Hungary Hungarian Soviet Republic Commemorative Medal

[Greg Collins]

Picked this up the other day, faded and a little worse for wear, no box or ribbon, but a nice looking award none the less. Silver plating over bronze.

[Greg Collins]

A closeup of the front...

[Greg Collins]

And the back. Translation anyone?

[Ulsterman]

As far as I'm concerned one of the top three awards of the HUPR!

Given to the older stalwarts (allegedly) of Bela Kuns' armies/mobs!

[Zsolt]

Translation:Tanácsköztársasági Emlékérem = Soviet Republic Commemorative Medal

[cimbineus]

Hi Gents,

I must admit, I do not like this medal at all. I think that besides the politics and the philosophy behind, it is extremely militant and ill in its message, elementary or even primitive in design, simplistic in finish, to tell the least. But, nevertheless, this is also an HPR medal and, I think, it is interesting for you to see two rare variants. In this picture, in the upper row you can see the two usual pieces. Below there are the two interesting variations.

Regards,

cimbineus

[cimbineus]

…and here is a closer look at the two variations. The first one with the mane of the designer (below the factory building, "TOTH-L" = Toth Laszlo), and the second medal made of bronze.

Edited May 12, 2010 by cimbineus

[Ulsterman]

Bronze?? Why bronze? A prototype perhaps?

[Zsolt]

I think it was stolen from the Mint before silver plating.

Edited May 12, 2010 by Zsolt

[Christophe]

One has the 1969 date instead of 1959. Is it "normal" ?

Ch.

[Zsolt]

Yes, awarded twice: for 50-th, and 60-th anniversary of the Hungarian Soviet Republik. With different year: 1959 and 1969 .

Edited May 12, 2010 by Zsolt

[Christophe]

Thanks.

And I understand this version is the rarest one : only 6868 were awarded to surviving members of Bela Kun's Soviet government of 1919.

Ch.

[Zsolt]

Yes. ( This quantity is enough seems pretty far, but very hard to find.)

[cimbineus]

I think it was stolen from the Mint before silver plating.

Hi Gents,

Yes, this can be one possibility, but there are some others too. For example, this medal was awarded not only as medal, but as plaque as well. Some of those were like this one, but without the ring for the ribbon, of course. It is not excluded that simply a mistake happened, and the two pieces were mixed up. Or, during the production some medals avoided the phase of silver plating and the quality control did not notice that. Perhaps, there are some other options as well, but this medal is here, anyway, as a curiosity.

Regards,

cimbineus

Edited May 12, 2010 by cimbineus

[Zsolt]

Cimbineus, I have seen from the plaque only silver plated.

[Ulsterman]

I have some award booklets for these. Was there ever a "roll" published of who got these? Were there newspaper stories about the "old vets" in the media?

[hunyadi]

The medal does represent a darker time of Hungarian history where politics were executed with murder and torture. As for the asthetic appeal its quite Soviet Utopian - but it goes back to the earlier experiments with the art theory of the early 1920's - a nice way to commemorate the event even though the ideal of the late 1950's would have been more of the type you see with East German medals. Its interesting to see the Toth L signatute and now I have to go and look trough my own collection of these to see if I have a variant - oh how i miss the days of just randomly buying them...

[cimbineus]

...Was there ever a "roll" published of who got these?...

Most probably, no, there was not.

...Were there newspaper stories about the "old vets" in the media?

Yes, there were some, but mostly politically motivated, colourful and not reliable at all stories, censored and approved by the Communist Party.

cimbineus