A Poem of the Barricades Refuses to Die

by Thomas Ország-Land (October 2015)

One heady afternoon during the Hungarian Revolution of October-November 1956, I attended an editorial conference of The Independent (A Magyar Függetlenség), the flagship daily of the doomed anti-Soviet insurrection. I was an 18-year old high-school dropout employed on the paper as a cub reporter. József Dudás, our hugely charismatic editor-in-chief, assigned the serious tasks of the day to the senior correspondents. Then he turned to me: “…and what can you contribute to the edition?”  more>>>