How Was It Made?

This website is a virtual memorial site. It presents Hungarians who took part in the 1956 Revolution, most of whom suffered imprisonment during the reprisals. I also present foreigners who stood in solidarity with Hungarians during the revolution: they organized demonstrations, blood donations and collections, welcomed refugees, or helped in other ways.

My aim is not to provide a comprehensive historical summary or exact transfer of knowledge. I hope that, by looking at the faces and reading the stories, visitors will be touched by the greatness of ordinary people.

When I am able to contact someone who agrees to participate, I take a studio portrait of them. I record the conversation during our work together, so personal fragments of their story can accompany the images.

I have met more than 120 people whose lives are connected to the revolution. I carry out the documentation work in my free time and finance it myself.

I named my work the "24th Hour Project" because the still living participants and witnesses of the 1956 Revolution are now elderly, and more and more of them are passing away. The project's aim is to continue the documentation and to present those already recorded. One of the surfaces for this presentation is the 1956.hu website.

I consider it especially important to reach young people and pass on personal stories.

In recent years I have given more than fifty lectures on the personal stories of the 1956 Revolution. They usually take place as special history classes or school commemorations.

Several exhibitions have been made from the portraits, including in Budapest, Warsaw, Helsinki, Targu Mures, Debrecen and elsewhere. The large black-and-white portraits evoke personal presence in the exhibition space.

For lecture or exhibition invitations, write to the email address listed in the imprint: oktober23@freemail.hu.

The 1956.hu website works with little text and in several languages: short portraits can be read on the first level, and life-story excerpts on the second.

More extensive material is available in my book.

The album 1956 Personally was published in Hungarian and English by Püski Publishing House and is available in major bookshops.

The volume is a selection from decades of documentation work.

The book has also been published in Finland, Japan and Poland.

The portrait photographs and interview texts on this site are protected by copyright.

Further use of images and texts is possible only with source attribution, as follows:
for texts: source: 1956.hu; for portrait photographs: photo: Örs Csete.

The photographs and texts may be presented in whole or in part in exhibitions or publications only with the author's prior permission.

I thank the people featured on this website for their trust and cooperation.

I thank everyone who contributed to the project and to the operation of the site through unpaid work, translation, programming or other help: János Lukács, Andrea Petres, Zsolt Radványi, Zsuzsanna Szákné Bajnai, János Szekeres.

I dedicate my work documenting the people of 1956 to the memory of my father, György Csete, who in October 1956 was a first-year architecture student at the Budapest University of Technology, and who encouraged and supported me in continuing this work.

Budapest, 1995-2026