A Bridge on Austrian border; a memory lane to the Hungarian Revolution (Travel with MP Prabhakaran)

(This is Chapter 17 from Mr. Prabhakaran’s book, An Indian Goes Around the World – I: Capitalism Comes to Mao’s Mausoleum, which we have been serializing in this space. Chapter 18, “An Austrian-Muslim Woman, Determined to Remain Modern,” will be published next week. Read the series every Monday. – Editor)

Austria, especially its capital Vienna, had been on top of my travel wish list for a long time. For some reason or other, the travel plan fell through at the last moment all that time. At long last, in the summer of 2008, the plan materialized.

It was memorable in many ways; most importantly, for the visit I paid to the famous bridge at Andau, on Austria’s border with Hungary. An otherwise unremarkable wooden footbridge, a little over 60 feet long, it became part of history for the role it played during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Today, it serves as a memory lane to that revolution and, for that reason, has become a tourist attraction. More about the bridge, in a minute.

Ever since my friend Kulamarva Balakrishna* left Bombay (now Mumbai) in the late 1970s and made Vienna his home, I had an added incentive to visit the place. And he had been persistently inviting me to do it. The invitation that came in 1999 was in the form of an ultimatum, and quite an unnerving one. “Come now,” it said. “This may be your last chance to see me alive.” He was preparing to undergo a major surgery to remove his defective pancreas.

For reasons beyond my control, I was unable to make the trip, even after that ultimatum. I sent him a letter, telling him not to have any misgivings about the competence of Austria’s medical professionals. He would surely survive the surgery, I said in the letter, and both he and I would be around many more years, paying visits to each other many times.

As I had expected, the surgery was a success. And thanks to Austria’s excellent health care system, which is accessible to the rich and poor alike, and to his strict post-surgery regimen and discipline, Balakrishna has been able to live a life more productive than most people who have their pancreas intact. Every day, he posts two or three articles on his blog, Humans Austria. The articles are social and political commentaries, often provocative. The blog is dedicated to “promoting human oneness and unity.”

My reunion with Balakrishna brought back memories of the days we spent in Bombay as journalists. He was already an established journalist, and his exposé of Bombay’s underworld had already earned him a reputation, when I started my career as a cub reporter on D.F. Karaka’s Current.

During the six days I was in Vienna, he took me around all important and interesting places in the city – museums, galleries, theaters, gardens and parks. Almost every historic building in Vienna is an architectural marvel, with statues of historical figures adorning them. Even the power plant in the city, designed by Friedensreich Hundertwasser, is a piece of art.

Balakrishna was more concerned about making my sojourn in Vienna comfortable than about his physical condition. I had to frequently remind him that he was on medication and had been advised by his doctors not to exert much.

His Austrian wife Eva joined us whenever she could. She is a painter by profession and makes a living working for a city-subsidized art gallery. The same gallery was going to hold an exhibition of her paintings the following week. At the time I was in Vienna, she was busy preparing for it. At their home, which doubles as Eva’s studio, I had a preview of what she was going to exhibit. Most of the pieces that I saw were reflective of the people, places and events she had come across during her travels around India after marrying Balakrishna.

At another gallery, near the one where Eva works, there was another exhibition going on. One Peter Richnovsky was showing the photos he had taken during his visits to various parts of northern India. The India theme of the exhibition drew us into the gallery.

Looking at one photo, captioned “Mumbai,” I commented, “No, the caption should be Kolkata, not Mumbai.” The photo was that of a man pulling a rickshaw, with another man seated in it. One may witness many sickening scenes in Mumbai. But human beings pulling rickshaws, with fellow human beings sitting in them, is not one of them. That abominable practice still prevails only in Kolkata, formerly Calcutta. It’s a shame that the Communist Party-controlled government of West Bengal, of which Kolkata is the capital, hasn’t outlawed the inhuman practice as yet. And the Communists still masquerade as champions of the oppressed.

Only when we were coming out of the gallery did I realize that my comment about the caption was too loud. The man sitting at the entrance to the gallery had overheard it. I had not known that he was the photographer whose works were on display until he introduced himself and said, to my slight embarrassment, “Yes, the caption should have been ‘Kolkata,’ not ‘Mumbai.’” He didn’t blush when he said it.

Anachronistic Communists

The anachronistic Communists were very much the topic of our conversation when we visited the famous bridge at Andau, the next day. The visit was made possible by the kind gesture of Balakrishna’s Austrian friend who lives close to the Austro-Hungarian border. He had invited us to lunch at his home. Before the lunch, he offered to drive us to the bridge. It was a pleasant 45-minute drive through the Austrian countryside.

The narrow wooden bridge linking Austria and Hungary, which takes its name from the Austrian border village Andau, became world-famous during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. The bridge served as an escape route for Hungarians who fled their country when Soviet tanks rolled in to suppress the revolution. Those who participated in it were ruthlessly attacked by Soviet troops.

The revolution was started by students and intellectuals, with a demand for removal of the Stalinist form of government which the Hungarian Communists had imposed on their country, with Soviet blessings, and for restoration of democracy. It was steadily gaining momentum when the Soviet Union decided to send in troops and tanks to crush it. The Soviets feared that Hungary was on the brink of breaking away from the Warsaw Pact. About 2,500 Hungarians died in the Soviet onslaught and 200,000 (about 2 percent of the total population) fled the country.

Those who fled toward west crossed the bridge at Andau and ended up on the Austrian side, to the warm welcome and hospitality of the villagers there. It is said that in three months since the revolution began, on October 23, 1956, about 70,000 people had escaped to Austria, using the bridge. Their plight has been vividly portrayed by James Michener in his famous 1957 book, The Bridge at Andau.

Michener was on the Austrian side of the bridge when the exodus began. Most of those who fled the Soviet tyranny, whose woes Michener recorded in his book, were young, their average age being 23. Among them were students, professors, writers, engineers and other professionals. From one university alone, 500 students and 32 professors and their families fled.

The original bridge was blown up by the invading Soviet army on November 21, 1956, at the height of the revolution. It was rebuilt later, mainly to memorialize the revolution. A lookout-like structure has also been built, on the Austrian side, for the same purpose. The inscription on the structure shows how indebted the revolutionaries were to Austria. It reads (as translated by our Austrian host):

“Dear Austria, you are the first to be on our side in the freedom struggle. For your touching help and hospitality, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

“— In the name of the Hungarian people, the students of the University of Sopron.”

The translation of the inscription, from the Hungarian language, may be approximate. Our host who rendered it had no pretense of being a linguist. His mother tongue is German and he makes a living working as a gardener for the city administration of Vienna. When he told me that he had only a smattering of the Hungarian and English, I couldn’t help saying to myself, “That’s more than most Americans with university degrees and diplomas can say about themselves.”

The lunch he and his wife treated us to was a sumptuous one. The quality wine he served us was from the winery owned by a family friend of theirs. On our way back from the bridge, he had given us a tour of the winery, Scheiblhofer, and the surrounding vineyard. It was a Sunday, and the owner was working in the vineyard. Pointing to him, our host said, “Now you know how he built his business from scratch and made it into what it is today.” Today, it is a successful winery that has started exporting its products to other countries.

The anachronistic Communists may want to learn a lesson or two from the success story of this Austrian vintner and from the lifestyle of our host who is just a gardener in Vienna. Under the Communist scheme of things, a gardener is supposed to be a member of the oppressed proletariat.

_______

*Kulamarva Balakrishna, an Indian journalist and social activist, passed away on February 27, 2013, in Vienna, Austria. Vienna had been his home since he left India in 1975, in the wake of the Emergency rule imposed on the country by the late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. He was one of the few fiercely independent journalists who were shadowed by Mrs. Gandhi’s secret police. He left the country when his arrest became imminent. He is survived by his Austrian wife Eva and their son Bharat.

Photos 1

The Bridge at Andau. The original bridge, which Hungarians used to escape to Austria when Soviet tanks rolled into their country to crush their revolution, was destroyed by the Soviets. This one was built in its place later, mainly as a memorial to the revolution – the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.

This lookout-like structure is another memorial to the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. It was built by students of the University of Sopron, Hungary, to thank Austrians for the “touching help and hospitality” they provided to the Hungarians who fled their country in the wake of Soviet troops’ crackdown on them.

3

The author, with his late journalist friend, Kulamarva Balakrishna, at a train station in Vienna, Austria. Bala, as his close friends used to call him, had come to the station to see the author off, at the end of his 2008 Vienna visit.

 (To be continued)

 (M.P. Prabhakaran can be reached by email at [email protected])

see also

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(To be continued)

(M.P. Prabhakaran can be reached by email at [email protected])

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Chapter: 11:
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(about the author) An Indian Goes Around the World – I (Capitalism Comes to Mao’s Mausoleum)http://dlatimes.com/article.php?id=40126