Liberty Square

Liberty Square is one of the most politically charged public spaces in Europe, and most tourists walk right past it. The square sits a few blocks from Parliament and is ringed by stunning Art Nouveau buildings, including the former Budapest Stock Exchange (now the headquarters of Hungarian Television) and the National Bank of Hungary. But the real interest is in the memorials that share this space without agreeing on anything.

At the north end stands the only remaining Soviet liberation memorial in central Budapest — a white obelisk honouring the Red Army soldiers who died liberating the city in 1945. Under a bilateral agreement, Hungary is obligated to maintain it. It stands directly across from the US Embassy, which during the Cold War sheltered Cardinal Mindszenty for fifteen years after the failed 1956 revolution — he lived inside the embassy from 1956 to 1971, unable to leave without being arrested.

On the south side, a controversial 2014 monument depicts Hungary as an innocent angel being attacked by a German imperial eagle, representing the Nazi occupation. Critics call it a whitewashing of Hungary's own role in the Holocaust, and a permanent counter-memorial of personal photographs and documents has grown up around its base in protest. The two memorials — one Soviet, one contested — face each other in permanent, unresolved tension.

The square's architecture is magnificent. The former Stock Exchange, designed by Ignác Alpár in 1905, is one of Budapest's finest Art Nouveau buildings, with an eclectic facade mixing Moorish, Gothic, and Renaissance elements. The whole square feels like a place where beauty and unfinished history coexist uncomfortably.