statues & squares of Budapest tour

VISIT BUDAPEST’S LANDMARK SQUARES; FIND OUT WHY THE CITY’S STAUES ARE SO CONTROVERSIAL

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DURATION

2.5 hours

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LOCATION

Hotel pickup

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PRICE

€ 129 / 1 person

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Statues and squares of budapest tour

OVERVIEW

Budapest is ‘littered’ with statues: poets, politicians, actors and artists, as well as everyday (and not such everyday) people. But why are there so many in Hungary’s capital?

One reason is that each new political regime erected its own statues to illustrate their ideology. Come with us and find why so many are controversial and have even had to be guarded against vandalism, as you discover Hungary’s turbulent past through its squares and statues.

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Visitors to the city often pose the question: Why are there so many statues in Budapest? The shortest possible answer is the vague ‘for historical reasons.’ We have statues to national heroes, our poets, writers, artists, actors, composers and more recently weird subjects at the whim of artists and those who commission them.

In other cities statues go unnoticed or just serve as a selfie background. In Hungary, where history is rewritten now and again, the symbolic value of certain sculptures generate heated emotions since many of them are controversial, like the German Occupation monument whose only purpose was to shift the responsibility from the Hungarian authorities to the occupiers.
The stories behind the statues will give us the opportunity to highlight some neuralgic points of our history so that you understand Hungarian historical mindset better.

On our tour we will visit five squares and a plethora of statues and examine how these statues shaped the character of the squares and what their symbolism represents for locals.

Highlights:

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Learn about the significance of squares in the structure of the city

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Enjoy an in-depth sightseeing tour and find out about the symbolism of statues

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Get an insight into controversial issues that dominate Hungarian public discourse

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Access excellent photo opportunities for your Instagram account!

Itenary

The habit of erecting statues, which has reached almost farcical proportions, goes back to the late 19th century. Perhaps German Emperor Wilhelm II is to be blamed because – on his visit to Budapest in 1897 – he remarked to Franz Joseph there weren’t statues to all the Hungarian heroes. As a consequence, Franz Joseph commissioned 10 statues dedicated to the outstanding figures of Hungarian history as a present to the city. Ever since then it has been grounds for heated political debate as to who will have a statue, whose statue is to be removed, and what political message it should convey.

In view of the above, we’ll start our tour at the grandiose Heroes’ Square and see who the heroes are, and how the list changed according to the whims of various political regimes. The list of removed statues is almost as exciting as the ones we can see now!

We’ll see the ‘Anonymous’ statue, a unique piece of art in the City Park.

Next, we will visit the historic Kossuth Square by Parliament and learn about the symbolic significance of the recent transformation of the list of statues and monuments in the square.

The adjacent Szabadság tér (Liberty Square) has become a Disneyland of politically controversial statues including the Soviet Memorial, the German Occupation Monument and the bust of Governor Horthy, the divisive ruler of Hungary between the two world wars.

Our next stop is Kálvin Square, which innocently looks politically neutral, having only the statue of John Calvin. However, only a 100 metres away we can see a monument dedicated to Lord Rothermere, an English press magnate and founder of the Daily Mail who has a dubious political record, and who led the campaign Justice for Hungary, questioning the peace treaty following World war I.

Finally, we’ll arrive at Mikszáth Kálmán tér in the Eighth District, an island of peace and architectural beauty, named after one of the classic writers of Hungarian literature, and enjoy a coffee at one of the terraces while appreciating a fine piece of Cubism: the standing statue of the writer.

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