We have asked Timothy Don a publicist at The Nation, Morgan Meis a contributing writer at Radical Society and Charles Mikecz Vamossy the Director of the Hungarian House in New York to give their insight and thoughts about the Times Square Billboard project.

HCC: What was your first impression of the two black and white images?

Timothy Don: Curiosity, a sense of nostalgia, an awareness of the profound courage of the human spirit as well as a sadness that it seems to have deserted our current politics.

Charles Mikecz Vamossy: My initial impression was instant recognition as well as surprise. Both the image of the tank, the young man as well as the almost iconic number “1956” evokes in my strong reaction that this is about 1956, about our Revolution. The surprise is of course the location – Times Square – where the expectation is for commercial messages, not historic reminders. It remains to be seen if people will get it or not…

Morgan Meis: I think they beautifully capture the two most important emotional moods of the Revolution. The first mood—captured with the crowd photograph—is of the public exuberance and confidence that bubbled up onto the streets during those heady days. The expressions on the faces in the crowd say it all.
The second mood, of course, is one of fear and a sudden realization that the confidence and joy could only be fleeting. Nothing pinpoints that second mood more than the picture of tanks in a public space. It is a jarring image and immediately conveys a sense of terror, of something gone wrong.
These two moods are, as I understand it, the essence and the inner dynamic of the Hungarian Revolution.

HCC: Do you have a recollection of 1956 that was particularly affecting, i.e., a book, a movie, a memory, a conversation?

Timothy Don: No, I wasn't alive in '56. But I have been to Budapest, and it feels as though the people in these images are ghosts that haunt the city still.

Charles Mikecz Vamossy: I was 15 years old in 1956, living in Hungary. My most indelible memory of the Revolution is being part of a march of demonstrators – very much like those on your second poster. It was October 25th, just two days into the Revolution and the Hungarian Government was still on the side of those who were trying to suppress it. We arrived at the square in front of the Parliament and there, under the arcades of the Ministry of Agriculture, I saw the dead victims and the splattered blood of demonstrators who just 30 minutes earlier were fired upon by the hated Hungarian Security force, the AVO. I have never seen dead people before; I have never seen blood before. I felt sick. I felt hatred for those Hungarians who fired on their fellow Hungarians in cold blood. Suddenly someone in the crowd started to sing the Hungarian National Anthem. Never before had this majestic hymn so much meaning for me and for everyone around me. To this day I cannot sing the National Anthem without tears streaming down my face. That memory of that moment comes back as a flood.

Morgau Meis: One of my mentors during college was Ferenc Feher. I took a class with him as an undergrad called "The Russian Revolution". As a young American Leftist I had the inclination to defend something in the spirit of Bolshevism while, of course, condemning Stalinism and what became the Soviet Empire. Feher respected that impulse in me, but he was relentless in his attempts to connect the failures of Russian communism with the deepest intellectual tendencies of Marxism even at its very core.
At the same time, he was no great fan of American civilization. What emerged from my intellectual struggles with Feher was a sense of the tragic situation that the Eastern European of the 20th Century confronts. More and more I came to understand that Feher was a product of '56. He was damaged by it, destroyed by it in some ways, as so many were. But it also made him wise, in the Aeschylean sense of wisdom gained through suffering, through genuine experience. Those experiences and conversations with Feher, before his death, were immensely moving and powerful for me. I'll never forget them and for that alone, I feel like a small piece of '56 is always with me.

HCC: In your estimation, what meaning does 1956 have in the U.S.?

Timothy Don: Well, not too many americans could even place Hungary on a map, let alone discuss the events that occurred there in 1956. My hope is that your work around this event could create some awareness in the US of a history that unfolds outside of our borders.

Charles Mikecz Vamossy: Looking back It Is now clear that the Hungarian Revolution was the beginning of the end of Soviet Empire. Until then the United States tried desperately to halt the spread of Communism, not knowing how the countries overtaken by the Soviets were altered by their Ideology. Western Europe was in danger of falling for their propaganda. The Hungarian nation showed the world that Communism was a failure, despised by those who lived under it. It reaffirmed to the United States and to the world that freedom and democracy cannot be subjugated.

The Hungarian Revolution convinced Intellectuals and policymakers everywhere that Communism was a dead end road. It validated the policies of Truman, Kennedy and Reagan - containing Communism, fighting Communism and defeating Communism. It was the first harbinger of freedom that paved the way for the Prague Spring and the Polish Solidarity movement.

There are many older Americans who to this day remember those days. Many are bitter that the United States did not do more to aid Hungary and speak with pride of the warm welcome they gave to those who escaped. I am one of those who Is a grateful recipient of that welcome.

Morgan Meis: To be honest, I think that 1956 has little significance for most people in the U.S. For the few people it does means anything to, that meaning is profoundly ambiguous. In general, American conservatives tend to claim '56 as a monument to the Cold War and the simplistic American approach to the Cold War. '56 becomes another testament to freedom as George Bush might define it. And '56 certainly was a monument to freedom, but in a much more complicated way than is framed by the ideologues of the American Right.

For the American Left, 1956 continues to be a confusing and unsettling affair. Even for those who had firmly repudiated Soviet-style Communism, the struggles of Hungarians and Eastern Europeans in general tended to be seen as a distraction and complication in their battles against Western Imperialism and the inequities and failings of American and Western European societies. This was a different kind of problem than that faced by the American Right but it led to a similar outcome. In the end, the Hungarians were ignored and forgotten.

To me, 1956 is still alive because it’s important to get that problem right. We need a politics and an ethics that is both big enough, and precise enough, to do justice to the spirit and purpose of the Hungarian Revolution. For the Left in particular, at the very least, this should mean re-appropriating the language of freedom, the politics of, as Adam Michnik would say, 'honor', of the simple but inviolable dignity of individual human beings.


HCC: What do you think about the concept of advertising history?

Timothy Don: It's fascinating, and it's dangerous. Is history a commodity, something that can be bought and sold and bartered? Does history exist as a thing in itself, or is it nothing more than words and memories of the past? What history is being advertised, exactly? Whose history? To whom does history belong? These are some of the questions that come to mind when I think of "advertising history."

Charles Mikecz Vamossy: It’s unusual - on Times Square. Perhaps that is its strength.

Morgan Meis: I'm not sure if I've ever heard of something specifically referred to as 'advertising history'. I guess you have something like that with, for instance, The History Channel on American cable (with less-than-spectacular results). Still, given the way in which advertising plays such a central role in framing and determining what captures the public attention, it seems inevitable that one must conceive of history as something that can also be advertised. And why not? In the realm of aesthetics I've always been opposed to the mandarin impulse that would separate the 'high' art from the 'low'. It is a false and always unproductive distinction. In the same way, it strikes me that thinking of history as something that can be advertised achieves a similar breaking down of boundaries and makes 'history' accessible in all kinds of ways that the traditional approach denies. In general, I find such approaches potentially exciting exactly insofar as they shake up received categories.

HCC: What relevance can the 1956 Hungarian Revolution have in 2006?

Timothy Don: It can serve as a reminder, perhaps, that (in the words of Mark Twain), "History does not repeat itself... but it rhymes."

Charles Mikecz Vamossy: For Americans It Is very relevant. The vast majority of Americans were born during the Cold War. Hungary In 1956 is one of the most Important milestones of that war. The lesson Is that Freedom Is an Inalienable right of every human being and It's defense Is the obligation of all those who are capable of providing that defense. The United States response to that challenge in 1956 was a disappointment. It poses a challenge to our current thinking: are we ready to defend freedom where needed and are we ready to back our words with deeds?
Hungary 1956 should make us think.

Morgan Meis: As I mentioned in my answer about the relevance of '56 in the U.S., the Hungarian Revolution is still, to me, a fresh wound in the psyche of our times. I'm not sure exactly when the 21st Century started, or if it has even truly begun yet, but I do sense that the 20th Century has now fully receded into history. It is a past age. But past ages weigh on and determine the consciousness of the present, especially the age of the immediate past.
There is a huge task looming before us all. That task is about coming to terms with the legacy of the 20th Century and what it means. That historical task is also and inevitably a matter of working on ourselves now, and of a projection into the future. As such, the history of the 20th Century needs to be made whole and coherent again. Doing that means, especially, dealing with the history of those nations behind the Iron Curtain which found themselves charting a historical course that had ripped itself from its previous trajectory. To let those experiences fade away as if they had been nothing would be a final tragedy piled upon a century already bursting at the seams with the loss and destruction of experience and ways of life.

The Hungarian Revolution is particularly important because it is a moment that jumps out of the historical landscape. It is a central event in the attempt to understand and come to terms with the recent past precisely because it was an attempt to bring Hungary out of a failed historical trajectory and into a broader world again. That is something we still need to deal with.

HCC: Do you think the billboards can reach out to those unfamiliar with the revolution?

Timothy Don: Yes indeed.

Charles Mikecz Vamossy: I don't know - not my field of expertise. The relative “real estate” It will receive in such a busy place like Times Square concerns me. Will it get lost in the neon jungle? Do people have the ability to absorb yet another "ad" while they walk in that jungle? Don't know. Personally, I would have preferred a place like Grand Central Terminal or Penn Station, where It would have greeted commuters, whose demographics may be closer to those Interested In world affairs. The posters are thought provoking and they need time for comprehension. If they stand alone, without competing clutter, they really have an Impact. As part of the clutter? I don't know… Also, a print version In the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal - with full-page ads might have had more Impact. But, like I said, it's not my field…

Morgan Meis: I think the images are simple enough and powerful enough that people will be curious and want to know more. That fact alone will, hopefully, spur some kind of public discussion and if that discussion is properly directed it could turn into something very interesting indeed.