ABSTRACT
There were from the very beginning two ways of conceptualising the events of 1956 in Hungary, labelling it as a revolution or a national uprising. There also emerged a third way of conceptual definition when what occurred in 1956 was named an anti-totalitarian movement. Due to the 1956 narrative that preferred the term “uprising” (or “national freedom fight”), the historiographical tradition of 1956 has been marked by a dualism. The eminent role that university students played in the revolution sheds light on the Hungarian aspect of a context that in fact went beyond the horizon of the country. Although one may raise the objection that people associate modern revolutionary events not with a civil war but with a class struggle. This, however, is not the case historically. “Thus for the period to around 1700 one can conclude that the expressions ‘civil war’ and ‘revolution’ were not interchangeable, but were not at the same time mutually exclusive.”.
