Hungarian Soldiers for Finnish Independence

In cooperation with the Helsinki-based Hungarian Cultural and Scientific Centre, the MoD IMMH organized an exhibition on the centenary of Finland’s achieving independence to commemorate the Hungarian volunteers of the 1939–1940 Finnish–Soviet Winter War, a collective historical event of the two nations.

In the Finnish–Soviet War that broke out at the end of November 1939, Hungary provided immediate assistance to the people of Finland. The government of Hungary sent supplies of war materiel to the country and allowed the collection of donations for the Finnish Red Cross. Even more importantly, following its establishment on 10 January 1940 a 400-strong Hungarian all-volunteer military contingent travelled to Finland to support the sister nation. Although due to the end of the war, this contingent was not deployed in combat after receiving winter training, its members actively took part in border security operations.

Deputy Defence Minister Tamás Vargha, Parliamentary State Secretary of the Ministry of Defence opened the exhibition together with Petri Tuomi-Nikula, the ambassador of Finland to Budapest. The deputy minister pointed out that the Finnish–Hungarian relations go far beyond the relatedness of the two languages. “We, Finns and Hungarians are full brothers in our checkered fate", Tamás Vargha said, underlining that the 1939-40 Finnish–Soviet War prompted Hungary as a whole to provide assistance. “We transported war materiel, and due to the location of the theatres of war, Hungarian volunteers had to make a very long detour before reaching Finland. Also, Hungarian civilians helped wherever they could: for example, Albert Szent-Györgyi offered the sum of his Nobel Prize to help the Finnish people", the state secretary noted.

In his speech, Petri Tuomi-Nikula emphasized that the participation of Hungarian volunteers in the war remains an indelible part of our common Finnish–Hungarian history. “It is unbelievable that the news of the Finnish war aroused such a great empathy in Hungarian society. The Hungarians felt that they would help their Finnish brothers, and the Finns felt that they received assistance from their Hungarian brothers", the ambassador said, and then he expressed thanks for the timing of the exhibition on the centenary of Finland’s independence.

According to information provided by the MoD IMMH, the present exhibition uses material from the 2015 exhibition organized by the Military Museum of Finland and the Helsinki-based Hungarian Cultural and Scientific Centre “Hungarian Volunteers in the 1939–1940 Finnish–Soviet Winter War", which has been complemented with objects and documents from the collections of the MoD IMMH and the legacy of Army Chaplain János Bartha. The exhibition shows the objects of Hungarian assistance provided to the Finnish sister nation, such as items of war materiel transport, the documents of charity events and the personal belongings of Hungarians who travelled to Finland as volunteers and films containing their recorded recollections, as well as publications issued in the early 1940s in Hungary in praise of the life-and-death struggle of the Finnish people.

The exhibition will be on view in the MoD IMMH until the end of February 2018.

Photo: Péter Szikits