“Twelve Days: The Story of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution”, by Victor Sebestyen

368 pages, Pantheon, ISBN-13: 978-0375424588

October 20, 2006 marked the 50^th Anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution, the seemingly spontaneous (at least to those outside of Hungary) set of demonstrations that quickly morphed into a full-fledged revolution that almost freed Hungary from Soviet hegemony; twelve days after it began the revolution was crushed under the tread of Red Army tanks. Victor Sebestyen’s Twelve Days: The Story of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution seeks to inform the people of the West just what happened during this most tragic time. The results are rather like one of those old-fashioned “official” histories that were reliant more upon diplomatic maneuvers, archival correspondence, and Cold War contexts than one based on internal political analyses, first-hand testimonies from street fighters, or eyewitness journalists. While all of those are included, the flavor of the book is rather bland, as Sebestyen prefers placing the 1956 uprising in the greater framework of Soviet-U.S. relations rather than as the nationalistic uprising that it was. On the upside Eisenhower, Nixon, Dulles, Khrushchev, Kádár and Rákosi emerge better understood for the calculating decisions they made. The United Nations wins no plaudits, nor do Dag Hammarskjöld or József Cardinal Mindszenty.

The maps are useful, and you can appreciate what Sebestyen tells you about the strategic importance of the Kilián Barracks and the Corvin Cinema. The AVO’s role and the fate of those lynched earns explanation that had often been clouded in earlier studies. The cynicism of Stalinist Hungary and the Muscovites who returned from the purges to collaborate gains needed scrutiny. The jails, in which in the early 1950s held 1.3 million of 9 million citizens, merit description. The relentlessly transient definition of truth in a land of fear, betrayal, lies, and inhumanity appears much more vivid after close attention to early pages of the book…and yet, it could have been better in its details. Its bibliography gives earlier English-language works, but a few published memoirs which I have read are not included. Near the end, on p. 287, he recounts the terrible fate of Mária Wittner, who I wondered may have been one of the freedom fighters in a well-known photo of two young women walking along, fully-armed, early in the uprising, but this photo isn’t included in what’s a rather skimpy array of illustrations on what, by now, is an historical event that earned many pictorial moments deserving a place in this book. Above all, you still close this book with too little a feel for what it was like to fight, flee, hide, or endure the revolt. The post-revolt sufferings of those arrested get treated too superficially, the fate of those released who had to survive in Kádár’s regime stays rather hazy, and what kind of post-Soviet 1956 Hungary that those who fought in the streets wanted remains vague.

How much of this is the fault of the book and how much is due to the understandable uncertainty of life in wartime leaves you as a reader pondering this intriguing subject. On the other hand, perhaps Hungarians simply were too busy, as Sebestyen notes, endlessly talking in the brief euphoria after the illusory withdrawal of the armed Russian bears to have time to plan. Sebestyen waffles on the political substance of the brief republic proclaimed. I remain baffled, but, perhaps, many people themselves once free wished first to dream, exult, and babble.

“Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion”, by Anne Somerset

640 pages, Vintage, ISBN-13: 978-0804171601

Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion by Anne Somerset describes how a painfully shy, badly-educated, emotionally sensitive and spiritual woman, already physically disabled in her late 30s by a deadly chronic illness and repeated failed pregnancies, turned herself into a shrewd, competent, dignified and kindly ruler, triumphing over poor health, treacherous courtiers, overseas enemies, the death of her husband, and, most tragically, the personal and political fallout from a failed long-term “emotional affair” with the spoiled, narcissistic Duchess of Marlborough. I somehow knew very little about this era (the late 1600s and early 1700s), but Somerset’s book convincingly presents it as a pivotal epoch. As the last of the Stuart monarchs, Anne’s birth was just after the overthrow of the Commonwealth and the restoration of the monarchy. The Stuart line held the throne between the Tudors and the Hanovers, and it was during Anne’s reign that Great Britain came into being and The War of Spanish Succession changed the balance of power in Europe and its colonies. Though these actions had long lasting consequences, other scholars have long dismissed Anne’s role in them as unimportant. Somerset redeems her, detail by detail building the case that Anne’s influence played a major role in the direction of events.

Anne had not originally expected to inherit the throne, as several family members were in line for it ahead of her. Taught dancing, music, acting and French, and raised as a strict Church of England Protestant, Anne thought she had found some emotional security as a young woman in a happy marriage to Prince George of Denmark, her deep Anglican faith, and her intense passion for her domineering, beautiful and witty friend, Lady Sarah Churchill, the Duchess of Marlborough. Anne’s life had darkened considerably by the time she was brought to the throne due to a series of unexpected deaths in her family and the exiles of her father (King James II) and half-brother (James Francis Edward Stuart, “The Old Pretender”). Both she and her husband were now childless invalids, carrying a full-time workload running a country at war with France and threatened with invasion by Anne’s half-brother. But the most crushing blow was the sudden souring of Anne’s decades-old relationship with Sarah Churchill, who seems to have expected to rule England through Anne and became a venomous and dangerous personal and political enemy when Anne gradually set limits to Sarah’s already substantial power and finally ended the relationship. The red-headed Sarah, who was appointed Mistress of the Wardrobe, was flashy, sparkling, beautiful, ambitious and unscrupulous. Although Sarah’s letters to Anne were destroyed at the request of Sarah, she could write just as extravagantly as Anne, the difference being that Sarah really did not care a fig for Anne and often ridiculed her behind her back. Because of Sarah’s treachery, the reader becomes angry that Anne endured her, worshipped her, for so long.

Anne Somerset has written a much-needed reevaluation of Queen Anne. A naturally shy woman, she managed to shepherd through a union between England and Scotland, wage the War of Spanish Succession, and fend off the Jacobites; that she did all this while being very ill and heartsick most of the time makes her achievements that much more impressive. That she was emotionally overwrought at times and dependent on one or two others says more about the level of her pain than anything else could (she was ill-used by everybody but her husband, it would seem). Faced with continual political diatribes from the Churchills, she stuck to her principles, guarding the role of the monarch. Despite using a cane and a sedan chair at times, she rode out hunting on good days; she sat through long hours of debate in Parliament; she did what had to be done. The last half of her reign was beset by Whig/Tory political stalemates and rumors about her successor. Anne had been pregnant 17 times without a surviving child and successfully maintained the Protestant religion and transfer to the Hanovers. There is a great deal of detail on the politics of the time but it shows the complexity of the world she inhabited. Politics was not really her strong suit; she had trouble putting her thoughts into a conversation, a fact that accounts for a lot of her letter writing. She grew in knowledge, if not in the skill to manipulate. To that end, she somehow (mostly) managed to navigate the shoals of Whig and Tory. There’s no question misogyny has played something of a role in the decline of Anne’s reputation, but Somerset makes it clear that it's no coincidence that Anne’s reign was coincident with Britain’s emergence as the major power in Europe.