Page 25 - Microsoft Word - 01_A MÁSIK OLDAL English.doc

You could feel the solidarity, the togetherness all throughout the

city. People were having conversations in groups. The author
Dezső Szabó had once written these beautiful lines about a
somewhat similar phenomenon, although about an Italian
person, but the feelings of the lines were appropriate in
contemporary Hungary as well: “Happy is the nation in which
mother country is so much built into even the simplest of
workers. It is a nation founded upon common preterit, common
labour, common purposes, common miseries and joys, which
cannot be beset by any foe or dissipated by any peace
conference. This is the undying solidarity, the one truly human
imperialism.” Neither before 1956, nor after it could such a
thing be so steadfastly felt in Hungary.
How bloody was the road for Hungarians after the fall of
Austro-Hungarian monarchy following the First World War,
despite of the fact that WWI was followed by a relatively
peaceful period, and for half of the country, a relatively
prosperous one – albeit poor for millions on the other side.

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