Hungarians Fume as Statue of Former Leader Is Downgraded

A statue of Imre Nagy, who was prime minister during the 1956 Hungarian uprising against Soviet rule, has stood since 1996 in Martyrs’ Square, adjacent to the country’s National Assembly in Budapest.

Now, it’s gone.

This month, the National Memorial Commission, led by a member of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s far-right Fidesz Party, decided to remove the statue of Mr. Nagy, who was executed two years after the uprising by a Soviet-backed puppet government.

The statue of Mr. Nagy, who was at once a reformist and a dedicated communist, is expected to be moved and replaced with a memorial to the victims of the Red Terror, a purge of anti-communist forces in 1919. The commission is led by the National Assembly’s speaker, Laszlo Kover, a member of Fidesz.