The Hungarian intervention in 1968 Prague is still not widely known and deeply processed in public speaking in my country. It’s a dark and disgraceful event of the Hungarian 20th century history. It seems that people try to repressed the memory of this shameful action which was not even honestly supported by the hardcore communist believers at that time.

The main character of the story was János Kádár who had a very controversial political oeuvre. He was the communist leader who betrayed the 1956 Hungarian revolution and who executed his comrade Imre Nagy. He crushed the rebels with the efficient help of the Soviets. Contrary later on in the 60s he modernised the Hungarian society and managed reforms in the economy. He created the happiest barrack of the communist block.

In 1968 he had to accept the idea of the friendly intervention forced by the Soviets although he had earlier a good relationship with Dubcek. In fact he was the one who tried to negotiate between the political sides. He met several times with Dubcek and Brezhnev to bring closer their divergent positions. He failed concerning his attempts because he was not able to convince the Soviets about the needless intervention. And even more he had to betrayed the revolution second time since he had to pay back the favor what he got earlier in 1956 from the Soviets, so he took part of the counterinsurgency. The Hungarian contribution of the intervention happened in quite a silent and Hungarian people tired to forget in the foloowing decades.

Madari za Dunaj! (Hungarians, go back to the other side of the Danube!), 2016, drawing series, 35 pieces, different sizes, mixed technic

This project has been realized during residency at FUTURA - Centre for Contemporary Art in Prague with the support of Visegrad Artist Residency Program – Visual and Sound Arts.

http://visegradfund.org/