Béla Király

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The native form of this personal name is Király Béla. This article uses Western name order when mentioning individuals.
Béla Király
Born
Király Béla Kálmán

(1912-04-14)14 April 1912
Kaposvár, Kingdom of Hungary, Austria-Hungary
Died4 July 2009(2009-07-04) (aged 97)
Budapest, Hungary
Resting placePlot: Section 300, ÚJKÖZTEMETÕ, Budapest
Education
SpouseSarolta Gömbös (1947–1955 div.) (niece of Gyula Gömbös)
Military career
Allegiance
  • Kingdom of Hungary
  • People's Republic of Hungary
  • Hungarian revolutionaries
  • Republic of Hungary
Service/branch
Major General
Commands held
  • 1956:
  • commander in chief of the Hungarian National Guard
  • commander of Budapest garrison
Battles/wars

Hungarian Revolution 1956

Notes
Righteous
Among the Nations
By country

Dr. Béla Király (14 April 1912 – 4 July 2009) was a

Hungarian Parliament
.

Early life

Király was born in

captain in December 1942.[2][8]

World War II and postwar imprisonment

Hungary joined the

Don River valley. Contrary to orders, he provided them with warm clothing, decent food, and medical attention. In 1993, Yad Vashem named him one of the "Righteous Among the Nations", recognizing his humane treatment of the Jewish prisoners.[2][6][9][10]

In March 1945 Király commanded the

Hungarian People's Army
.

Communist officials warned him against his 1947 marriage to the widowed niece of

Stalin ceased the operation, however, discouraged by the success of American intervention in the Korean War. According to Király, the situation in Korea "nipped Stalin's pet project in the bud".[3]

In 1951, the

ÁVH from August 1951 until August 1953. She divorced him in 1955. He then learned that his sentence had been commuted to life imprisonment at hard labor. In September 1956 the government of Ernő Gerő paroled him along with other prisoners, a measure intended to soften public unrest.[2][6][7][8]

Role in the 1956 Hungarian Revolution

The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 began shortly after his release from prison. He was ill and recovering from surgery, but he escaped the hospital to join the Hungarian revolutionaries and accept appointment as commander-in-chief of the military guard and military commander of Budapest against the Soviets.

"I was skin and bones coming out of five years of imprisonment," Agence France-Presse quoted him as saying in 2006. "I was far from being healed, so I had to slip out of the hospital because the doctors would not let me go."

— Béla Király, Agence France-Presse 2006[2]

Violence broke out in Budapest on October 23, 1956. Soviet troops, unprepared for the strength of the revolutionary forces, arranged a ceasefire on October 28, and began to retreat from the city. The violence subsisted, however, as pro-Nagy communists and various nationalist factions engineered purges of pro-Soviet party members in the city. Király, sensing a chaotic fragmentation of the revolutionary forces, sought to unite various anti-Soviet factions into a National Guard. On October 30, 1956, Király-led revolutionaries attacked the building of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. The revolutionaries detained dozens of suspected pro-Soviets, executing many on the spot. Similar purges continued throughout the city.[11][12]

In spite of the continued violence directed against pro-Soviet communists, Soviet correspondent Anastas Mikoyan advised against a Soviet invasion, wishing for the Hungarian communists to suppress the "counter-revolution" themselves. This inaction led many pro-Soviets to question their loyalties. As Nikita Khrushchev lost confidence in the ability of the Hungarian communists the suppress the uprising, he directed the Soviet army to invade Budapest on November 4.[13]

Király recognized his forces, loyal to Nagy, had no hope of victory over the Soviet army. However, he resented Soviet ambassador Yuri Andropov's concealing of the imminent invasion, which Nikita Khrushchev had officially decided upon 3 days prior.

Here was this man Andropov who clearly understood what was going on, Mr. Kiraly said bitterly, yet he pretended until the last moment to me and to the Prime Minister and to others that everything was business as usual. Even pirates, before they attack another ship, hoist a black flag. He was absolutely calculating.

— Béla Király, 1982 interview with R.W. Apple, Jr.[5]

After the Soviets successfully suppressed the revolution, Király fled to the United States through Austria to avoid capture. He was, however, sentenced to death in absentia back in the Soviet Union (a fate which other revolutionary leaders like Nagy did not escape).[2][14]

Time in the United States

Király was well regarded in the United States, as the U.S. had been supportive of the Nagy-led government to which Király had been loyal. He arrived speaking good English, having taught himself through an English-Hungarian dictionary while in prison. He enrolled in Columbia University earned a Master's degree in history in 1959, and a Ph.D. in 1966.[15] His doctoral dissertation topic was "1790: Society in Royal Hungary," and was later revised and published as Hungary in the Late Eighteenth Century: The Decline of Enlightened Despotism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969). The supervisor for his dissertation was Robert A. Kann, an Austrian-born historian at Rutgers University who spent several years as a visiting professor at Columbia.[16]

Király dedicated his second book, Ferenc Deák (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1975), to Kann, and also contributed to a Festschrift for Kann: Intellectual and Social Developments in the Habsburg Empire from Maria Theresa to World War I: Essays Dedicated to Robert A. Kann, ed. Stanley B. Winters and Joseph Held (Boulder: East European quarterly; distributed by Columbia University Press, 1975). From 1964 he taught Military History at Brooklyn College, and became chairman of the history department. He retired as Professor Emeritus in 1982.[2][7]

During Király's tenure he served as director of the Society In Change Program on East Central Europe, supervised Brooklyn College Press (the College's Publishing House), and was an adviser to the Brooklyn College Military History Club. The Brooklyn College Bela K. Kiraly Award, awarded to undergraduate students for outstanding work in modern history, bears his name.

Return to Hungary

After the

Hungarian National Assembly, representing his birthplace Kaposvár. He served from May–November 1990 as an independent deputy, then joined the Alliance of Free Democrats (SZDSZ) parliamentary group,[2][6] later assuming the role of a government adviser. In 2004, he was made an associate member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
.

Király died in his sleep in Budapest on 4 July 2009, aged 97.[6]

Selected works

  • Király, Béla K. (1969). Hungary in the late eighteenth century; the decline of enlightened despotism. New York: Columbia University Press.
    LCCN 69019459
    .
  • Király, Béla K. (1975). Ferenc Deák. Boston: Twayne Publishers.
    LCCN 74020558
    .
  • Király, Béla K., ed. (1975). Tolerance and movements of religious dissent in Eastern Europe. Boulder [Colo.] : East European Quarterly. New York.
    LCCN 75006229.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link
    ) distributed by Columbia University Press
  • Király, Béla K.;
    LCCN 77369620
    .
  • Kann, Robert A.; Király, Béla K.; Fichtner, Paula S., eds. (1977). The Habsburg Empire in World War I : essays on the intellectual, military, political, and economic aspects of the Habsburg war effort. Boulder Colo., New York: East European Quarterly.
    LCCN 76047779
    . distributed by Columbia University Press
  • Király, Béla K.;
    LCCN 77082394
    . distributed by Columbia University Press
  • Király, Béla K. (2001). Basic History of Modern Hungary, 1867–1999.
    LCCN 2001018642
    .
  • Király, Béla Kálmán;
    LCCN 79051780. Distributed by Columbia University Press
  • LCCN 81050886
    . Distributed by Columbia University Press

References

  1. ^ Nagy, Terka (2009-07-04). "1956 National Guard commander Bela Kiraly dies". naplo-online.hu. Archived from the original on 2012-02-25. Retrieved 2009-07-04.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Fox, Margalit (8 July 2009). "Bela Kiraly Dies at 97; Led Revolt in Hungary". The New York Times. Retrieved 2014-02-01.
  3. ^ a b Schindler, John R. (1998-02-24). "Dodging Armageddon: The Third World War That Almost Was, 1950". Cryptologic Quarterly: 85–95. Archived from the original on 2015-09-30. Retrieved 2016-10-27.
  4. ^ "Bela Kiraly". Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale. 2009. Gale Document Number: GALE|H1000054393. Retrieved 2014-02-01. Biography in Context. (subscription required)
  5. ^ a b
    Apple Jr., R.W. (28 December 1982). "SOME INSIGHTS INTO ANDROPOV GLEANED FROM BUDAPEST ROLE"
    . The New York Times. Retrieved 2014-02-06.
  6. ^ a b c d e Land, Thomas (26 July 2009). "Righteous Gentile Bela Kiraly dies at 92". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Retrieved 2014-02-06.
  7. ^ a b c Partos, Gabriel (11 July 2009). "Bela Kiraly: Soldier who led Hungarian resistance against the Soviet Union during the 1956 uprising". The Independent. London: Independent Educational Publishing. Retrieved 2014-02-06.
  8. ^ a b c
    Congdon, Lee (8 August 2009). "Obituary: Béla K. Király, 1912-2009". Newsgroup: Habsburg H-Net Habsburg. Retrieved 2014-02-07. {{cite newsgroup}}: Check |newsgroup= value (help
    )
  9. ^ "Király Béla (1912 - 2009 ) Personal Information The Righteous Among The Nations". Yad Vashem. Retrieved 2014-02-02.
  10. ^ "Király FAMILY - The Righteous Among The Nations". Yad Vashem. Retrieved 2014-02-02.
  11. ISBN 978-9630543705
    .
  12. ^ Filimonov, Olef (October 30, 2016). "Мифы о восстании". Polit RU. Retrieved October 27, 2016.
  13. ISBN 978-0-271-02935-1. Archived from the original
    (PDF) on 2016-02-07.
  14. ^ Bay, Austin (29 July 2009). "Remembering a Hungarian Freedom Fighter". Retrieved 2014-02-02.
  15. ^ Béla K. Király, Wars, Revolutions and Regime Changes in Hungary, 1912-2004: Reminiscences of an Eyewitness (Boulder, CO: Social Science Monographs; Highland Lakes, NJ: Atlantic Research and Publications, Inc.; New York: distributed by Columbia University Press, 2005), 381.
  16. ^ Winters, Stanley B. "The Forging of a Historian: Robert A. Kann in America, 1939-1976," Austrian History Yearbook 17 (Jan. 1981): 3-24.

Further reading

External links
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