Foreword

"For Whom the Bell Tolls" is the title of Hemingway's famous novel. It quotes John Donne's Meditation, a well-known line of which goes "No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main".

We might try to rephrase Donne's sentence to characterize a whole nation like Hungary, the "shield of christianity" in the Middle Ages. Already an integral "piece of the continent" for several centuries, in 1456 our country heroically defended Europe against the sultan's huge army at the castle of Nándorfehérvár (Belgrade), against improbable odds. Since that victory, throughout the Christian world the bells toll for Hungary at noon every day, commemorating the heroes of our nation.

500 years after the siege of Nándorfehérvár, in the autumn of 1956, Hungarians rose up to overthrow an oppressive and brutal communist regime. This time fighting against insurmountable odds on the streets of the capital, Budapest, Hungarian insurgents engaged the invading Soviet troops sent to crush the revolution.

Without our mysterious faith in Hungarian history, we could not appreciate that Hungary, in defending the whole of Europe, could hold up its blood-spattered body first at Nándorfehérvár along the Danube in 1456, and then at another city by the same river, Budapest, in 1956, exactly 500 years later, the first time victorious, the second time left hopelessly to itself, and thereby ultimately once again victorious. Without this mystery, we could not appreciate that, as these lines are written, we are celebrating the 555th anniversary of Nándorfehérvár and the bells at noon, and the 55th anniversary of Budapest and the brutal silencing of the unsilenceable words of freedom.

Were all of the "lads of Pest" of 1956 buried somehow, at least hurriedly, at least in the mud? Was everyone accounted for? Is there an unknown voice enclosed in concrete under the asphalt which, when it lived, shouted at the expense of its owner's life, screaming Long live Hungary, long live Hungarian freedom! at the last bullet? And if we know where they died, do we always know why? The 20th century symbol of freedom, 16 year-old student Kata Magyar - a young girl who volunteered to help as a nurse - as she rushed along the streets to tend the wounded, why was she shot dead?

Her grave, under the undyingly beautiful arch of the rainbow, how near is it to Árpád's, who has been the father of us all since the Hungarian conquest in 895-896?