátyás Rákosi's sixtieth birthday. The Soviet Union honours two Hungárián writers with the Stalin prize. March 1953: The country celebrates fór the first time in years, bút in secret, because Stalin is dead. March 15th is memorable because the leadership announce that Easter Monday is a work day. March 1954: Somé relief, martial law is stopped and somé leaders of the AVH (Stalinist secret police) are sentenced. March 1955: The new régimé did nőt last long, the Central Leadership of the Hungárián Workers Party condemns and later expels Imre Nagy from the Party. March 1956: Hopes are raised after the XXth Congress of the Soviet Party. On March 17th the first public event is held by the Petőfi Circle.

űctober 1956: The ideas of 1848 are revived. The people once again take up arms against absolutism and wage a bloody fight fór freedom. The Communist Party knows that the struggle has the same objectives as that of a century befőre. The rulers are helped once more by the Russians and again quell the people's revolution. 15th March 1957: Secause of a slogan "We begin again in March" masses of young people are arrested, beaten up, interned and pút on trial. The national celebration, after being rehabilitated only a few montns earlier, is announced a work day once more.

March 1958: The^Imre Nagy trial continues in secret. 15th March 1959: Thirty-three members of the Újpest Revolutionary Committee are sentenced, seven of them to death.

As before, after 1849, a silence smothered the country, during the Ides of March the slogans of the Communist counter-revolution are repeated over and over in the garden of the National Museum. Bút nőt everybody can be silencea.

In 1969 Sándor Bauer, a 17 year old apprentice, set fire to himself on the stairs of the National Museum while cheering Hungárián freedom.

The people celebrate March 15th year after year: they come alone or with their children, they stand at the Petőfi statue, they lay flowers on it and puli up the red flags stuck intő the ground. 15th March 1971: A young mán, Kálmán Tóth, recites the National Anthem, he is arrested and sentenced to one year imprisonment.

The recitation of "Rise up Hungarians" starts a revolutionary cyle of events, just as it did 141 years ago and in 1956. On October 6th 1971 Gábor Sterzel and Péter Melhoffer are arrested in the Museum garden fór speaking about Hungárián poverty and of tne people who live in cellar dwellings. 15th March 1972: The front of the National Museum is decorated with a huge banner saying "Faith to the People, Faith to the Party". The confident Party leadership no longer commemorates the revolution and freedom fight by the Petőfi statue out praises the activities of Communists, graduates and the Youtn Guard and welcornes a high r nking Soviet Army Officer,

Young people gather and sing songs from 1848 and march in losse groups to Lajos Kossuth Square and the Batthyány Sanctuary Lamp. The police cannot disperse the commemorators bút they árrést people and take them to the V. district Police nead- quarters. In the aftemoon the marchers gather in the National Museum garden and go to Buda Castle. There they are attacked by armed police with truncheons, fists and about 500 are arrested. Many of them are expelled from secondary schools, universities, others are sentenced to a term of imprisonment in Baracska and eight are pút on trial. They include Miklós Szalai, who tried to say a few words to the crowd, Gábor Ulveczky who distributed Mihály Babits's poem "Petőfi’s wreaths", Gábor Murgács, who called a policeman a fascist and 19 year old Kalászi who was himself called a fascist by the police. They were sentencec to between four and twenty months.

The spirit of re’oellion cannot be suppressed. In 1973 more people went to Petőfi Square with huge rosettes. The majority of them arrive in the early evening as they are kept in the educational institutes until then to prevent trouble. A brutal police attack ensues in Lajos Kossuth Street and Sándor Petőfi Street. Hundreds are beaten UP, arrested and fined, layed off and impriaoned. At that time everyone knew what went- 2 4