Where Lenin Stood: Hungary’s Vanished Communist Monuments

Budapest 1977-2019
A cubist statue of communist philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (top). In 2019, a monument to pro-reform communist politician Imre Nagy was moved onto the site from its former location behind Hungary’s famous parliament building. Nagy was executed for his role in the 1956 uprising against Soviet domination of Hungary. 1977 photo: Fortepan/Hlatky Katalin-Fokert

Gyor 1969-2019
A World War II memorial in front of the Gyor city council building featuring a Soviet soldier with his gun thrust aloft in victory (left). The monument was relocated to a city cemetery in 1990 and replaced with an uncontroversial tree. 1969 photo: Fortepan/Uvaterv

Budapest 1956 - 2019
A Red Army soldier statue being torn from his plinth during the 1956 uprising (top). Most of the other, less politically charged figures of the Liberty Statue atop Budapest’s Gellert Hill remained untouched. Like many of the communist-era statues in this gallery, the soldier now stands in an open-air museum in Budapest. 1956 photo: Fortepan/Nagy Gyula

Budapest 1956 - 2019
A 25-meter statue of Josef Stalin in Budapest (top) that communist officials called a “gift” to the dictator from the Hungarian people. The historic photo was shot five months before the monument was beheaded and dragged through the streets. In 2006, a sculpture commemorating the events of 1956 was built on the site. The memorial is just visible in the 2019 photo covered with a tarpaulin. The area is now undergoing a massive, contentious redevelopment.1956 photo: Fortepan/Adomanyazo
 

Salgotarjan 1982 - 2019
A five-meter chromed steel monument to a World War II partisan fighter on a hilltop overlooking Salgotarjan (top). The monument was removed in 1993 and now stands in a far less prominent spot outside the town center. On the site of the gleaming partisan is a lookout platform topped with a Hungarian flag. 1982 photo: Fortepan/Magyar Rendor

Debrecen 1972-2019
A memorial to Soviet soldiers that once towered over a central square in the eastern city of Debrecen (top). The monument originally featured the names of dead Red Army soldiers beneath a young family welcoming the Soviet Army into Hungary during World War II.

In 1993, the monument (on right in 2019 photo) was moved a few meters back from its central location, cut to a stumpier height, and the names of dead Red Army soldiers were removed. 1972 photo: Fortepan/Inkey Tibor

Budapest 1968-2019
One prominent communist monument that has remained untouched is the Pantheon of the Labor Movement in Budapest’s Fiumei Road Graveyard. Scores of urns inside the crypt hold the ashes of prominent Hungarian communists, though most spaces today remain empty.

The inscription above the three figures says “They lived for communism and the people.” 1968 photo: Fortepan/Lechner Nonprofit Kft. Dokumentacios Kozpont

Komlo 1962-2019
Lenin overlooking a central square in Komlo (top). After the monument was pulled down, the site stood vacant until 2000 when a coal mine in the town closed down and a beloved monument to child musicians at the mine was brought in to fill the empty plinth. The toppled Lenin statue was initially housed in a local museum before being bought by a private collector. 1962 photo: Fortepan/Magyar Pal

Budapest 1974-2019
A Red Army memorial in a central Budapest park (top), replaced with a giant stone cross. An inscription dedicates the new monument to “our compatriots who died in Soviet labor camps.” 1974 photo: Fortepan/Gyongyi

Debrecen 1977-2019
A Lenin gesturing west in Debrecen (top). Today a sundial, tipped with phoenix wings and planted with ornamental cabbages, stands in his place.​ 1977 photo Fortepan/MHSZ

Budapest 1949-2019
A limestone statue being unveiled on Stalin’s birthday in central Budapest (top). The inscription reads, “From the grateful Hungarian people to the great Stalin.” The statue was pushed off its plinth in 1956. A memorial to victims of the first Hungarian Revolution of 1848 stands in the spot today. 1949 photo: Fortepan/Magyar Rendor

Szolnok 1977-2019
A Lenin monument erected in the 1960s in the eastern town of Szolnok (top). The Soviet leader was replaced with an installation representing a scene from the riverside town’s early history. In 2013, the Lenin was photographed lying on his back in an unknown location. The chimney in the background was shortened sometime since the 1970s. 1977 photo: Fortepan/MHSZ