Imre Nagy

Imre Nagy (June 7 1896-June 16 1958) was a Hungarian politician, who was Prime Minister of Hungary on two occasions.

Biography

Nagy (pronounced "nodj", IPA: ) was born in Kaposvár, to a peasant family and was apprenticed to a locksmith, before fighting in the Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I on the Eastern Front. He was taken prisoner in 1915. He then became a Communist, fighting in the Red Army. In 1918 he became a member of the detachment that guarded the imprisoned ex-emperor Nicholas II and his family in Yekaterinburg and took part in their execution on 17 July 1918.

Nagy returned to Hungary after World War I and served in the brief government of Béla Kun. In 1929 he went to the Soviet Union, becoming involved in agricultural research, and working in the Hungarian section of Comintern.

During the time Nagy spent in the Soviet Union, many non-Russian communists were arrested, imprisoned and executed by the Soviet government. In particular, Béla Kun who led the Hungarian Soviet Republic disappeared in the mid 1930s. This incident spurred panic amongst Hungarian communist emigres, as documented in Julius Hay's Born 1900. At this time Nagy became an agent for the Soviet security apparatus. This was common practice, and the fact that Nagy survived the 1930s and 1940s indicates that he operated for the security apparatus (see Granville 1995 and TsKhSD, F. 89, Per. 45, Dok. 82.). It is apparent that Nagy had ceased operating for the Soviet security apparatus by the late 1940s, as at this time he fell from ministerial positions in Hungary.

In 1944 he returned to Hungary again, and served in the Communist government, as Minister of Agriculture and in other posts, becoming an expert on peasants' welfare.

After two years as Prime Minister (1953-1955), during which he promoted his "New Course" Nagy was forced to resign and was expelled from the Communist Party by hardline colleagues, including First Secretary Mátyás Rákosi as a result of the liberalizing tendency that he showed in this office. He then spent time teaching.

He became Prime Minister again during the brief anti-Soviet revolution in 1956, through popular support, replacing the hardliner András Hegedűs. But was forced to work with hardliner Ernő Gerő, who remained the First Party Secretary.

On 31 October he announced Hungary's withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact and on 1 November he appealed through the UN for the great powers, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, to recognize Hungarian neutrality (Gyorgy Litvan, The Hungarian Revolution of 1956, (Longman House: New York, 1996), 55-59).

When the revolution was crushed by the Soviet invasion of the country, Nagy, with others, secured sanctuary in the Yugoslav Embassy. He was arrested, 22 November, in violation of a guarantee of free passage, issued by Kadar, and taken to Romania. He was then returned to Budapest and executed (hanged), with others, after a secret trial in June 1958.

He was buried along with others in a distant corner (section 301) of the Municipal Cemetery outside Budapest. Next to his grave stands a memorial bell inscribed in Latin, Hungarian, German and English. The Latin reads: "Vivos voco Mortuos plango Fulgura frango," which is translated as: "I call the living, I mourn the dead, I chase the lightning."

During the time when the Communist leadership of Hungary would not mark or allow access to his true burial place, a cenotaph in his honor was placed in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. In 1989 he was rehabilitated and his remains reburied in the same plot after a funeral organized in part by opponents of the country's communist regime. This massive public funeral contributed psychologically towards the downfall of communism in Hungary, and it signified the end of the 1956-1989 Kadar era.

The collected writings of Nagy were published as "Imre Nagy On Communism."

In 2003 and 2004 the Hungarian director Márta Mészáros created a film on his life after the revolution, called "The Unburied Dead" (Imdb entry).

References

Gyula Háy Hay, Julius . Born 1900: memoirs. Hutchinson: 1974.
Granville, Joanna. "Imre Nagy, aka "Volodya" - a dent in the martyr's halo?" Cold War International History Project Bulletin 5 (1995): 28, 34-36.
KGB Chief Kryuchkov to CC CPSU, 16 June 1989 (trans. Joanna Granville). Cold War International History Project Bulletin 5 (1995): 36 TsKhSD, F. 89, Per. 45, Dok. 82.
Heresch, Elisabeth. "Nikolaus II. Feigheit, Lüge und Verrat". F.A.Herbig Verlagsbuchhandlung, MÜnchen, 1992.

Gourt Home::Gourt :: Imre Nagy

Biography

References

Further reading