Hungary’s national flag was hoisted and lowered to half-mast in front of Parliament in remembrance of the leaders of the 1848-49 freedom fight, executed in Arad on this day in 1849.
The ceremony was attended by Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi, the commander of the Hungarian Armed Forces.
Commemorations will be held in Hungary and abroad. A government official will lay a wreath at the mausoleum of Lajos Batthyány, the prime minister of independent Hungary during the freedom fight, in the Fiume Street cemetery later in the morning.
The revolution and freedom fight was part of a series of uprisings in Europe in 1848. On March 15, citizens of Pest gathered in front of the National Museum and demanded independence from Habsburg rule.
Hungary’s first independent government with Count Lajos Batthyány as prime minister approved a reform package called the April laws. Later, the uprising grew into a war of independence, stifled by Austria and Russia in late 1849.
Featured photo by Zoltán Balogh/MTI
