Monument of the Hungarian Volunteers in the International Brigades

This monument by the Greek-Hungarian sculptor Memos Makris was erected in a public square in Budapest in 1968 to commemorate the almost 1,200 Hungarian volunteers who fought in the Spanish Civil War. In 1993, after the change of regime, it was moved to the open-air Memento Park of Budapest, where it can still be visited. 

When left-wing circles, workers and intellectuals in Hungary first heard about the formation of the International Brigades, many of them immediately wanted to go to Spain, but they could only do so illegally as the country’s right-wing government forbade Hungarians to fight in Spain. Only about 120 Hungarians went to Spain from Hungary. The vast majority went from elsewhere: 33 per cent from France, 11 per cent from Canada, 10 per cent from Czechoslovakia, and much smaller numbers from nine other European countries, the United States, and Latin America, Hungarians who had emigrated in response to the country’s alarming economic and political situation in the 1910s and 1920s. Many tried to escape as far as possible from the territories that had been transferred to other countries following the territorial losses suffered by the country after the World War I. Others emigrated between the two world wars because they found the rise of the far right and the increasingly close ties with Nazi Germany unacceptable. Now they felt that events were unfolding on such a scale that it was worth risking their new living conditions abroad, even leaving their families behind in a foreign country. 

Slightly more than half were communists; the rest were social democrats or, in large numbers, without any political affiliation. The majority were workers (57 per cent), followed by intellectuals (17 per cent) and peasants (15 per cent). Hungarians played an important role in the leadership of the International Brigades, among them Máté Zalka, who rose to the rank of general in the Spanish People's Army. One of the most famous Hungarian volunteers was Máté Zalka (also known as General Pál Lukács, although born Béla Frankl), an influential writer and veteran of World War I and the Russian Civil War, who rose to the rank of general in the Spanish People's Army, commanded the XII International Brigade and the 45th Division, and died near Huesca in 1937. The majority of Hungarians became members of the Rákosi Battalion, formed within the 13th International Brigade named after the much revered communist politician Mátyás Rákosi who was serving a life sentence for rebellion against the right-wing government. Several of them later played an important role in Hungarian political life, but it was only after the revolution of 1956, when the political situation had somewhat eased, that Hungarian historians began to deal with their history. 

Some of the Hungarians had gone to Barcelona to particiapte in the People’s Olympiad, which had been scheduled to open the day the Civil War began, and stayed to fight the military rebels. When the International Brigades began to organize, 46 Hungarians were among the first 600 volunteers to cross the Franco-Spanish border. From then on, Hungarians were among the defenders of Madrid, fought in all the major battles, and were present when the last brigadists were withdrawn from the country in 1938.