Szoborpark
,_Memento_Park.JPG)
The Szoborpark (statue park; also Memento Park ) is located in the southwest of the Hungarian capital Budapest . It was opened in 1993 and includes a collection of monuments from the era of Real Socialism and afterwards, designed by Ákos Eleőd .
Concept of art collection
The collection goes back to an idea of the Hungarian literary historian Lászlo Szörényi . On July 5, 1989, he proposed in the Hitel newspaper to create a "Lening Garden" in which all of Hungary's Lenin statues and busts should be gathered. Today's facility only realizes this intention in a modest way, because after the fall of the Wall, the relics of the communist era were often "privatized" and informally as collector's items. Today some of the most prominent statues from before 1989 are brought together in an ironic postmodern presentation. The Budapest Statue Park provides a highly civilized example of a distant and yet conservative approach to unloved evidence of the past.
Statues
One of the statues is the Lenin Monument, which was located on Dózsa Street. The great May marches passed there.
The monument to Marx and Engels once stood in front of the building of the Socialist Labor Party. It comes from György Segesdi .
The Soviet soldier comes from the Liberation Monument on Gellért Hill .
Another Lenin monument was located at the Csepel metal works .
The most significant monument from the communist era in Budapest was an eight-meter-high bronze statue of Stalin . The statue stood on a huge 9.3 meter high podium on Felvonulási tér (Parade Square) near the Városliget (City Park). Communist party cadres supervised the military parades from the podium, which was decorated with symbolic reliefs. Today there is a memorial to the popular uprising in this square, commemorating the anti-Soviet revolt of 1956. In the course of the uprising, the statue was overturned, so that only the boots remained. For example, Ákos Eleőd created a replica of Stalin's podium and boots in the Memento Park.
Another interesting monument is the statue of the Liberation Army soldier: the six-meter-high statue once stood in front of the Budapest Statue of Liberty on Gellért Hill and celebrated the liberation of Budapest by the Red Army. It was also torn down, but replaced by an exact replica in 1956.
A highlight of the park is a sculpture of two huge hands holding a ball. This symbolizes an allegorical image for the labor movement and the "Soviet-Hungarian friendship" in which two people shake hands.
The largest monument in the park is the modern and restless-looking Béla Kun monument from 1986. The monument depicts the Hungarian communist leader Béla Kun leading a group of soldiers and workers.
Another monument is the Monument to the Hungarian Soviet Republic from 1919. The iconic statue is based on a famous revolutionary poster of a charging sailor holding up a flag. It was on the edge of the city park (Városliget).
The monument to stonemason Miklós was made by Mikus Sándor in 1958.
literature
- Robert Schediwy: City Images - Reflections on Change in Architecture and Urbanism , Vienna 2005 ISBN 3-8258-7755-8 (especially 65ff)
Web links
- Images of the sculptures
- Memento Park website
- Text and photos for In the Park of the fallen heroes on WeltReisejournal; accessed on January 14, 2014
Individual evidence
Coordinates: 47 ° 25 ′ 34.8 " N , 18 ° 59 ′ 56.2" E