Two Funerals and Our Freedom
The recent deaths of Béla Király, who commanded Hungary's freedom fighters in 1956, and of the Polish philosopher Leszek Kolakowski, whose break with Stalinism inspired many intellectuals to abandon communism, recalls their legacy for today's Europe. They, together with Nikita Krushchev, paved the way for the Continent's freedom and unification.
https://prosyn.org/EHKDPIW
MOSCOW – My great-grandfather, Nikita Khrushchev, has been on my mind recently. I suppose it was the 50th anniversary of the so-called “kitchen debate” which he held with Richard Nixon that first triggered my memories. But the funeral last week in Budapest of General Béla Király, who commanded the Hungarian Revolution’s freedom fighters in 1956, and this week’s funeral in Warsaw of the philosopher Leszek Kolakowski, whose break with Stalinism that year inspired many intellectuals (in Poland and elsewhere) to abandon communism, made me reconsider my grandfather’s legacy.