AN EMBLEMATIC SHOT OF THE HUNGARIAN REVOLUTION OF 1956: THE LIFE STORY BEHIND THE PHOTOGRAPH AND THE AFTERLIFE OF THE PHOTOGRAPH
AN EMBLEMATIC SHOT OF THE HUNGARIAN REVOLUTION OF 1956: THE LIFE STORY BEHIND THE PHOTOGRAPH AND THE AFTERLIFE OF THE PHOTOGRAPH

Summary/Abstract: Armed teenagers who fought in the 1956 revolution are preserved in the nation’s memory as “the kids from Pest”, among them, there were several girls who did not get a separate designation, however several photographs of them survived and some appeared widely in the world press. My fellow researcher, a French journalist Phil Casoar, and I selected a captivating photograph of an armed young man and a young woman wearing a red-cross armband that might be described as the extraordinary starting point of our research. In November 1956, numerous prominent western weekly magazines published the photo; subsequently books, documentary films and exhibitions made it widely known. It first appeared as the opening image in a series of articles about the Hungarian revolution, entitled “Budapest Heroes”, appearing in the magazine Paris Match. During the Cold War, the image became well-known in the west as well as the east, but it was placed on opposite poles. In the west, the characters were portrayed as heroes who defied the Soviet tanks; in socialist Hungary and in the east, they were officially considered to be criminals along with other armed rebels. Subsequently, the Hungarian political police used the photos as conclusive evidence during trials. In my presentation I use approximately 35 photographs and documents related to the Paris Match picture to discuss our investigation since 1999, the fate of the young woman appearing in that picture, and the different usages of the Paris Match picture.

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