Talpra Magyar!

Tam notes that today is the anniversary of the Budapest uprising that became the Hungarian revolution of 1956. When I lived in eastern Hungary I got some variant perspectives about the uprising (the USSR's lackey government set it self up in the eastern part of the country). The standard propaganda line (which quite a few people still believed) was that it was 'just a few students' and that most of the country wasn't involved. This is a tough lie to swallow when you see the bullet holes in the walls of buildings throughout the country, but people have an amazing capacity to delude themselves when it serves their interests.

The Hungarian world view is heavily loaded with fatalism, boosted by a dose of Professor de la Paz-style rebelliousness:

Revolution is an art that I pursue rather than a goal I expect to achieve. Nor is this a source of dismay; a lost cause can be as spiritually satisfying as a victory.

So today, tip a beer for the Hungarians -- but don't clink your glasses together! That's what the Russian and Hapsburg generals did after defeating the 1848 Hungarian revolution, so in Hungary they just slam the bottom of the glass on the table before drinking. Egészségedre!

UPDATE: Sorry, forgot to mention -- the title of the post means 'Rise Up Hungarians!' and comes from Petőfi's poem Nemzeti Dal.