Imre Nagy
Imre Nagy (born in Kaposvár, in the then Austro-Hungarian Empire June 7 1896, executed June 16 1958) was Prime Minister of Hungary on two occasions.He was born in a peasant family and was apprenticed to a locksmith, before fighting in the Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I on the Russian Front, was taken prisoner 1915. He then became a Communist, fighting in the Red Army. He returned to Hungary after WWI and served in the brief government of Béla Kun. In 1929 he went to the Soviet Union, becoming involved in agricultural research, and working in the Hungarian section of Comintern.
In 1944 he returned to Hungary again, and served in the Communist government, as Minister of Agriculture and in other posts, becoming an expert on peasants' welfare.
After two years as Prime Minister (1953-1955), during which he promoted his "New Course" Nagy was forced to resign and was expelled from the Communist Party by hardline colleagues, including First Secretary Mátyás Rákosi as a result of the liberalizing tendency that he showed in this office. He then spent time teaching.
He became Prime Minister again during the brief anti-Soviet revolution in 1956, through popular support, replacing the hardliner Erno Gero.
On 1 November he appealed to the West for help for Hungary
When the revolution was crushed by the Soviet invasion of the country, Nagy, with others, secured sanctuary in the Yugoslav Embassy. He was arrested, 22 November, in violation of a guarantee of free passage and taken to Romania. He was then returned to Budapest and executed, with others, after a secret trial in June 1958.
He was buried along with others in a distant corner (section 301) of the Municipal Cemetery outside Budapest to which access was not allowed until 1989. Next to his grave stands a memorial bell inscribed in Latin, Hungarian, German and English. The Latin reads: "Vivos voco Mortuo plango Fulgura frango," which is quaintly translated as: I call the living persons, I mourn for the died persons, I chase the lightnings.
Plot: A cenotaph was placed in Le Père Lachaise Cemetery Paris, France as a memorial at a time when the Communist leadership of Hungary would not mark or allow access to his true burial place. In 1989 he was rehabilitated and his remains reburied in a state funeral.
The collected writings of Nagy were published as "Imre Nagy On Communism."