Hősök tere

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Heroes' Square – overview

Heroes' Square by night

Heroes' Square has statues representing the founders of the Magyar nation over 1100 years ago

Old phase of Millennium Memorial and underground at Heroes' Square

Hősök tere (meaning "Heroes' Square" in Hungarian) is one of the major squares of Budapest, Hungary. It lies at the end of Andrássy Avenue (with which it comprises part of a World Heritage site), next to City Park.

It is surrounded by two important buildings, Museum of Fine Arts on the left and Art Gallery (Budapest)|Palace of Art]] (or Art Exhibition Museum) on the right. On the other side it faces Andrassy Avenue which has two buildings looking at the square — one is residential and the other one is the embassy of Serbia (former Yugoslavian embassy where Imre Nagy secured sanctuary in 1956).

The central site of the square, as well as a landmark of Budapest, is the Millennium Memorial (also known as Millennium Monument or Millenary Monument) with statues of the leaders of the seven tribes that founded Hungary in the 9th century and other outstanding figures of Hungarian history (see below). The construction of the memorial was started when the one thousandth anniversary was celebrated (in 1896), but it was finished only in 1929 and the square got its name then.

On the 16th June 1989 a crowd of 250,000 gathered at the square for the historic reburial of Imre Nagy, who had been executed in June 1958.

It is also a station of the yellow M1 (Millennium Underground) line of the Budapest Metro.

There are also three other squares in Budapest entitled Hősök tere, in Soroksár, Békásmegyer and Rákosliget.

[edit] Millennium Monument

This is a list of the statesmen who are portrayed with sculptures in the semi-circular arcades of the monument:

[edit] Trivia

The Heroes' Square monument has a 90% duplicate in Shanghai Global Paradise, Shanghai. Since its opening in 1996, it has been mostly degraded and most statues removed. (See an article about the place and photos of the duplicate monument in a Hungarian article.)