Does anyone know the name of the student who died during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956? If not, why not?

Question

I'm reading up on the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, and it seems that if that one student hadn't died, the revolution never would have started.

The revolt began as a student demonstration, which attracted thousands as they marched through central Budapest to the Parliament building, calling out on the streets using a van with loudspeakers. A student delegation, entering the radio building to try to broadcast the students' demands, was detained. When the delegation's release was demanded by the demonstrators outside, they were fired upon by the State Security Police (ÁVH) from within the building. One student died and was wrapped in a flag and held above the crowd. This was the start of the revolution. As the news spread, disorder and violence erupted throughout the capital.

Does anyone know the student's name? If no one knows, why does no one know? Was this information kept under wraps by the Soviets?

Answer 1

One of the sources quoted by the Wikipedia article is the United Nations Report of the Special Committee on the Problem of Hungary. If the document is genuine*, I would be inclined to give it much more credence than an unsourced sentence in an introductory paragraph to a Wikipedia article. On page 150, the report states that, on the evening of 23 October:

"... ÁVH men rushed from the entrance and began shooting in all directions. At least three people were killed - some say eight - and many wounded. For about twenty minutes the shooting continued from the windows of the building, resulting in more casualties among the demonstrators."

The report makes no mention of the body of a protester being wrapped in a flag and carried above the crowd. It does, however, state that

"The bloody clothes of the first dead were carried through the city and people rallied behind them in procession."

• (p151)

None of those killed in the early stages of the revolution are named. However, from the details presented in this report, it seems that any impression that "if one student hadn't died, the revolution never would have started" is probably mistaken.

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* Although there seems to be no doubt that a document by that name exists, I was unable to locate a copy of the report on the United Nations Official Document System search site (This may be because of the age of the report, or that it, together with associated documents, were classified Strictly Confidential when published, as shown in the Registry Section Summary (p711)). As a result, I cannot confirm that the report linked above is the actual report issued by the UN Committee. With that caveat, however, there does not seem to be anything in the content of the report to suggest that it is not genuine.