The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 exerted a deep influence on the international communist movement and greatly affected the political and economic outlook in Hungary. A less well-known legacy of the uprising is what may be called the refugee experience, a momentous chapter in the history of human migration and resettlement. An examination of this experience reveals that the appearance of the Hungarian refugees in Western Europe and the New World greatly changed the development of Hungarian ethnic communities already in existence there, and that the refugees’ presence in the West continues to have lasting influence on relations between Hungary and the West.
In the past, Hungary has been both a source of refugees and a refuge for them. Many times in her history has she offered refuge to persecuted minorities and fugitives driven out of their own countries by war or other calamities. She has also sent her own refugees to the four corners of the world, after such events as the Rákóczi Uprising of the early eighteenth century, the War of Independece of 1848-49, the revolutions of 1918-19, and the Second World War.