Friday, 23 October 2026 marks the 70th anniversary of the 1956 revolution, the largest such event so far in Magyar's nearly six months in office, with dozens of events in Budapest.
Ursula von der Leyen is due to speak in parliament in the early afternoon, and Magyar about two hours later at Kossuth Square. Germany is represented by Steffen Bilger (CDU) in place of Friedrich Merz.
Fidesz lawmakers, the party of former prime minister Viktor Orban, will boycott the special parliamentary session and gather at Bem Square instead.
Magyar is preparing to declassify the archives of the former pro-Soviet regime, while opposition politicians call his government 'neocommunist'.
Hungary will mark the 70th anniversary of the 1956 uprising on Friday, 23 October 2026, in the largest such event so far in Peter Magyar's nearly six months as prime minister. Dozens of commemorative events are planned in Budapest, and the anniversary will also be marked at numerous other sites across the country where the weeks of 1956 are remembered. In the early afternoon a special ceremony in parliament will feature a speech by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. About two hours later Magyar is due to address the public at Kossuth Square in front of parliament. Many foreign guests have announced their attendance, while German Chancellor Friedrich Merz will be represented by Transport Minister Steffen Bilger (CDU).
The revolution began on 23 October 1956, when 200,000 people gathered at Kossuth Square to demand change. Part of the crowd moved on to Dozsa Boulevard, where the ten-metre-high, six-tonne Stalin statue was pulled from its plinth. On 25 October, state security units fired on peaceful demonstrators, and much of the army went over to the revolution. Imre Nagy's government announced Hungary's withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact on 1 November. Soviet forces crushed the uprising in bloody street fighting on 4 November, twelve days after it began. Reporting puts the death toll above 2,500, and about 200,000 Hungarians fled into exile. Kadar's government later executed more than 200 participants, Nagy among them, and jailed 22,000 people.
Memory of the revolution and the demand for a dignified reburial of Nagy, who was executed for his role in the uprising, helped bring about the end of the dictatorship and the change of political system in 1989. On 16 June 1989, the day of Nagy's reburial, Viktor Orban gave a well-known speech at Heroes' Square in Budapest calling for the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungary. The articles note that this speech marked the start of Orban's large political career. Since 1990, 23 October has been a state holiday marking the day the revolution began.
Magyar, a lawyer by training, places great weight on history and memory, often setting historical context in his speeches and sometimes holding cabinet meetings at historically significant places. Some observers in Hungary describe him as obsessed with history. The commemoration comes after the Orban government was voted out in April 2026. Fidesz lawmakers will boycott the parliamentary session and gather at Bem Square instead, while opposition politicians call the Magyar government 'neocommunist'. Tisza officials describe this as the first free 1956 anniversary in fifteen years. Magyar is preparing to declassify the archives of the former pro-Soviet regime. After Orban returned to power in 2010, Hungary drew closer to Moscow, handing Russia the expansion of the Paks nuclear plant and keeping a heavy dependence on Russian hydrocarbons.
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Hungary holds its largest commemoration under Prime Minister Peter Magyar on Friday, 23 October, with dozens of events in Budapest and others across the country. Fidesz lawmakers plan to boycott the special parliamentary session and gather at Bem Square instead.
AI text based on reports by Deutsche Welle, RTBF, Wirtschafts Woche and other publishers. Published .