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For over a century the Lipotvaros was dominated by a gigantic barracks where scores of Hungarians were imprisoned or executed, until this symbol of Habsburg tyranny was demolished in 1897 and the site redeveloped as Szabadsag ter (Liberty Square). Invested with significance from the outset, it became a record of the vicissitudes of modern Hungarian history, where each regime added or removed monuments, according to their political complexion. In the early years of this century, Hungary's burgeoning prosperity was expressed by two monumental temples to capitalism: the Stock Exchange, whose designer, Ignac Alpar, blended motifs from Greek and Assyrian architecture and crowned it with twin towers resembling Khmer temples; and the National Bank across the square, its facade encrusted with reliefs symbolizing honest toil and profit. While the former became the headquarters of Hungarian Television ( Magyar Televizio , or MTV ) after the Communists abolished the stock market, the latter still functions as intended and contains a small Museum of Banknotes (Thurs 9am-2pm; free), featuring such curiosities as the "Kossuth" banknotes that were issued in America during his exile and notes denominated in billions of forints from the period of hyper-inflation in 1946. Today's capitalists have commissioned the mirrored-glass and granite International Bank Centre at the southern end of the square. Turning from money to politics, notice the statue of General Harry Bandholtz of the US Army, who intervened with a dogwhip to stop Romanian troops from looting the Hungarian National Museum in 1919. The statue was erected in the 1930s, when Hungary was still smarting from the Treaty of Trianon that gave away two-thirds of its territory and a third of its Magyar population to Romania, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. This deeply felt injustice inspired several other monuments on Szabadsag ter, namely the Monument to Hungarian Grief - featuring a flag at half-mast and a quotation from Lord Rothermere (the proprietor of the Daily Mail , whose campaign against Trianon was so appreciated that he was offered the Hungarian crown) - and four statues called North, South, East and West, whose inauguration was attended by 50,000 people. After 1945 all of these monuments were removed by the Communists, who converted the base of the Monument to Hungarian Grief into the Soviet Army Memorial , commemorating the liberation of Budapest from the Nazis. When the Socialists got the boot in 1990, there were calls to remove the Soviet memorial and restore all the old nationalist ones (Bandholtz had already been reinstated prior to President Bush's visit in 1989), but wiser counsels prevailed. There was once even a monument called "Gratitude", erected in 1949 in honour of Stalin's seventieth birthday - but of course nobody has proposed restoring that one. To compound the irony, the Soviet memorial stands near the former headquarters of the Fascist Arrow Cross, and directly in front of the US Embassy , which for fifteen years gave shelter to Cardinal Mindszenty, the Primate of Hungary's Catholic Church. Though the US government was pleased to do so in the aftermath of the 1956 Uprising (when Mindszenty was freed from jail by insurgents), his presence later became an embarrassment to both the US government and the Vatican, which finally persuaded him to leave for Austria in 1971. Behind the US embassy, the former Post Office Savings Bank on Hold utca is a classic example of Hungarian Art Nouveau - its facade patterned like a quilt, with swarms of bees (symbolizing savings) ascending to the polychromatic roof, which is the wildest part of the building. Its architect, Odon Lechner, once asked why birds shouldn't enjoy his buildings, and amazing roofs are also a feature of his other masterpieces in Budapest, the Applied Arts Museum and the Geological Institute. The bank's interior is open to the public on only one day a year - European Heritage Day, in September (ask Tourinform for details). Across the street is a wrought-iron market hall , one of five opened on a single day in 1896, which continue to serve the centre of Budapest to this day. At the junction of Hold and Bathory utca, a lantern on a plinth flickers with an eternal flame commemorating Count Lajos Batthyany, the prime minister of the short-lived republic declared after the 1848 War of Independence, whom the Habsburgs executed on this spot on October 6, 1849. As a staunch patriot - but not a revolutionary - Batthyany is a hero for conservative nationalists, and his monument the destination of annual marches on October 6 or other public holidays. The refrains and paradoxes of Hungarian history are echoed on Vertanuk ter (Martyrs' Square), between Szabadsag ter and Kossuth ter, where a statue of Imre Nagy - the reform Communist who became prime minister during the 1956 Uprising and was shot in secret afterwards - stands on a footbridge, gazing towards Parliament. With his raincoat, trilby and umbrella hooked over his arm, Nagy cuts an all too human, flawed figure, and is scorned by those who pay their respects to Batthyany.
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