Hello and welcome back to This Week in History! What a week it is, being the last before the dreadful finals week finally arrives and the semester ends. It’s a time of change and hard work, but hopefully not bloody foreheads, as we will be discussing this week.
While finals loom ominously in the background, they really are the surface level of most people’s fears, especially in the context of history. Beyond exams, many fear that the world is in a constant state of chaos and destruction, in a perpetual downward spiral toward self-destruction. It is a grim outlook, but certainly one that has evidence to back it up. Yet, history has shown that when things look most hopeless, humanity pulls through with an almost miraculous drive and energy. Let’s cross to the eastern side of the Iron Curtain in 1956 this week and see just how that phenomenon appears in the historical record.
As World War II ended, the savaged political situation in Europe was not suddenly stabilized by the collapse of Nazi Germany. In fact, drawing borders and holding fair elections became substantially more difficult. Instead of one Adolf Hitler sitting down and drawing a map of Europe he liked, now the Soviet Union and the United States (and its often-disgruntled allies: France and the U.K.) were all trying to grasp a single pen to draw their desired versions of Europe. As a result, a small and subdued country like Hungary suddenly lost any semblance of sovereignty and instead was like a pawn in a chess game who was just swiped off the board by a rook.
As a member of the Axis in World War II, Hungary was a conquered nation by 1945, and its devastated territory fell under Soviet influence as the Soviet-supported Communist Party formed a government. This government would not achieve much for the Hungarian people’s recovery. As the “Hungarian Statistical Yearbook 1960” records, in 1949, 17 percent of homes had running water, and this number only increased marginally to 22.5 percent by 1960.
As the Institute for the History of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution contends, “The decade after 1945 was marked by scarcity in every respect.” As a new generation of students and workers entered Hungarian social life, the 1950s seemed to be a decade of little promise and many sought to defect to the West, which was gearing up for an economic boom. As winter began in 1956, those who could not defect saw little choice but to rise in revolution.
Though many struggled in Budapest and other urban areas against Hungarian police, no unarmed or lightly equipped Hungarian could survive a Russian T-34-85 or T-54 tank. Yet, the uprising did have an impact when the prime minister fled (to be replaced by another Soviet-appointed puppet), and an estimated 200,000 Hungarians fled the country. Left behind in the wake of this tumult were the lives of roughly 3,000 Hungarians, who struggled against a full Soviet armed response.
Only a few weeks after this brutal struggle, a team of Hungarians spurred on by the grief they felt in their country was gearing up to fight the Soviet Union in a different manner, yet with just as powerful an impact. On Dec. 6, 1954, a match known as “Blood in the Water” forever changed the history of water polo. It was a semi-final between the Soviet Union and Hungary in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics.
Despite Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s abrasive political actions in the days leading up to the USSR’s team arriving in Australia (revolving around the Suez Crisis), both teams found their way to the pool.
For anyone unfamiliar with the rules of water polo — as they don’t typically teach that in history classes — the sport is fairly simple, with players treading water and not being allowed to touch the bottom of the pool. Meanwhile, two goals take space at opposing ends of the pool and a ball is in play that can only be touched by one of the players’ hands (except for the goalie, who can use both hands). The objective: score points, even if through aggressive physical contact. The Hungarian team’s objective? Restore national pride and secure a sense of freedom.
Legendary polo player Dezsö Gyarmati led the Hungarian team. By all accounts, he was a beacon of energy and endurance for the team and became the most decorated polo player on the team and led it in later years. In 1956, however, he oversaw a team that in the words of player Ervin Zádor, “…felt we were playing not just for ourselves but for our whole country.”
The match was a brutal slog. Both teams were aware of the larger political ramifications of victory or defeat. The Hungarians wanted to rekindle national pride, while the Soviets (who had stolen the Hungarian’s training methods through political pressure) sought to knock the team off its previous record of winning Olympic competitions.
The Hungarian team began the contest with a strategy of taunting the Soviets. If the insults that the Hungarians threw at their rivals provoked a physical retaliation, then the Soviets would receive a penalty. Zádor was the rising star of the Hungarian team, and it was his placement on defense against an aggressive Russian player that would lend the game its disturbing title.
Zádor guarded Valentin Prokopov, a dominant Russian player who had already broken a Hungarian player’s eardrum. Water polo has the potential to be violent, but Prokopov brought that quality of the sport to its limits.
The Hungarian guard didn’t do much to protect himself though, and he hurled insults at Prokopov about his mother and her fabricated heinous explicit activities.
As the game progressed, the Hungarians scored four goals and left the Soviets trailing with zero. With only a minute left, Zádor turned to the referee to see what a whistle call was blown for, though, he would soon wake up in a daze. Prokopov, who had heard enough slander towards his family, had socked him in the face.
The largely pro-Hungarian audience was livid. Onlookers stormed the perimeter of the pool hurling insults of their own at the Soviet team, while officials soon called the game early as a Hungarian victory due to their lead in points.
Although a common myth gets thrown around that the pool water was turned completely red by blood, that isn’t the case. However, photos of Zádor do reveal a man with a blood-soaked face and shattered body.
In the end, though the Hungarians were forced into another 40 years of Soviet oppression after their failed uprising in 1956, the sacrifices were not in vain, as the struggle for independence spurred their national water polo team to international stardom. The West covered the struggle as a struggle between Soviet Bloc members, and the Hungarian team was eventually victorious in the final game against Yugoslavia, winning their fourth Olympic medal. Zádor and a few of his fellow polo players defected to the West after their victory.
And so, this week in history ends with a momentous struggle to rekindle a spirit of camaraderie and strength. Though not always successful, oftentimes the greater a struggle is, the greater the collective energy is to best it. Let’s enter the finals stretch with that enthusiasm. And, as this is the final This Week in History of the year, I hope you have a holiday season worthy of the history books. See you in 2025!