The figure in this statue is Imre Nagy, who was Hungary’s Prime Minister from 1953 to 1955, but then, in 1956, led the Hungarian Revolution against the Soviet-backed government. Following the Soviet invasion that crushed the revolution Nagy was found guilty of treason and sentenced to death. He was eventually executed in 1958 and buried in an unmarked grave.
When the Soviet-backed Communist regime fell in 1989 it finally became possible to honour Nagy in his native country, and this statue was inaugurated in 1996. However, in 2018, shortly after this photograph was taken, it was dismantled by the right-wing pro-Russian government of Victor Orbán, and moved to a significantly less prominent position, as part of Orban’s programme of historical revisionism.