The 1956 Hungarian Revolution: Hungarian and Canadian Perspectives

9. The 1956-1957 Refugee Movement in the Context of Hungarian Immigration to Canada since the Late 19th Century

9. The 1956–1957 Refugee Movement in the Context of Hungarian Immigration to Canada since the Late 19th Century Nándor Dreisziger The movement of the refugees of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution to Canada, remarked Professor Gerald E. Dirks thirty-three years after the event, “was unprecedented in the long history of immigration to Canada.”1 If the coming of the Hungarian refugees in 1956–1957 was a unique event in the annals of Canadian immigration history then it is not surprising that it was also a unique happening in the history of Hungarian immigration to this land. The refugee movement was unprecedented above all because never before or since have so many Hungarians come to Canada in such a short time. It was also very special in that it had a profound impact on the existing Hungarian-Canadian community. The way the 1956 refugees were perceived by the Canadian public at large was also extraordinary. At the same time, when we survey the course of Hungarian-Canadian history, it also becomes evident that the coming of the refugees was not always and not in all respects a unique experience as many aspects of pre-1956 Hungarian-Canadian immigration history foreshadowed the movement of 1956–1957. The main purpose of this paper is to examine the 1956 refugee experience, place it in the context of a century and a half of Hungarian immigration to Canada, and establish to what extent and in what regard the coming of the refugees in 1956–1957 was a unique development in 194 The 1956 Hungarian Revolution: Canadian and Hungarian Perspectives the annals of Hungarian immigration to Canada and in the evolution of this country’s Hungarian community. * Hungarians have been coming to the shores of the northern half of North America since the earliest days of European settlement in this land. Compared to Western Europeans, however, they came infrequently and in very small numbers, and mainly as visitors.2 It was not until the second half of the nineteenth century that they began showing up in Canada in numbers that might attract the attention of immigration historians. Even in this period, it wasn’t until the very end of the century that we can talk about the rise of enduring Hungarian immigrant communities in this country.3 As is well known, the Hungarians who had come to Canada since the closing years of the nineteenth century came in waves or, as immigration historians call them, “streams.” Perhaps somewhat arbitrarily, five such streams can be distinguished. The first is the pre-1914 stream of immigration. The second is the immigration that started in 1924 and lasted until the onset of the Great Depression. The third is the movement of the post-World War II “displaced persons.” The fourth constitutes the 1956–1957 refugees, and the last comprises the Hungarian newcomers who have arrived since the end of the 1950s. In this paper, I will focus on the experiences of the “56 wave” of Hungarian arrivals and compare the circumstances of their coming to Canada and their settlement here with those of the previous three waves. The post-1959 wave will not be analyzed in detail, partly because it was more of a trickle than a wave and partly because it was a complex phenomenon that defies easy characterization. More important, however, than the analysis of this largely chronological division of the Hungarian immigrant experience will be a classification of the subject at hand into a number of themes or dimensions. This categorization will facilitate the discussion of the history of each wave of Hungarian immigrants in a systematic manner and will allow us to establish the differences—as well as the similarities—in the nature and experiences of each wave. Dreisziger The 1956–1957 Refugee Movement 195 The first of these dimensions concerns the motivation of the members of each wave in leaving their Hungarian homeland. This dimension reveals the extent to which the members of each particular wave were political refugees as opposed to economic migrants. The next dimension deals with the basic demographic characteristics of each wave. This will be followed by an examination of the social and religious make-up of each stream of Hungarian immigration. This in turn will lead into an analysis of what might best be called the psychological dimension of the departure from Hungary and arrival in Canada of the members of each immigrant wave. This...