Columns and statues to see Budapest

The Szent Gellért monument is the presumed place from which, in the 11th century, the Benedictine Gerard was thrown by Hungarian pagan rebels who refused to convert. Classic arched columns encircle the bronze monument, erected in 1904 by Jankovits Gyula, which stands at 40 m (the statue itself is 7 m high). One climbs up stairs: a beautiful view and the start of trails that lead up to the east side of the citadel.

His head is lowered, his body is covered with a loose coat, you can't see his face, protected by a hood, he looks like a hermit, but no, it's Anonymous. Far from being an anonymous in Hungary, he is a distant ancestor of the Budapest historians, he wrote a chronicle of the history of the Kingdom of Hungary (the famous Gesta Hungarorum) under the reign of King Bela III of which he was the notary. He describes in great detail the arrival of the Hungarians in the Carpathian basin.

Originally intended for the city of Zenta (today Senta, Serbia), the equestrian statue of Eugene of Savoy was purchased by Emperor Franz Joseph and erected in front of the present entrance to the Hungarian National Gallery, at the very place where a monument to the emperor was to be installed in 1900. Eugene of Savoy liberated Buda from the Turks in 1697, so he is still in this triumphant position. Damaged in 1944-1945, the statue was taken down in 1968 and restored in 1971.

This statue, designed by Imre Varga in 1996, commemorates the 1956 revolution leading figure, Imre Nagy, who demanded the withdrawal of Soviet troops and the independence of the country, while advocating reformed Communism. The bridge on which the statue is based seems to be a metaphor for the transition from totalitarianism to democracy, a democracy symbolized by the Parliament to which Nagy rotates.

According to legend, it is this almost mythological bird among Hungarians, the symbolic "turul", that led Árpád, the ancestor of the Magyars, to the Carpathian basin. It is not clear what type of bird it was, probably an eagle or a falcon. In any case, the word is of Turkish origin (where it simply means little bird). The representation of the turul is omnipresent in Hungary around historic sites.