An outlaw's diary: the Commune

In the fevered night of March 1919, a Hungarian town is ripped apart by the sudden roar of revolutionary slogans and the crack of gunfire. From the cramped diary of Admiral Nicholas Horthy, the reader feels the cold rain of fear soaking the streets as Bolshevik units storm the city, looting and declaring “Long live the Dictatorship of the Proletariat!” The narrative captures the suffocating silence that follows each burst of violence, the trembling of shutters, and the desperate scramble of ordinary citizens trying to survive the chaos.

Horthy’s voice is stark and urgent, recounting frantic warnings from a journalist friend to flee before the Entente officers are seized and British monitors are disarmed. He paints a vivid picture of a mother’s gaunt stare, the flickering lamplight, and the oppressive weight of a regime that has turned the familiar cityscape into a battlefield. As the diary unfolds, listeners are drawn into the tense, claustrophobic atmosphere of a community caught at the bottom of an abyss, uncertain whether the night will ever end.