Liberty Statue (Budapest)

It was first erected in 1947 in remembrance of the Soviet liberation of Hungary during World War II, which ended the occupation by Nazi Germany.

According to Kisfaludi Strobl, the design was originally made for the memorial of István Horthy and would in that role have featured a human child instead of the palm leaf that was a Soviet addition.

At the time of the monument's construction, the defeat of Axis forces by the Red Army was officially proclaimed “liberation”—leading to the original inscription upon the memorial (both in Hungarian and Russian):

which can be translated to read, "To the memory of the liberating Soviet heroes [erected by] the grateful Hungarian people [in] 1945".

Over the following years, public sentiment toward the Soviets decreased to the point of revolution, which was attempted and temporarily succeeded in 1956 and subsequently damaged some portions of the monument.