Lajos Kossuth

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Lajos Kossuth bigraphy, stories - Journalists

Lajos Kossuth : biography

19 September 1802 – 20 March 1894

Family

Lajos Kossuth was born in Monok, Kingdom of Hungary, a small town in the county of Zemplén, as the oldest of four children in a Protestant noble family. His father – László Kossuth (1762–1839) – belonged to the lower nobility, had a small estate and was a lawyer by profession. László Kossuth had two brothers (Simon Kossuth and György Kossuth) and one sister (Jana). The ancestors of the Kossuth family had lived in the county of Turóc (now , northwest Slovakia) in the north of Hungary since the 13th century. The Slovak ancestry of Kossuth never became the topic of political debate for him because the family was part of the Hungarus nobility of the Kingdom of Hungary. Kossuth considered himself an ethnic Hungarian (Magyar) and stated that there was no Slovak nation in the Kingdom of Hungary."Wherever we look in Hungary, there is no entity that would constitute a Slovak nationality/nation." ("Bármerre tekintünk is Magyarországon, sehol sem látunk anyagot ily tót nemzetiségre."); A. B. [Lajos Kossuth], "Visszapillantás a szláv mozgalmakra." Pesti Hírlap, 26 June 1842."Kossuth rejected the very idea of a Slovak nation […]."; Piotr Stefan Wandycz, The Price of Freedom: A History of East Central Europe from the Middle Ages to the Present. 2001."Though partly Slovak by birth, he [Lajos Kossuth] denied the existence of a Slovak nation […]."; A[lan] J[ohn] P[ercivale] Taylor, From Napoleon to Lenin: Historical Essays. 1966. He wrote about himself that "I was born Hungarian and brought up as a Hungarian." The mother of Lajos Kossuth, Karolina Weber, (1770–1853) was born to a Lutheran family of German descent living in Upper Hungary (today Slovakia). Her parents were András Wéber and Erzsébet Hidegkövy.

Honors and memorials

Hungary

The main square of Budapest with the Hungarian Parliament Building is named after Kossuth, and the Kossuth Memorial is an important scene of national ceremonies. Most cities in Hungary have streets named after Kossuth, see: Public place names of Budapest. The first public statue commemorating Kossuth was erected in Miskolc in 1898. Kossuth Rádió, the main radio station of Hungary, is named after Lajos Kossuth.

Béla Bartók also wrote a symphonic poem named Kossuth, the funeral march which was transcribed for piano and published in Bartok’s lifetime.

The memorials of Lajos Kossuth in the territories lost by Hungary after World War I, and again after World War II, were sooner or later demolished in neighboring countries. A few of them were re-erected following the fall of Communism by local councils or private associations. They play an important role as symbols of national identity of the Hungarian minority.

Slovakia

The most important memorial outside the present-day borders of Hungary is a statue in Rožňava, that was knocked down two times but restored after much controversy in 2004.

Romania

The only Kossuth statue that remained on its place after 1920 in Romania stands in Salonta. The demolished Kossuth Memorial of Târgu-Mureş was re-erected in 2001 in the little Székely village of Ciumani. The Kossuth Memorial in Arad, the work of Ede Margó from 1909, was removed by the order of the Brătianu government in 1925.

Rest of Europe

In Serbia there are two statues of Kossuth in Stara Moravica and Novi Itebej. Memorials in Ukraine are situated in Berehove and Tiachiv. The house where Kossuth lived in exile in Shumen, Bulgaria, has been turned into the Lajos Kossuth Memorial House, exhibiting documents and items related to Kossuth’s work and the Hungarian Revolution. A street in the centre of the Bulgarian capital Sofia also bears his name.

There is a letter of support from Kossuth on display at the Wallace Monument, near Stirling, Scotland. The building of the monument, dedicated to Scottish patriot William Wallace coincided with Kossuth’s visit to Scotland.

US

Kossuth County, Iowa, is named in Kossuth’s honor. A statue of the freedom fighter stands in front of the county Court House in Algona, Iowa, the county seat). The small US towns of Kossuth, Ohio, and Kossuth, Mississippi, are named in honor of Kossuth.