Under a presidential executive order of Laszlo Solyom, Bulgarian Yordan Ruskov (80) from Plovdiv city has been awarded on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 the highest Hungarian distinction: Order of Merit of the Hungarian Republic (Knight). The Pleven-born poet Yordan Ruskov, who lived in Plovdiv, was at the time a member of the Union of Bulgarian Writers. He was a man, who had the grace and valour to voice his opinion openly sacrificing his career and future for the sake of freedom. As early as the nightfall of December 23, 1956 on hearing the news of the uprising in Budapest over foreign wireless stations, he composed the poem Call for Liberty under the pen-name of Rumen Drumev. He mimeographed it in secret and along with a proclamation to his compatriots written once again by him, he posted it in the mailboxes across Sofia.

He was on the most-wanted list of the State Security Service for two long years. In the inquiry, eminent Bulgarian intellectuals, writers were coerced into naming ten or so of their colleagues as potential perpetrators. Thus the number of suspects stood at 87. As early as January 29, 1959 the author of the poem, Yordan Ruskov was detected and detained. He was sentenced to 17 years of imprisonment and released in 1962, ever so adamant, yet no publisher printed a book of his poems within the space of three decades.

But for the high Hungarian distinction, just a few of the Bulgarians would have known the name of Yordan Ruskov even today. A number of our fellow-countrymen were also persecuted in those days for voicing their discontent with the ruthless crackdown on the Hungarian revolution or if merely suspected of backing such an action. Citizens declared suspicious at someone’s discretion were preventively interned, exiled from Sofia and the larger cities, while students were either suspended or expelled from the universities for good. The authorities uncompromisingly called off any sports or other public events requiring the gathering of many people together. Few of the persecuted Bulgarians at the time had the gift of an Aesop as Bulgarian poet Radoi Ralin did, neither had they the happy chance to enjoy his popularity.

The national press presented the events in Hungary as foreign-assisted “hostile counter-revolution”. The government-controlled newspapers released photos of violence perpetrated by “counter-revolutionaries” and “fanatics”. Still, the Bulgarian public was well aware of the developments in Budapest and other Hungarian cities. It was possible after hours of listening to make out whole sentences from the jammed radio stations broadcasting on short waves. In this or in other unknown ways Bulgarians got informed of what was happening in Hungary: of the student’s rally on October 23, 1956 and the armed uprising, which broke out the same night, of the invading tank lines and the bitter struggle of the rebels with most of them being workers, youngsters, high-school students, students and adolescents. We happened also to know of the Polish people readily providing them with material support and medicines. The crush of the uprising, the reprisals against the opposition and mostly, the death-sentences and executions of Hungarian Prime Minister Imre Nagy and his adherents reminded the Bulgarians of the days several years earlier, when the Bulgarian parliamentary opposition was crushed and a show trial was concocted to sentence to death by hanging the oppositional leader, Nicola Petkov. The crackdown on the Hungarian revolution and the ensuing reprisals dispelled the last hope of the Bulgarian opposition that after Stalin’s death in 1953 and especially after Nikita Khrushchev condemned Stalinism in the spring of 1956, any rapid changes towards liberalization could be expected. Their conviction was confirmed that any attempt to break the status quo, which underlay the relations between the West and the East was doomed to be foiled. The conduct of the US government came to further confirm this conviction as they in their rhetoric condemned the crush of the uprising, yet did everything possible not to strain the relations with the USSR.

The Hungarian revolution of 1956 left its indelible mark on the social conduct, on the culture and had its contribution to the political maturity of all the peoples from East Europe. That’s why the interest of Bulgarians in the exhibition staged by the government of Burgenland Austrian Land is well explicable. The From Dream to Trauma: The Hungarian Uprising of 1956 exhibition is on display in Sofia on the initiative of the Republic of Austria and the Hungarian Cultural Institute in Sofia. All the more so because the subject has not been given an in-depth analysis by Bulgarian historical science.

The photos illustrating the article are from the exhibition of the Hungarian Cultural Institute dedicated to the victims in 1956 and from the exhibition organized in conjunction with the Austrian Embassy in Bulgaria, “From Dream to Trauma”, dedicated to the refugees after the Hungarian Uprising.