Revolution in Hungary: The 1956 Budapest Uprising

Photographs by Erich Lessing

When a mass rally in Budapest transformed into the Hungarian Revolution on October 26, 1956, photographer Erich Lessing took to the streets with his camera, hoping to capture the war and its people.

The revolution lasted until November 4 and crushed the Hungarian people, leaving thousands of rebels dead.

His photographs display the chronology of emotions. He captures the revolution’s early moments of hope and exhilaration — and also documents its crushing end. The faces are, at first, euphoric as the Hungarian population rebels against the Soviet regime. However, toward the end, their faces turn grim and hopeless as they are suppressed into compliance once again.

But "Revolution in Hungary: The 1956 Budapest Uprising" is more than a collection of photographs. It is a collection of thoughts, history and repercussions. Lessing and Hungarian novelist George Konrad share their war-torn memories, political journalist Francois Fejto provides readers with the revolution’s political and historical background and historian Nicolas Bauquet’s words drive home the revolution’s aftermath.

The book opens with a series of photographs of political figures. We see First Secretary of the Polish United Workers’ Party Wladyslaw Gomulka laughing with sympathizers near a polling station in 1956 and Hungarian liberal reform communist Imre Nagy sitting inside his house on Orsó Street. He looks energetic, unaware his days are numbered.

These expressive human portraits become more sparse as the revolution begins and Lessing starts to capture the emotions and violence of the moment. The images come at you quickly, hitting you like bullets.

Two Hungarians stand out in a black and white image holding Hungarian flags in front of a sea of demonstrators rebelling against the Soviet Union.

A man stands, arm outstretched, in the shattered window of the Soviet bookstore on Váci Street. He is reciting Petöfi’s national song in front of a pile of burning books and pamphlets. It is an image eerily reminiscent of Nazi Germany.

Life-size portraits of party Secretary Mátyás Rákosi are burned by insurgents and Hungarians outside the newly occupied Budapest headquarters of the Hungarian Communist Party.

The dead are everywhere. Soviet soldiers killed for protecting the Budapest headquarters of the Communist Party from Hungarian rebels line the street in front of the building. Another photograph shows us the body of a fallen Soviet soldier lying covered in dirt and debris on József Boulevard.

But in the midst of chaos, there is also the battle for survival. We see a middle-aged man and woman in heavy jackets collecting books from a damaged building and a small boy carrying home a large piece of firewood, nearly twice his height, during the brutal winter of 1956-57.

Lessing sees the revolution’s turn at the Ukrainian border when Soviet tanks, instead of retreating, charge toward the heart of Budapest. He rushes back to the hotel, gathers two Hungarian friends and heads for the border. Within a few days, the revolution is brutally suppressed.

Lessing’s last days recorded in Hungary are those of Goulash Communism and his realization that the dream of a new communist nation without the Secret Police was just that — a dream.

About Erich Lessing

Erich Lessing has been a member of the Magnum Photo Agency since 1950 and is a Magnum contributor. He has received a number of prestigious awards, including the French Prix Nadar. He is also a member of UNESCO’s International Committee of Museums.