1956 Memorial in Madrid (Monumento a la Revolución Húngara de 1956, Madrid)
The central theme of the art competition held to create the memorial was to pay tribute to the heroes and martyrs of the 1956 Revolution. The iconography of the design incorporates several elements that directly reference 1956: the two walls evoke the Hungarian flag with a hole in it, from which the communist coat of arms was cut out during the revolution; the walls built of cobblestones evoke the streets of Budapest in 1956, the barricades, and the buildings damaged in the fighting; the breaking chains symbolize liberation from oppression and the desire for freedom; the memorial flame in the center is intended to symbolize the memory, courage, and sacrifice of those who fought for freedom and their homeland; the artistic concept attributes special symbolic meaning to the approach from the east and west sides: it refers to Europe, which was divided in two during the Cold War.
The Madrid City Council approved the project, and the Embassy coordinated the art competition.
On either side of the monument are commemorative plaques in Hungarian and Spanish.
The inscription begins with a line from Sándor Márai’s poem “An Angel from Heaven”: “Because a people said: Enough is enough.”
In Spanish: «Cuando un pueblo dijo: Ya basta.».
This is followed by a commemorative text dedicated to the heroes of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and War of Independence, which includes the line: “Soviet tanks may have crushed the revolution, but they could never crush the Hungarians’ desire for freedom.”
The plaque also notes that the monument was erected by the Hungarian Embassy in Madrid with the support of the Memorial Committee established for the 60th anniversary of the 1956 Revolution and War of Independence.