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His Excellency Lauri Hussar President of the Parliament of the Republic of Estonia

Tallinn

Budapest, z4 September zoz6

Bsteetned' Mr. Presídent,

In 1956, Time chose not a president, nor a general, nor a statesman as its Man of the Year. It chose the Hungarian freedom fighters: the nameless young women and men who took to the streets of Hungarian cities and fought against one of the most powerful dictatorships on Earth. At the time, Albert Camus wrote that Hungarian blood had become too precious to Europe and to freedom to be squandered.

This was howthe world saw Hungaryin tg16.

Seventyyears later, I have the honour of inviting you to Budapest to join us in commemorating the Toth anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution of1956.

A nation that knows it follows in the footsteps of heroes and martyrs carries its history differently. For us Hungarians, 1956 is not a distant memory and not a collection of abstract values. We walk the same streets where a generation chose freedom, knowing what it might cost them; we live in the country they were willing to give their lives for. Their courage leaves us with both pride and obligation: to be worthy of what they did, to guard the freedom they could only fight for, and never to forget that there are moments in the life of a nation when ordinary people are asked to become greater than themselves. In 1956, Hungarians answered that call. An occupied country stood up to an empire and demanded nothing more - and nothing less - than the right to be master of its own fate.

The Revolution was drowned in blood, but the Soviet Union could never undo what the world had seen. After Budapest, no one could honestly pretend that the peoples behind the Iron Curtain had freely chosen the regimes imposed upon them. 1956 gave a human face to that struggle - the face of the student in the street, the worker behind a barricade, the teenager with a rifle, the families waiting for those who would never come home.

That is why 1956 became part of Europe's moral memory. It showed that a revolution can be defeated and still change history; that an empire can win the battle and nevertheless begin to lose its claim to legitimacy; and that the desire for freedom can survive prisons, executions, exile, and decades of enforced silence. The freedom that Central Europe finally reclaimed in 1989 did not begin in 1989. Part of its history was written in the streets of Budapest thirty-three years earlier.

Ttre commemoration will take place in Budapest on z3 October 2026. The programme will begin with a memorial session of the Hungarian Parliament firom 1'4|oo to 16:oo, after which I wíll address the nation on Kossuth Square, in foont of the Hungarian Parlíament. Arr opera gala at the Hungarian State Opera will take place from 18:oo to 19:Bo, followed by a gala dinner from 2o:oo to 22:oo.

We would be honoured by your presence as we pay tribute to the men and women whose courage continues to inspire our shared European future and whose legacy continues to speak to the challenges of our own time.

The detailed programme will be sent through the appropriate protocol channels. I look forward to welcoming you on this occasion.

Yours sincerely,

Forsthoffer