The fifteenth of March is one of the most important Hungarian national holidays. It is the anniversary of the 1848 revolution. The Government is in the last phase of its preparations for this year’s programmes to which, similar to last year’s events, everyone is welcome, from the youngest to the oldest. This national holiday, too, as all others since the change of government in 2010, will be held without intimidating cordons, in departure from the practice of the years before.

Main venues of programmes: Kossuth Lajos tér, the National Museum and the Buda Castle in Budapest.

Slogan of this year’s ceremonies: „Honour to the brave”.

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán will make a ceremonial speech before the crowd in Kossuth Lajos tér at 3.00 p.m. on 15 March.

Celebrations will commence in this same venue, at 8.00 a.m. with the hoisting of the national flag. This will be followed by a ceremonial march to the Hungarian National Museum, one of the symbolic venues of the revolution. The procession will be accompanied by a military band and the National Cavalry Guard of Honour. István Tarlós, Budapest’s Mayor will deliver a ceremonial speech on the stairs of the Museum at 9.00 a.m. The Parliament Building will be open to the public from nine in the morning until two in the afternoon.

The beautiful Buda Castle will await visitors with family programmes all day long. The Castle will host events such as folk dance classes, folk music performances, free museum visits in several venues, a literary stage, a dog market, contemporary role-play, a fair, a puppet theatre, a stilt march, a weaponry display, cannon assembly and duels, to mention just some of the programmes organised to entertain visitors.

The programmes are organised by the Ministry of Public Administration and Justice, which agreed with the Budapest Metropolitan Mayor’s Office on the use of metropolitan public premises for the 15 March events weeks ago, as well as with the representatives of the One Million for Freedom of Press in Hungary Movement who will hold a demonstration in Szabadsajtó út pursuant to the agreement.

The organisers of the 21 January Peace March announced another pro-government demonstration for the national holiday. According to conservative estimates, the January event of the Peach March was attended by more than 400,000 people, the largest peaceful civil crowd on the streets of the Budapest since the change of regime, furthermore, in support of the Government.

Historical background information on the national holiday: on 15 March, the country commemorates the 1848/49 freedom fight which was one of Hungary’s most decisive historical events. The events in Hungary, with limited independence under the protectorate of the Hapsburg Empire, took place as part of the 1848 wave of revolutions in Europe, which induced a process of bourgeois transformation with its social reforms.

Revolution broke out also in Pest on 15 March 1848 in the wake of news of the Vienna revolution. The Vienna Court was compelled to consent to the appointment of Count Lajos Batthyány as Prime Minister on 17 March, agreed to the establishment of an independent Hungarian government and pledged to ensure that the King would sanctify the reform laws. The new government established with the leadership of Count Lajos Batthyány was no longer accountable to the King but to the elected representatives of the people, Hungarian Parliament, and an independent and responsible government could come into being.

It testifies to the significance of the revolution that the ruling powers eventually only succeeded in crushing it with the assistance of the Russian army.

A 200 000 strong Russian army broke into Hungary in mid-June 1849; the Hungarian leadership was unable to resist, and the combined actions of the two great powers sealed the fate of the Hungarian revolution and freedom fight. A period of reprisal began after the end of the revolution; the Austrian court martial sentenced hundreds of officers and civilians to death, and many more to imprisonment in the castle. From among the captured soldiers, the Hungarians, Seclers, Polish and Germans were forcibly conscripted into the Austrian Army, while other nationals were released.

Thirteen generals of the Hungarian revolution, the Arad martyrs, were executed in Arad on 6 October 1849.

(Ministry of Public Administration and Justice)