Russian Embassy: Russian textbook calling Hungary's 1956 Revolution "fascist" is fake news

The Russian embassy in Budapest responds to the scandal triggered by a history textbook.

Budapest, 2020. február 6. Az átadott Szabad György Irodaház, az Országgyûlés Hivatalának új, Kossuth téri épülete 2020. február 6-án. Elõtérben az 1956. október 25-i Kossuth téri sortûz áldozatainak emlékhelyének bejárata. MTI/Szigetváry Zsolt Fotó: Szigetváry Zsolt

A new history textbook – written by Vladimir Medinsky, an adviser to President Putin, for 11th grade students  – presented the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 as a fascist uprising,  Magyar Nemzet reported in a previous article. The book includes two paragraphs on the Hungarian Revolution and Freedom Fight of 1956, which was crushed by Soviet troops. The textbook says that "the Hungarian crisis was catalyzed by the actions of Western secret services and the internal opposition they supported. The Soviet Union sent troops to Hungary and helped the Hungarian authorities to suppress the protests." The Russian textbook, illustrated with a photo of a toppled statue of Stalin, portrays 1956 as a fascist uprising and describes the Soviet withdrawal from Hungary in 1990 as a mistake. In a statement, Tamas Menczer, state secretary for bilateral relations at the foreign affairs ministry, said

in 1956, the Hungarian people rebelled against the communist dictatorship, and this is a clear, unquestionable fact, not a matter of debate. All claims to the contrary are false. What has happened is so clear that we refuse to open a debate with anyone about this.

The Russian embassy in Budapest reacted to the issue on Facebook today, saying that "unfortunately, the criticism leveled against us is based on an article published by a Hungarian news portal that used - perhaps intentionally, perhaps unknowingly - the information and political narrative provided by the Latvia-based Meduza media outlet. The Latvian news outlet engages in the production and circulation of anti-Russia fake news and Russia rightfully classifies it as a foreign agent. This material, in particular, contains an assessment of the 1956 events in Hungary taken out of context, deliberately presenting Russia's position negatively."

The embassy considered it important to highlight that when the textbook was presented in Moscow on August 8, officials noted that at least "ten different draft versions" of the textbook had reached the Russian press.  It is difficult to tell which draft version the article was based on, but none of the draft textbooks we know describes the "1956 revolution" as "fascist" (the finalized version of the textbook has not yet reached the embassy). All this reminds us of the kids game "spoiled telephone", when a word or sentence is whispered "into the neighbor's ear" and the end result is not at all what was said at the beginning.

The embassy emphasized that 

modern Russia has unfailing respect for the historical memory of the Hungarian people and recognizes that there are complex issues in our shared history, such as the events of 1956.  This is why we have always treated the question with caution and have not allowed to exploit the issue for political purposes or to comment on events of the past from today's perspective, stripped of their historical context. We equally reject the opportunistic rewriting of history, omitting inconvenient facts and remaining silent about the role of active participants. It is fundamentally important to rely on archival materials and the testimonies of contemporaries in this regard.

The embassy emphasized that they wanted to clarify that in Vladimir Putin's opinion, the collapse of the Soviet Union was a "geopolitical disaster", which led to 25 million Russian nationals and Russian-speaking citizens ending up outside of the borders of their homeland from one moment to the other. Many of them became "second-rate citizens" in some countries such as the "super democratic" Baltic states and Ukraine. "The feelings of our compatriots in this regard are understandable and evoke sympathy in every Hungarian whose hearts are filled with patriotism and love for their people and nation; all those who feel saddened by the 'tragedy of Trianon', which resulted in Hungary losing not only a significant part of its territory, but also more than half of its population," the statement said.

Cover photo: Entrance to the memorial site dedicated to the victims of the Kossuth Square massacre on October 25, 1956  (Photo: MTI/Zsolt Szigetvary)