96 Facts About Lajos Kossuth

Lajos Kossuth was widely honoured during his lifetime, including in Great Britain and the United States, as a freedom fighter and bellwether of democracy in Europe.

Lajos Kossuth was born into an untitled lower noble family in Monok, Kingdom of Hungary, a small town in the county of Zemplen in modern-day Borsod-Abauj-Zemplen County of Northern Hungary.

Lajos Kossuth was the eldest of five children in a Lutheran noble family of Slovak origin.

Lajos Kossuth's father, Laszlo Kossuth, belonged to the lower nobility, had a small estate and was a lawyer by profession.

Lajos Kossuth studied at the Piarist college of Satoraljaujhely and the Calvinist college of Sarospatak and the University of Pest.

Lajos Kossuth's career quickly took off, thanks to his father, who was a lawyer for several higher aristocratic families, and thus involved his son in the administration, and his son soon took over some of his father's work.

Lajos Kossuth first became a lawyer in the Lutheran parish of Satoraljaujhely, in 1827 he became a judge, and later he became a prosecutor in Satoraljaujhely.

Lajos Kossuth was popular locally, and having been appointed steward to the countess Szapary, a widow with large estates, he became her voting representative in the county assembly and settled in Pest.

Lajos Kossuth was dismissed on the grounds of some misunderstanding in regards to estate funds.

The House of Kossuth, into which Lajos was born, originated from the county of Turoc.

Lajos Kossuth's paternal grandmother was a Beniczky and her Beniczky ancestors had married into the following families: Farkas, Zmeskal ; Revay, Pajor ; and finally, Pronay.

Lajos Kossuth's mother, Karolina Weber, was born to a Lutheran family of three-quarters-German and Magyarized-German, living in Upper Hungary.

Shortly after his dismissal by Countess Szapary, Lajos Kossuth was appointed as deputy to Count Hunyady at the Diet of Hungary.

Only the upper aristocracy could vote in the House of Magnates and Lajos Kossuth took little part in the debates as a deputy of Count Hunyady.

The high quality of Lajos Kossuth's letters led to their being circulated in manuscript among other liberal magnates.

Lajos Kossuth continued to report, covering the debates of the county assemblies.

Lajos Kossuth had a small window and with the help of a politically well-informed young woman, Theresa Meszlenyi, he remained informed about political events.

In reality, Lajos Kossuth did not know Meszlenyi before his imprisonment, but this permitted her to visit.

Lajos Kossuth greatly increased his political knowledge and acquired fluency in English from study of the King James Version of the Bible and William Shakespeare which he henceforth always spoke with a certain archaic eloquence.

Lajos Kossuth was a Catholic and her Church refused to bless the marriage since Kossuth, a proud Protestant, would not convert.

However Lajos Kossuth refused to convert to Roman Catholicism, and Meszlenyi refused to convert to Lutheranism.

Lajos Kossuth's editorials dealt with the pressing problems of the economy, the social injustices and the existing legal inequality of the common people.

Lajos Kossuth's ideas stand on the enlightened Western European type liberal nationalism.

Lajos Kossuth followed the ideas of the French nation state ideology, which was a ruling liberal idea of his era.

Lajos Kossuth pleaded in the newspaper Pesti Hirlap for rapid Magyarization: "Let us hurry, let us hurry to Magyarize the Croats, the Romanians, and the Saxons, for otherwise we shall perish".

Istvan Szechenyi criticized Lajos Kossuth for "pitting one nationality against another".

Lajos Kossuth publicly warned Kossuth that his appeals to the passions of the people would lead the nation to revolution.

Lajos Kossuth, undaunted, did not stop at the publicly reasoned reforms demanded by all Liberals: the abolition of entail, the abolition of feudal burdens and taxation of the nobles.

Lajos Kossuth went on to broach the possibility of separating from the House of Habsburg.

In 1844, Lajos Kossuth was dismissed from Pesti Hirlap after a dispute with the proprietor over salary.

Lajos Kossuth was unable to obtain permission to start his own newspaper.

Lajos Kossuth refused and spent the next three years without a regular position.

Lajos Kossuth continued to agitate on behalf of both political and commercial independence for Hungary.

Lajos Kossuth argued for the creation of a Hungarian port at Fiume.

Lajos Kossuth played a major role in the formation of the Opposition Party in 1847, whose programme was essentially formulated by him.

Lajos Kossuth's eloquence was of that nature, in its impassioned appeals to the strongest emotions, that it required for its full effect the highest themes and the most dramatic situations.

Lajos Kossuth believed that society could not be forced into a passive role by any reason through social change.

Behind Lajos Kossuth's conception of society was a notion of freedom that emphasized the unitary origin of rights, which he saw manifested in universal suffrage.

In 1885, Lajos Kossuth called Szechenyi a liberal elitist aristocrat while Szechenyi considered himself to be a democrat.

Szechenyi's economic policy based on Anglo-Saxon free-market principles, while Lajos Kossuth supported the protective tariffs due to the weaker Hungarian industrial sector.

Lajos Kossuth wanted to build a rapidly industrialized country in his vision while Szechenyi wanted to preserve the traditionally strong agricultural sector as the main character of the economy.

Lajos Kossuth appealed to the hope of the Habsburgs, "our beloved Archduke Franz Joseph", to perpetuate the ancient glory of the dynasty by meeting half-way the aspirations of a free people.

On 17 March 1848 the Emperor assented and Lajos Kossuth Batthyany created the first Hungarian government, that was not anymore responsible to the King, but to the elected members of the Diet.

Lajos Kossuth began developing the internal resources of the country: re-establishing a separate Hungarian coinage, and using every means to increase national self-consciousness.

In popular poetry, Rozsa is seen as a Robin Hood-like character, while Lajos Kossuth was the personification of the nation.

Actually, from this time until the collapse of the revolution, Lajos Kossuth became the de facto and de jure ruler of Hungary.

Lajos Kossuth was elected president of the OHB, which operated as the de facto government.

Arthur Gorgey in particular, whose great abilities Lajos Kossuth was the first to recognize, refused obedience; the two men were very different personalities.

Twice Lajos Kossuth removed him from command; twice he had to restore him.

Lajos Kossuth accepted some national demands of the Vlach and the Croats, but he showed no understanding for the requests of the Slovaks.

Lajos Kossuth did not believe that a Hungary that was limited to its ethnic or linguistic borders would actually be a viable state.

Alfred I, Prince of Windisch-Gratz refused all terms, and the Diet and government fled to Debrecen, Lajos Kossuth taking with him the Crown of St Stephen, the sacred emblem of the Hungarian nation.

Lajos Kossuth played a key role in tying down the Hungarian army for weeks for the siege and recapture of Buda castle, finally successful on 4 May 1849.

Lajos Kossuth steadfastly maintained until his death that Gorgey alone was responsible for the humiliation.

Lajos Kossuth's calls for independence and cut off ties with the Habsburgs did not become British policy.

Lajos Kossuth argued that a united Austrian Empire was a European necessity and a natural ally of Britain.

Lajos Kossuth was hospitably received by the Ottoman authorities, who were supported by the British.

On 10 August 1851 the release of Lajos Kossuth was decided by the Sublime Porte, in spite of threats by Austria and Russia.

The United States Congress approved having Lajos Kossuth come there, and on 1 September 1851, he boarded the ship USS Mississippi at Smyrna, with his family and fifty exiled followers.

At Marseille, Lajos Kossuth sought permission to travel through France to England, but Prince-President Louis Napoleon denied the request.

Lajos Kossuth protested publicly, and officials saw that as a blatant disregard for the neutral position of the United States.

Lajos Kossuth went thereafter to Winchester, Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham; at Birmingham the crowd that gathered to see him ride under the triumphal arches erected for his visit was described, even by his severest critics, as 75,000 individuals.

In 1856, Lajos Kossuth toured Scotland extensively, giving lectures in major cities and small towns alike.

Hungarian passive resistance and the foreign activities of the Lajos Kossuth group reinforced each other.

From Britain Lajos Kossuth went to the United States of America aboard the Humboldt postal vessel.

Lajos Kossuth was warmly welcomed since the Congress in a letter inviting him to the country as the 'guest of the nation'.

The US Congress organized a banquet for Lajos Kossuth, which was supported by all political parties.

In early 1852, Lajos Kossuth, accompanied by his wife, his son Ferenc, and Theresa Pulszky, toured the American Midwest, South, and New England.

Lajos Kossuth was the second foreigner after the Marquis de Lafayette to address a Joint Meeting of the United States Congress.

Lajos Kossuth believed that by appealing directly to European immigrants in the American heartland that he could rally them behind the cause of a free and democratic Hungary.

Lajos Kossuth infuriated the abolitionists by refusing to say anything offensive to the pro-slavery establishment, which did not give him much support.

Lajos Kossuth ruined all chances for backing when he openly recommended to German Americans they should choose Franklin Pierce for president.

The plot ended with the failure of the Milanese riots of 1853, and Lajos Kossuth made no further efforts to win backing from the United States.

Lajos Kossuth made a close connection with his friend Giuseppe Mazzini, by whom, with some misgiving, he was persuaded to join the Revolutionary Committee.

Lajos Kossuth watched with anxiety every opportunity of once more freeing his country from Austria.

Lajos Kossuth considered the use of his regent title constitutionally justified until the next democratic elections in Hungary.

In 1861, Lajos Kossuth moved to Turin, Italy, had to watch Ferenc Deak guide Hungary toward a compromise with the Austrian monarchy.

Lajos Kossuth did so with a bitter heart, and on the day before the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, he published an open letter condemning it and Deak.

Lajos Kossuth blamed Deak for giving up the nation's right of true independence and asserted that the conditions he had accepted went against the interests of the state's very existence.

Lajos Kossuth adumbrated a subsequent devastating European-scale war on the Continent, which would be fueled and induced by extremist nationalism, with Hungary on the side of a "dying empire".

Lajos Kossuth refused to follow the other Hungarian patriots, who, under the lead of Deak, negotiated the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 and the ensuing amnesty.

In 1874 Lajos Kossuth bought a villa in the village of Collegno with a large garden in a small hamlet called Baraccone not far from the train station, and spent his days with gardening, botanical expeditions to the Alps, writing his memoirs and receiving Hungarian guests.

Lajos Kossuth was forced to sell the villa in 1882 due to financial difficulties plaguing him since he lost most of his wealth in the aftermath of the 1873 financial crisis.

Until the discovery of a recording of Helmuth von Moltke in 2012, Lajos Kossuth was the person with the earliest birth date from whom a sound recording was known.

Publicly, Lajos Kossuth remained unreconciled to the house of Habsburg and committed to a fully independent state.

Lajos Kossuth expressed the idea of uniting with the Hungarian and neighbouring peoples in his plans for the future, which contained many utopian elements, and in his equally utopian plan for the future confederation of the already liberated peoples under the name of Republics of Danubian Confederation.

The Lajos Kossuth party won the 1905, and 1906 elections, his older son Ferenc Lajos Kossuth was Minister for Trade between 1906 and 1910.

The main square of Budapest with the Hungarian Parliament Building is named after Lajos Kossuth, and the Lajos Kossuth Memorial is an important scene of national ceremonies.

The first public statue commemorating Lajos Kossuth was erected in Miskolc in 1898.

Magyar Posta paid homage to Lajos Kossuth by bringing out eight postage stamps.

Again, a set of four stamps commemorating 50th anniversary of the death of Lajos Kossuth were issued by Hungary on 20 March 1944.

The building of the monument, dedicated to Scottish patriot William Wallace coincided with Lajos Kossuth's visit to Scotland.

Lajos Kossuth Street exists in the cities of Dnipro, Kryvyi Rih, Mukachevo, Tyachiv, Uzhhorod.

The house where Lajos Kossuth lived when in exile, on Macar Street in Kutahya, Turkey, is a museum.

In Turin, Italy, there is a plaque on the building in which Lajos Kossuth lived, as well as a street bearing his name.

The bust of Lajos Kossuth that was added to the United States Capitol in 1990 is presently displayed in that building's "Freedom Foyer" alongside busts of Vaclav Havel and Winston Churchill.