The Communist regime demolished the Regnum Marianum church on the edge of Budapest’s City Park on 23 September 1951.
Why the government wanted rid of it isn’t difficult to explain: it was consecrated in 1931 in gratitude for the fall of the Soviet-inspired Republic of Councils in 1919.
The Republic of Councils was Hungary’s 133-day taste of communist rule in the chaotic aftermath of the First World War and the break-up of the Habsburg Empire. The experiment lasted from 21 March 1919 to 1 August 1919.
Foreign minister Béla Kun of the Hungarian Communist Party was the de facto head of the government. He took his orders from Lenin in Moscow. The far-left regime collapsed under military pressure from Hungary’s neighbours, mainly Romania. Kun and the other commissars (as ministers were styled) fled to Vienna.
The church was too well built to be demolished easily, so it was dynamited instead.
‘Town planning’ justifications the government cited for its action were, of course, just a fig leaf to hide its real motivation.
Monument to the Republic of Councils
Later, the Monument to the Republic of Councils statue occupied the site in a naked riposte to the previous occupant.
It was based on a recruiting poster for the Hungarian Soviet Republic, as the Republic of Councils was also known. In the poster, a similar figure appeared along with the slogan ‘To arms, to arms!’ (Fegyverbe, fegyverbe in Hungarian).
Since the demise of the Monument to the Republic of Councils in the early 1990s – it’s now in Memento Park – there has been a crucifix on the site to mark the location of the Regnum Marianum church.
This almost obsessive memorialisation of the past – including changes to the memorials depending on the prevailing political orthodoxy at any one moment – is a common feature in Hungary.
There’s more about Communist Budapest in my book Communist Budapest: The Guidebook.
