Flying Tuesday June 16, 2009.

Today, June 16 a short lesion is Soviet Union repression in eastern bloc Europe, and an opportunity to fly my Hungarian flag.

Strictly this flag bearing the coat of arms is the state flag and the national flag is similar without the coat of arms. However, the tricolor with the coat of arms in it is more or less used as the de facto national flag.

The national flag.

Imre Nagy (June 7, 1896 – June 16, 1958)

Imre Nagy was a Hungarian politician, appointed Prime Minister of Hungary on two occasions. Nagy's second term ended when his non-Soviet-backed government was brought down by Soviet invasion in the failed Hungarian Revolution of 1956, resulting in Nagy's execution on charges of treason two years later.

When the revolution was crushed by the Soviet invasion of Hungary, Nagy, with a few others, was given sanctuary in the Yugoslav Embassy. In spite of a written safe conduct of free passage by János Kádár, on 22 November, Nagy was arrested by the Soviet forces as he was leaving the Yugoslav Embassy, and taken to Snagov, Romania. Subsequently, the Soviets returned him to Hungary, where he was secretly charged with organizing to overthrow the Hungarian people's democratic state and with treason. Nagy was secretly tried, found guilty, sentenced to death and executed by hanging in June, 1958. His trial and execution were made public only after the sentence was carried out. According to Fedor Burlatsky, a Kremlin insider, Nikita Khrushchev had Nagy executed, "as a lesson to all other leaders in socialist countries."

He was buried along with others in a distant corner (section 301) of the Kozma Street Cemetery Municipal Cemetery outside Budapest.

During the time when the Communist leadership of Hungary would not permit his death to be commemorated, or permit access to his burial place, a cenotaph in his honour was erected in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. In 1989, Imre Nagy was rehabilitated and his remains reburied on the 31st anniversary of his execution in the same plot after a funeral organized in part by opponents of the country's communist regime. Over 100,000 people are estimated to have attended Nagy's reinternment.

Some other recent past flag versions:

In 1949 the new Stalinist Hungarian arms were placed on the flag as the badge.

During the anti-Soviet uprising in 1956, revolutionaries cut out the Stalinist emblem and used the resulting tricolor with a hole in the middle as the symbol of the revolution.

Post Script

I realised after I raised the flag this morning that the flag I have is actually not one of the versions I have written about above, but yet another de facto version. I remain unconvinced by what I have read as to just how this version came about, by what group, and where, so I proposes simply to show my own flag below, without further comment.