The 1956 Hungarian Revolution was a remarkable event in a tumultuous year. Utilizing
American archival sources, this paper explores the role of mass communications before and
during the uprising. The theories developed in historian Benedict Anderson’s Imagined
Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (1983) are drawn upon to
create an interpretive framework that furthers understanding of the reasons behind, and nature of,
the revolution. The paper analyzes two types of mass communications: print media and radio
broadcasting. Both means of communicating fostered the establishment of independenceminded
communities in local, national, and international realms.
The intellectual leadership of the revolution recovered the spirit of Hungary’s war for
independence in 1848-49, which they then disseminated through mass-print media. Foreign
broadcasting stations operating in Hungary created the perception of a powerful ally in the minds
of listeners. These listeners then promoted this knowledge through interpersonal
communication, constructing communities bound by the possibility of Western-assisted
independence. On 23 October, print media and radio dictated collective action, which
constructed a framework for the ignition of an armed uprising in Budapest. Radio transmissions
inspired Hungarians throughout the nation to join what became a war for independence
