Week 7 of the Challenge. Part 1

1.  Topic:  Hungarian Revolt of 1956.  With the uprising that is taking place today in the Ukrain I thought it might be interesting to compare those events with the revolt that took place in Hungary in 1956.  There is a book I believe by James Michner called the Bridge at Andau.  Michner interviewed people excaping the turmoil to write this book.  It's been a long time since reading, so I am almost certain it was a Michner book.


     I did a search for The Bridge at Andau, no luck.  I did a search for Michner, no luck.  Then I searched under Hungarian Revolution.  Under the book A-Z of Modern Europe since 1789 there was information on revolutions that took place in the 1800s, but nothing I could find on the one in 1956.  Then I followed a link to Budapest and found two titles that wrote about the revolution.  Window onto Hungary  was written by Dora Scott.  She was a communist that went to Hungary and became disillusioned by the things she saw there.  The other was Boy on a  Rooftop.  Its author's real name could not be disclosed at time of publishing, 1958, for fear for his family.
     Anyway, I encourage anyone who reads my blaog to check out the book, The Bridge at Andau, and read it.  It's a short read.  Compare what is happening in the Ukrain today with what happened in Hungary.  In a nutshell, the Hungarian communists were extremely brutal to the Hungarian people and suspected revolutionaries.  The people revolted and threw out the communists.  The Hungarian people enjoyed freedom and were writing a new constitution when eleven days later the Russians swept in and brutally crushed the revolution and sent people running for the border.  The Hungarian people thought the United States would come to their aid because we had armed forces occupying western Europe and we warned the Russians not to invade.  America was war weary after the Korean war, so, when the Russians came in we did nothing.  Let's see if history repeats itself!