Ukraine and Hungary — The Unlearned Lesson From 1956

The current war shows that Russian politicians have not changed the way they see the world

9 March 2022

In November 1956, the director of a Hungarian news agency, minutes before artillery shells hit his office, sent a desperate telex to the world about the Russian offensive on Budapest that had begun that day.

A letter has been written addressing this piece about Hungary by Csaba Gy. Kiss

The telex ended with the words: ‘We will die for Hungary and Europe.’ This story was recalled by Milan Kundera in his unforgettable essay ‘The Kidnapped West or the Tragedy of Central Europe‘.

66 years have passed. The nations of Central Europe — about whose fate Kundera wrote — ‘returned to Europe’ to which they had always belonged, but submissive Western politicians betrayed them and in the name of peace, put them under the boot of the Kremlin.

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Leszek Hensel

Diplomat, expert on Central Europe and the Balkans.

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