BUDAPEST.- The Hungarian National Museum presents Relics of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution - New Acquisitions of the Hungarian National Museum, 2004 - 2006, on view through December 31, 2006. The Hungarian National Museum, as a tradition, presents annually at a temporary exhibition the most beautiful and precious works of art from the acquisitions of the previous year. We pay homage to the fiftieth anniversary of the 1956 Revolution with a unique exhibition, showing relics from the acquisitions of the past few years connected exclusively to this outstanding event of international significance. The display is housed by a representative room that was, due to the reconstruction works in the building, closed for visitors for more than one decade.

The documents originating from the dramatic few days of the revolution had disappeared from the public after the brutal defeat. Many people, fearing reprisal, destructed the papers, photographs, leaflets, objects in their possession that related to the revolution. The documents confiscated by the authorities were put into strictly closed and secret collections of archives and libraries, and some of these served as evidence in terror trials.

The ruling system of the Kádár era did its best to distort the true story of the Revolution and War of Independence, and to erase it from the nation's collective memory. But this effort could not be completely successful. The memory of the few day's heroic fighting of Hungarian people and the bloody terror following it lived on, withdrawn in the deepest layers of collective consciousness, and as the signs of silent resistance of spirits, many relics hidden in attics, cellars or wardrobes have survived.

Following the museum's calls published in the press, individuals have given more than one thousand photographs, fifty leaflets, posters and other prints, diaries, child's drawings, badges with Kossuth coat of arms, national guard arm-bands, and a precious rarity of a national flag with a hole in the middle. Our exhibition presents the most characteristic items of these hithero unknown relics that had been safeguarded for decades and then generously handed over to the Hungarian National Museum during the past two years. The documents published here for the first time help us to make the blurred image of the Revolution clearer and more exact and to enrich our knowledge with many new details. Curators: dr. Katalin Jalsovszky, Marianna Kiscsatári Photo Department.