Lajos Kossuth
Minister of Finance of Hungary | |
---|---|
In office 7 April 1848 – 12 September 1848 | |
Prime Minister | Lajos Batthyány |
Preceded by | position established |
Succeeded by | Lajos Batthyány |
Personal details | |
Born | Lajos Kossuth de Udvard et Kossuthfalva 19 September 1802 Kerepesi Cemetery |
Political party | Opposition Party (1847–1848) |
Spouse | Terézia Meszlényi |
Children | Ferenc Lajos Ákos Vilma Lajos Tódor Károly |
Relatives | Juraj Košút (uncle) |
Signature | |
Lajos Kossuth de Udvard et Kossuthfalva (pronounced [ˈlɒjoʃ ˈkoʃut], Hungarian: udvardi és kossuthfalvi Kossuth Lajos, Slovak: Ľudovít Košút, English: Louis Kossuth; 19 September 1802 – 20 March 1894) was a Hungarian nobleman, lawyer, journalist, politician, statesman and governor-president of the Kingdom of Hungary during the revolution of 1848–1849.[1]
With the help of his talent in oratory in political debates and public speeches, Kossuth emerged from a poor gentry family into regent-president of the Kingdom of Hungary. As the influential contemporary American journalist Horace Greeley said of Kossuth: "Among the orators, patriots, statesmen, exiles, he has, living or dead, no superior."[2][3]
Kossuth's powerful English and American speeches so impressed and touched the famous contemporary American orator
Family
Kossuth was born into an untitled lower noble (gentry) family in
Family-tree
- Ancestry (Származása)
Lajos
Kossuth |
László Kossuth de Udvard (Kossut, 23 June 1765–[13] Alsódabas, 13 March 1839) uradalmi ügyész (financial and legal supervisor of a manor) |
Pál Kossuth
de Udvard |
György Kossuth de Udvard[14] |
Katalin Raksányi de Raksa (1701 – Kisraksa, 8 November 1759) | |||
Beniczky Zsuzsánna de Benicze et Micsinye (Pribóc, 10 January 1737[15] – ?) | Péter Beniczky de Benicze et Micsinye[16][17] | ||
Éva Prónay
de Tótpróna et Blatnica | |||
Karolina Weber de Tyrling |
András Weber
de Tyrling postmaster |
unknown | |
unknown | |||
noble Erzsébet Hidegkövy (Kaltenstein) | noble Tóbiás Hidegkövy (Kaltenstein) (born in Sátoraljaújhely)
pharmacist[18] | ||
Anna Mária Musczler |
Early years
The family moved from Monok to Olaszliszka in 1803, and then to Sátoraljaújhely in 1808. Lajos had four younger sisters.
Karolina Kossuth raised her children as strict Lutherans. As a result of his mixed ancestry, and as was quite common during his era, her children spoke three languages – Hungarian, German and Slovak – even in their early childhood. He studied at the
Entry into national politics
This section relies largely or entirely on a single source. (July 2018) |
Shortly after his dismissal by Countess Szapáry, Kossuth was appointed as deputy to Count Hunyady at the Diet of Hungary. The Diet met during 1825–27 and 1832–36 in Pressburg (Pozsony, present Bratislava), then capital of Hungary.
Only the upper aristocracy could vote in the House of Magnates (similar to the British House of Lords) and Kossuth took little part in the debates as a deputy of Count Hunyady. At the time, a struggle to reassert a Hungarian national identity was beginning to emerge under leaders such as Miklós Wesselényi and the Széchenyis. In part, it was also a struggle for fundamental economic and political and societal reforms against the stagnant and conservative Austrian government. Kossuth's duties to Count Hunyady included reporting on Diet proceedings in writing, as the Austrian government, fearing popular dissent, had banned published reports.
The high quality of Kossuth's letters led to their being circulated in manuscript among other
In 1836, the Diet was dissolved. Kossuth continued to report (in letter form), covering the debates of the county assemblies. The newfound publicity gave the assemblies national political prominence. Previously, they had had little idea of each other's proceedings. His embellishment of the speeches from the liberals and reformers enhanced the impact of his newsletters. After the prohibition of his parliamentary gazette, Kossuth loudly demanded the legal declaration of
After spending a year in prison at
Marriage and children
On the day of his release from the prison, Kossuth and Meszlényi were married, and she remained a firm supporter of his politics. She was a Catholic and her Church refused to bless the marriage since Kossuth, a proud Protestant, would not convert. Before their marriage it was unheard that people of different religions married. According to the traditional practice, the bride or more rarely the fiancé had to convert to the religion of his or her spouse before the wedding ceremony. However Kossuth refused to convert to Roman Catholicism, and Meszlényi also refused to convert to Lutheranism. Their mixed religious marriage caused a great scandal at the time. This experience influenced Kossuth's firm defense of
Journalist and political leader
Kossuth had now become a national icon. He regained full health in January 1841. In January 1841 he became editor of the Pesti Hírlap. The job was offered to him by Lajos Landerer, the owner of a big printing house company in Pest (in fact, Landerer was an undercover agent of the Vienna secret police). The government circles and the secret police believed that censorship and financial interests would curtail Kossuth's opposition, and they did not consider the small circulation of the paper to be dangerous anyway. However, Kossuth created modern Hungarian political journalism. His editorials dealt with the pressing problems of the economy, the social injustices and the existing legal inequality of the common people. The articles combined a critique of the present with an outline of the future, combining and supplementing the reform ideas that had emerged up to that point into a coherent programme. The paper achieved unprecedented success, soon reaching the then immense circulation of 7000 copies. A competing pro-government newspaper, Világ, started up, but it only served to increase Kossuth's visibility and add to the general political fervor.
Kossuth's ideas stand on the enlightened Western European type
Kossuth followed the ideas of the French nation state ideology, which was a ruling liberal idea of his era. Accordingly, he considered and regarded automatically everybody as "Hungarian" – regardless of their mother tongue and ethnic ancestry – who were born and lived in the territory of Hungary. He even quoted King Stephen I of Hungary's admonition: "A nation of one language and the same customs is weak and fragile."[23]
Kossuth pleaded in the newspaper Pesti Hírlap for rapid Magyarization: "Let us hurry, let us hurry to Magyarize the Croats, the Romanians, and the Saxons, for otherwise we shall perish".[24] In 1842 he argued that Hungarian had to be the exclusive language in public life.[25] He also stated that "in one country it is impossible to speak in a hundred different languages. There must be one language and in Hungary this must be Hungarian".[26]
Kossuth's assimilatory ambitions were disapproved by
In 1844, Kossuth was dismissed from Pesti Hírlap after a dispute with the proprietor over salary. It is believed that the dispute was rooted in government intrigue. Kossuth was unable to obtain permission to start his own newspaper. In a personal interview, Metternich offered to take him into the government service. Kossuth refused and spent the next three years without a regular position. He continued to agitate on behalf of both political and commercial independence for Hungary. He adopted the economic principles of Friedrich List, and was the founder of the popular "Védegylet" society whose members consumed only Hungarian industrial products. He also argued for the creation of a Hungarian port at Fiume.
Kossuth played a major role in the formation of the left-wing Opposition Party in 1847, whose programme was essentially formulated by him. Their chief political opponent was the right-wing Conservative Party, which was led by Emil Dessewffy.
In autumn 1847, Kossuth was able to take his final key step. The support of
his intense personal ambition and egoism led him always to assume the chief place, and to use his parliamentary position to establish himself as leader of the nation; but before his eloquence and energy all apprehensions were useless. His 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. In a time of rest, though he could never have been obscure, he would never have attained the highest power. It was therefore a necessity of his nature, perhaps unconsciously, always to drive things to a crisis. The crisis came, and he used it to the full.[1]
The "long debate" of reformers in the press
Count Széchenyi judged the reform system of Kossuth in a pamphlet, Kelet Népe from 1841. According to Széchenyi, economic, political and social reforms must be instituted slowly and carefully so that Hungary would avoid the violent interference of the Habsburg dynasty. Széchenyi was listening to the spread of the expansion of Kossuth's ideas in Hungarian society, which did not consider good relations with the Habsburg dynasty. Kossuth believed that society could not be forced into a passive role by any reason through social change. According to Kossuth, the wider social movements can not be continually excluded from political life.
Behind 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 exercising political rights, Széchenyi took into account wealth and education of the citizens, thus he supported only limited suffrage similar to the Western European (British, French and Belgian) limited suffrage of the era. In 1885, Kossuth called Széchenyi a liberal elitist aristocrat while Széchenyi considered himself to be a democrat.[29]
Széchenyi was an isolationist politician while, according to Kossuth, strong relations and collaboration with international liberal and progressive movements are essential for the success of liberty.[30] Regarding foreign policy, Kossuth and his followers refused the isolationist policy of Széchenyi, thus they stood on the ground of the liberal internationalism: They supported countries and political forces that aligned with their moral and political standards. They also believed that governments and political movements sharing the same modern liberal values should form an alliance against the "feudal type" of monarchies.[31]
Széchenyi's economic policy based on Anglo-Saxon free-market principles, while Kossuth supported the protective tariffs due to the weaker Hungarian industrial sector. Kossuth wanted to build a rapidly industrialized country in his vision while Széchenyi wanted to preserve the traditionally strong agricultural sector as the main character of the economy.[32]
Work in the government
Minister of Finance
The crisis came, and he used it to the full. On 3 March 1848, shortly after the news of the
He appealed to the hope of the Habsburgs, "our beloved Archduke Franz Joseph" (then seventeen years old), to perpetuate the ancient glory of the dynasty by meeting half-way the aspirations of a free people. He at once became the leader of the European revolution; his speech was read aloud in the streets of Vienna to the mob which overthrew Metternich (13 March); when a deputation from the Diet visited Vienna to receive the assent of Emperor Ferdinand to their petition, Kossuth received the chief ovation. While Viennese masses celebrated Kossuth (and from the Diet in Pressburg a delegation went to Buda and sent the news of the Austrian Revolution) as their hero, revolution broke out in Buda on 15 March; Kossuth traveled home immediately.[33] On 17 March 1848 the Emperor assented and Lajos Batthyány created the first Hungarian government, that was not anymore responsible to the King, but to the elected members of the Diet. On 23 March 1848, Pm. Batthyány commended his government to the Diet. In the new government Kossuth was appointed as the Minister of Finance.
He began developing the internal resources of the country: re-establishing a separate Hungarian coinage, and using every means to increase national self-consciousness. Characteristically, the new Hungarian bank notes had Kossuth's name as the most prominent inscription; making reference to "Kossuth Notes" a future byword.
A new paper was started, to which was given the name of Kossuth Hirlapja, so that from the first it was Kossuth rather than the Palatine or prime minister Batthyány whose name was in the minds of the people associated with the new government. Much more was this the case when, in the summer, the dangers from the Croats, Serbs and the reaction at Vienna increased.
In a speech on 11 July he asked that the nation should arm in self-defense, and demanded 200,000 men; amid a scene of wild enthusiasm this was granted by acclamation. However the danger had been exacerbated by Kossuth himself through appealing exclusively to the Magyar notables rather than including the other subject minorities of the Habsburg empire too. The Austrians, meanwhile, successfully used the other minorities as allies against the Magyar uprising.
While
On 6 September, Kossuth ordered the first Hungarian banknotes to be issued to cover defence expenses.
The government meeting of 11 September, under Kossuth's leadership, adopted revolutionary decisions on finance and the military to defend the invaded homeland. Another attempt by Batthyány to form a cabinet failed, and Kossuth declared that until another government was appointed, he would retain his position as finance minister. Already on 14 September, a rapidly growing number of his supporters called in parliament for Kossuth to be given temporary dictatorial powers because of the critical and desperate war situation.[34]
Regent-President of Hungary
On 7 December 1848, the Diet of Hungary formally refused to acknowledge the title of the new king, Franz Joseph I, "as without the knowledge and consent of the diet no one could sit on the Hungarian throne" and called the nation to arms.[35] From a legal point of view, according to the coronation oath, a crowned Hungarian King could not relinquish from the Hungarian throne during his life, if the king was alive and unable do his duty as ruler, a governor (or regent with proper English terminology) had to deputize the royal duties. Constitutionally, his uncle, Ferdinand remained still the legal King of Hungary. If there was no possibility to inherit the throne automatically due to the death of the predecessor king (as Ferdinand was still alive), but the monarch wanted to relinquish his throne and appoint another king before his death, technically only one legal solution remained: the Diet had the power to depose the king and elect his successor as the new King of Hungary. Due to the legal and military tensions, the Hungarian parliament did not make that decision for Franz Joseph. This event gave to the revolt an excuse of legality. Actually, from this time until the collapse of the revolution, Lajos Kossuth (as elected regent-president) became the de facto and de jure ruler of Hungary.[35]
For the first time in the revolutionary movements of 1848, for the first time since 1793, a nation surrounded by superior counterrevolutionary forces dares to counter the cowardly counterrevolutionary fury by revolutionary passion, the terreur blanche by the terreur rouge.
For the first time after a long period we meet with a truly revolutionary figure, a man who in the name of his people dares to accept the challenge of desperate struggle, who for his nation is Danton and Carnot in one person – Lajos Kossuth— Friedrich Engels about Kossuth (January 1849) [36]
Szemere Government
The new government (the Szemere administration) was formed on 2 May 1849:[37][38]
- Head of state, Lajos Kossuth.
- Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior, Bertalan Szemere
- Foreign Minister, Minister of Agriculture, Industry and Trade : Kázmér Batthyány
- Finance Minister: Ferenc Duschek
- Minister of Justice: Sebő Vukovics
- Minister of Education, Science and Culture: Mihály Horváth
- Minister of Labour, Infrastructure and Transport: László Csány
- Artúr Görgey (7 May – 7 July 1849) and Lajos Aulich(14 July – 11 August 1849)
From this time he had increased amounts of power. The direction of the whole government was in his hands. Without military experience, he had to control and direct the movements of armies; he was unable to keep control over the generals or to establish that military co-operation so essential to success.
Declaration of Independence
The House of Lorraine-Habsburg is unexampled in the compass of its perjuries [...] Its determination to extinguish the independents of Hungary has been accompanied by a succession of criminal acts, comprising robbery, destruction of property by fire, murder, maiming [...] Humanity will shudder when reading this disgraceful page of history. [...] "The house of Habsburg has forfeited the throne".
— Kossuth, In Liszt, The Weimar Years[39]
Minority rights
Despite appealing exclusively to the Hungarian nobility in his speeches, Kossuth played an important part in the shaping of the law of minority rights in 1849. It was the first law which recognized minority rights in Europe.[40] It gave minorities the freedom to use their mother tongue within the local administration and courts, in schools, in community life and even within the national guard of non-Magyar councils.[41]
However, he did not support any kind of regional administration within Hungary based on the nationality principle. Kossuth accepted some national demands of the Romanians and the Croats, but he showed no understanding for the requests of the
According to
Russian intervention and failure
This section needs additional citations for verification. (April 2022) |
During all the terrible winter that followed, Kossuth overcame the reluctance of the army to march to the relief of Vienna; after the defeat at the Battle of Schwechat, at which he was present, he sent Józef Bem to carry on the war in Transylvania.
At the end of the year, when the Austrians were approaching Pest, he asked for the mediation of
By April 1849, when the Hungarians had won many successes, after sounding the army, he issued the celebrated Hungarian Declaration of Independence, in which he declared that "the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, perjured in the sight of God and man, had forfeited the Hungarian throne." It was a step characteristic of his love for extreme and dramatic action, but it added to the dissensions between him and those who wished only for autonomy under the old dynasty, and his enemies did not scruple to accuse him of aiming for kingship. The dethronement also made any compromise with the Habsburgs practically impossible.
For the time the future form of government was left undecided, and Kossuth was appointed regent-president (to satisfy both royalists and republicans). Kossuth played a key role in tying down the Hungarian army for weeks for the siege and recapture of
Kossuth's calls for independence and cut off ties with the Habsburgs did not become British policy. Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston told parliament that Britain would consider it a great misfortune to Europe if Hungary became independent. He argued that a united Austrian Empire was a European necessity and a natural ally of Britain.[47]
During this period, Hungarian lawyer
Escape and tour of Britain and United States
Kossuth's time in power was at an end. A solitary fugitive, he crossed the
On 10 August 1851 the release of Kossuth was decided by the Sublime Porte, in spite of threats by Austria and Russia.[49] The United States Congress approved having Kossuth come there, and on 1 September 1851, he boarded the ship USS Mississippi at Smyrna, with his family and fifty exiled followers.
The Magyar asked the crew of Mississippi to leave the shipboard at Gibraltar.[50] During his journey on board the American frigate Mississippi on his way to London, an enormous French crowd waited to welcome Kossuth at the port of Marseille. However the French authorities did not allow the dangerous revolutionary to come ashore.[51] At Marseille, Kossuth sought permission to travel through France to England, but Prince-President Louis Napoleon denied the request. Kossuth protested publicly, and officials saw that as a blatant disregard for the neutral position of the United States.
Great Britain
On 23 October, Kossuth landed at Southampton. At Southampton, he was greeted by a crowd of thousands outside the Mayor's balcony, who presented him with a flag of the Hungary. In his first visit in England he spent three weeks, where he was generally feted. After his arrival, the press characterized the atmosphere of the streets of London as this: "It had seemed like a coronation day of Kings".[52][53] Contemporary reports noticed: "Trafalgar Square was 'black with people' and Nelson's Monument peopled 'up to the fluted shaft.'"[54]
Publications and Media Coverage: Kossuth's visit to the UK received extensive media coverage. Newspapers reported on his speeches, public engagements, and the general atmosphere of support surrounding his visit. His ideas and demands for Hungarian self-determination reached a wide audience, contributing to the growing awareness of the Hungarian cause in Britain.
Addresses were presented to him at Southampton,
His most notable address was before the British Parliament on February 26, 1851. The speech took place in the House of Commons and was attended by members of Parliament, foreign diplomats, and distinguished guests. His passionate oratory skills and powerful arguments for Hungarian independence resonated with the audience, earning him a standing ovation in the parliament.
Having learned English during an earlier political imprisonment with the aid of a volume of
The City of London Corporation accompanied him in procession through the city, and the way to the Guildhall was lined by thousands of cheering people. He 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.
Prime Minister Lord Palmerston, in particular, was sympathetic to the Hungarian struggle for independence and supported Kossuth's visit. Kossuth also met with other prominent politicians, including William Gladstone and Richard Cobden, who expressed solidarity with his cause.
However many leading British politicians tried to suppress the so-called "Kossuth mania" in Britain without any success, the Kossuth mania proved to be unstoppable. WhenThe Times tried to fiercely attack Kossuth, the copies of the newspaper were publicly burned in public houses, coffee houses, and in other public spaces throughout the country.[57]
Back in London, he addressed the Trades Unions at
The
Due to Kossuth activity, the anti-Austrian sentiment became strong in Britain, when Austrian general Julius Jacob von Haynau was recognized on the street, he was attacked by British draymen on his journey in England.[59] In 1856, Kossuth toured Scotland extensively, giving lectures in major cities and small towns alike.[60]
In addition, the indignation that he aroused against Russian policy had much to do with the strong anti-Russian feeling, which made the Crimean War possible. During the Crimean War, the activism of Kossuth also intensified in London, but since Austria did not side with Russia, there was no chance of Hungarian independence being achieved with Anglo-French military help.[61] In the following years, Kossuth hoped that the conflicts between the great powers would allow the liberation of Hungary after all, and so he contacted the French Emperor Napoleon III. When Napoleon III and the Prime Minister of Sardinia, Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, promised to help liberate Hungary in the run-up to the Franco-Sardinian-Austrian war of 1859, Lajos Kossuth founded the Hungarian National Directorate with László Teleki and György Klapka and began to organise the Hungarian Legion. Following Napoleon III's unexpected peace with Austria after his brilliant victory at Solferino, Kossuth sought to link the liberation of Hungary more and more clearly to the movement of the peoples fighting for their independence. However, Giuseppe Garibaldi's invasion of Sicily in 1860 raised new hopes. Many Hungarians fought among his Redshirts, and his successes could have led to another Italo-Austrian war. In the event, the Hungarian Legion was re-established, and Kossuth negotiated cooperation with the Italians. But the war was not fought. Although Hungary remained under Austrian rule, the decline of Habsburg power increasingly forced compromise on the Austrian government. Hungarian passive resistance and the foreign activities of the Kossuth group reinforced each other. Kossuth and the émigré movement's armed preparations and negotiations with the great powers, on the other hand, were backed by the political backdrop of a silent and passively resistant country.
United States
From Britain Kossuth went to the United States of America. On 6 December 1851, this revolutionary hero arrived in New York City to a reception that only Washington and Lafayette had received before. On the posters and in the news, he appeared as an ambassador of the European nations yearning for freedom and democracy, an implacable opponent of the tyranny embodied by the Habsburgs and the Russian Romanovs.
The report of The Sun about the arrival of Kossuth in New York:
Thus immediately previous to the Christmas of 1851 New York city underwent a period of Kossuth mania, and it affected the holiday presents. Every New Year's gift associated itself in some designation with Kossuth and Hungary. Restaurants abounded with Hungarian goulash, a savory dish of boiled beef and vegetables strongly infused with red peppers; and there were Kossuth cravats (formidable bands of satin or silk wound around the neck, with ends liberally folded over the shirt front), Kossuth pipes, Kossuth umbrellas, Kossuth belts and buckles, Kossuth purses, Kossuth jackets, and Kossuth braid and tassels for wearing apparel...The American Museum on Broadway "was literally covered with paintings and flags. One, a portrait of Kossuth, in the folds of Hungarian and American flags, with the words at the bottom: 'Kossuth, the Washington of Hungary.'[63]
President Millard Fillmore entertained Kossuth at the White House on 31 December 1851 and 3 January 1852. The US Congress organized a banquet for Kossuth, which was supported by all political parties.[64]
In early 1852, Kossuth, accompanied by his wife, his son Ferenc, and Theresa Pulszky, toured the American Midwest, South, and New England. Kossuth was the second foreigner after the Marquis de Lafayette to address a Joint Meeting of the United States Congress.[65] He gave a speech before the Ohio General Assembly in February 1852 that probably influenced Lincoln's Gettysburg Address: "The spirit of our age is Democracy. All for the people, and all by the people. Nothing about the people without the people - That is Democracy! [...]"[66]
Kossuth's cult spread far and wide across the continent. Even babies were named after him during his American tour. At the same time, dozens of books, hundreds of pamphlets and articles and essays, as well as about 250 poems were written to, for, or about him in the 1850s.[67]
Queen Victoria had a negative remark about the American version of Kossuth fever too: "...the popular Kossuth fever of the time to ignorance of the man in whom they (the Americans) see a second Washington, when the fact is that he is an ambitious and rapacious humbug."[68]
There is no evidence that Kossuth ever met Abraham Lincoln, although Lincoln did organize a celebration in Kossuth's honor in Springfield, Illinois,[69][70] calling him a "most worthy and distinguished representative of the cause of civil and religious liberty on the continent of Europe".[71] 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. United States officials feared that Kossuth's efforts to elicit support for a failed revolution were fraught with mischief. He would not denounce slavery or stand up for the Catholic Church, and when Kossuth declared George Washington had never intended for the policy of non-interference to serve as constitutional dogma, he caused further defection. Luckily for him, it was unknown then that he entertained a proposal to raise 1,500 mercenaries, who would overthrow Haiti with officers from the US Army and Navy. Ralph Waldo Emerson praised Kossuth: "You have earned your own nobility at home. We admit you ad eundem (as they say at College). We admit you to the same degree, without new trial. We suspend all rules before so paramount a merit. You may well sit a doctor in the college of liberty. You have achieved your right to interpret our Washington."[72]
However, the issue of slavery was tearing America apart. Kossuth infuriated the
Kossuth ruined all chances for backing when he openly recommended to German Americans they should choose Franklin Pierce for president. The gaffe brought him back to London in July 1852.
Early the next year, he sent Ferenc Pulszky to meet with Pierce to obtain support for intervention in Europe. Pulszky was to also meet in secret with Lt. William Nelson USN and make plans for an expedition against Haiti and Santo Domingo. The plot ended with the failure of the Milanese riots of 1853, and Kossuth made no further efforts to win backing from the United States.[75][76][77][78][79]
London
Attempted leadership in exile
After returning from America to Europe, he lived permanently in London for eight years, where he gained many important connections in British parliamentary, writer and journalistic circles. He also liaised with circles of French, Italian, Russian, German, and Polish emigrants, most notably Giuseppe Mazzini and Stanisław Gabriel Worcell, who were influential in organizing unsubstantiated uprising attempts in the early 1850s. In the following years, Kossuth expected that the conflicts between the great powers would still make it possible to liberate Hungary, and therefore he had even several personal talks with Emperor Napoleon III in Paris.
He made a close connection with his friend Giuseppe Mazzini, by whom, with some misgiving, he was persuaded to join the Revolutionary Committee. Quarrels of a kind only too common among exiles followed.
He watched with anxiety every opportunity of once more freeing his country from Austria. An attempt to organize a Hungarian legion during the Crimean War was stopped; but in 1859, he entered into negotiations with Napoleon III, left England for Italy and began the organization of a Hungarian legion, which was to make a descent on the coast of
Gradually, his autocratic style and uncompromising outlook destroyed any real influence among the Hungarian expatriate community. Other Hungarian exiles protested against his appearing to claim to be the only national hero of the revolution. Count Kázmér Batthyány attacked him in The Times, and Bertalan Szemere, who had been prime minister under him, published a bitter criticism of his acts and character, accusing him of arrogance, cowardice and duplicity. Hungarians were especially offended by his continuing use of the title of Regent. Kossuth considered the use of his regent title constitutionally justified until the next democratic elections in Hungary. Accordingly, he used his title until the 1869 Hungarian parliamentary election.[80]
Later years: Italy
Embittered break with Hungarian patriots
There were still significant international forces supporting the Habsburgs to maintain their empire, because Austria was seen as an important element in the continental balance of power. However, Garibaldi's invasion of Sicily in 1860 raised new hopes for Kossuth. Many Hungarian 1848 veterans fought among the Italian soldiers, and the Italian successes could have led to another Italian-Austrian war. To this end, the Hungarian Legion was re-established, and Kossuth negotiated cooperation with the Italians.
However the promise of the international conference never took root. In 1861, Kossuth moved to Turin, Italy, had to watch Ferenc Deák guide Hungary toward a compromise with the Austrian monarchy. He did so with a bitter heart, and on the day before the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 (German: Ausgleich, Hungarian: Kiegyezés), he published an open letter condemning it and Deák. This so-called "Cassandra letter" rallied the opponents of the Compromise, but they could not prevent its adoption and subsequent continuation.[81] Kossuth blamed Deák 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. In the letter, his vision predicted that Hungary, having bound its fate to that of the Austrian German nation and the Habsburgs, would go down with them. He 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".
"I see in the Compromise the death of our nation," he wrote.[82]
From then on, Kossuth remained in Italy. He refused to follow the other Hungarian patriots, who, under the lead of Deák, negotiated the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 and the ensuing amnesty. It is doubted whether Emperor Franz Joseph would have allowed the amnesty to extend to Kossuth.
In 1874 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. He 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. Reluctantly he moved back to the city of Turin.[83]
European federalism
Publicly, Kossuth remained unreconciled to the house of Habsburg and committed to a fully independent state. He expressed the idea of uniting with the Hungarian and neighbouring peoples in his plans for the future, which also 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 "Kossuth party" in the Hungarian parliament
The Party of Independence and '48 was established in 1884 by a merger of the Independence Party and the Party of 1848.[86] Although Kossuth had never returned to Hungary, he was the spiritual leader of this opposition party until he died in 1894, and the party was also referred to as the "Kossuth Party" thereafter.[86] From the 1896 elections onwards, it was the main opposition to the ruling Liberal Party. The Kossuth party won the 1905, and 1906 elections, his older son Ferenc Kossuth was Minister for Trade between 1906 and 1910. However it lost the 1910 elections to the National Party of Work. Kossuth's political legacy achieved that ethnic Hungarians did not vote for the ruling pro-compromise Liberal Party in the Hungarian parliamentary elections, thus the political maintenance of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise was mostly a result of the popularity of the pro-compromise Liberal Party among the ethnic minorities.[87]
Publication of his memoirs and speeches
His wealth have fallen victim to the collapse of the financial institutions of Turin. Due to financial difficulties, he had to struggle at an old age. However, at the urging of Ignác Helfy, he began compiling the memories of his life in 1879, especially the documents relating to the history of emigration. Furthermore, he granted permission to British, American, French, and Italian publishers to print the collection of his famous speeches and political debates. The tremendous success of his books quickly restored his previous financial standing, and until his old age, he proudly maintained the self-awareness that he was still earning a living through his work.[88]
In 1890, a delegation of Hungarian pilgrims in Turin recorded a short patriotic speech delivered by the elderly Lajos Kossuth. The original recording[89] on two wax cylinders for the Edison phonograph survives to this day, barely audible[90] because of excess playback and unsuccessful early restoration attempts. Recording Kossuth's voice was one of the earliest applications of phonograph,[91][92] and his few sentences are the earliest known recorded Hungarian speech.[93] 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.[94]
Death, legacy, complete works
As Headlam noted, Kossuth died in Turin, after which "his body was taken to Pest (Budapest), where he was buried amid the mourning of the whole nation,
A Hungarian language version of his complete works were published in Budapest between 1880 and 1895.[1]
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Waiting for the arrival of the coffin of Kossuth at theWestern Railway terminal of Budapestin 1894
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Kossuth funeral procession in Budapest
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Kossuth's funeral procession in Budapest in 1894
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Mausoleum inKerepesi Cemetery
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The coffin in the mausoleum
Honors and memorials
In 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 Bartók's lifetime.
The memorials to 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 Revolutions of 1989 by local councils or private associations. They play an important role as symbols of national identity of the Hungarian minority.[neutrality is disputed] Magyar Posta paid homage to Kossuth by bringing out eight postage stamps.[95] Again, a set of four stamps commemorating 50 anniversary of the death of Lajos Kossuth were issued by Hungary on 20 March 1944[96]
In Slovakia
The most important memorial outside the present-day borders of Hungary is a statue in Rožňava, that was knocked down twice but restored after much controversy in 2004.
In Romania
The only Kossuth statue that remained on its place after 1920 in
In the United Kingdom
There is a blue plaque on No. 39 Chepstow Villas, the house in Notting Hill in London, where Kossuth lived from 1850 to 1859. A street in Greenwich, also in London, is named Kossuth Street after him. There is a letter of support from Kossuth on display at the Wallace Monument, near Stirling. The building of the monument, dedicated to Scottish patriot William Wallace coincided with Kossuth's visit to Scotland.
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. Lajos Kossuth Street exists in the cities of Dnipro, Kryvyi Rih, Mukachevo, Tyachiv, Uzhhorod. 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.
The house where Kossuth lived when in exile, on Macar Street (meaning Hungarian Street in Turkish) in Kütahya, Turkey, is now a museum (Kossuth Evi Müzesi). The house is on a hill, with two stories in the back and one facing Macar Street. The walled back yard has a life size statue of Kossuth. The interior is furnished with period pieces, and houses a portrait of Kossuth and a map of his travels.
In Turin, Italy, there is a plaque on the building in which Kossuth lived, as well as a street bearing his name (Corso Luigi Kossuth).
In the United States
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 towns of Kossuth, Ohio, Kossuth, Mississippi, Kossuth, Maine, Kossuth, Pennsylvania, and Kossuth, Wisconsin, as well as a populated area within the town of Bolivar, New York[98] are named in honor of Kossuth.
A bust of Kossuth sits in the
During an impassioned eulogy of Kossuth in New York, Alexander Kohut, a distinguished rabbinic scholar, took ill, and died several weeks later.[100]
The bust of Kossuth that was added to the United States Capitol in 1990 is presently displayed in that building's "Freedom Foyer" alongside busts of Václav Havel and Winston Churchill.
In Canada
Kossuth Road in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada was named in Kossuth's honor as is Kossuth Park Wainfleet, Ontario Port Colborne, Ontario.
In Kurdistan, Iraq
The main street in
Memorials
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Kossuth statue in113th Street and Riverside Drive, New York City
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Kossuth statue in Pécs
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The statue of Kossuth on theHősök tere(Heroes' Square), Budapest
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Kossuth blue plaque in London
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Kossuth Road in Cambridge, Canada
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Kossuth Museum in Kütahya, Turkey
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Plaque installed in 2017 commemorating speeches made in Liverpool in 1856
Works
- Works by Lajos Kossuth at Project Gutenberg
- Memories of My Exile
- The Future of Nations
- Kossuth in New England: A Full Account of the Hungarian Governor's Visit to Massachusetts, with His Speeches
- The life of Louis Kossuth, Governor of Hungary, including notices of the men and scenes of the Hungarian revolution; to which is added an appendix containing his Principal speeches, &c
- Gesammelte Werke: Aus dem ungarischen "Selected Works" Vol. I
- Gesammelte Werke: Aus dem ungarischen "Selected Works" Vol. II
- Die Katastrophe in Ungarn By Lajos Kossuth
- Meine Schriften aus der Emigration By Lajos Kossuth'
- A Pragmatica sanctio Magyarországban. Történeti, jogi és politikai szempontokból By Charles, Lajos Kossuth
- Felelet gróf Széchenyi Istvánnak Kossuth Lajostól By Lajos Kossuth, gróf István Széchenyi
References
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- ^ "Kossuth County EDC". Kossuth-edc.com. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 19 November 2017.
- Stringer & Townsend.
- ^ Vas (1976). Kossuth Lajos élete. Magvető kiadó. p. 835.
- ^ Parenička, Pavel (14 November 1990). "Košút versus Kossuth". Slovenské Národné Noviny. Archived from the original on 25 October 2008. Retrieved 4 February 2008.
- ^ Chmelár, Eduard (2007). "Filozofia slovenských dejín (2): Zrodenie národa". Slovo (38). Archived from the original on 13 February 2009. Retrieved 4 February 2008.
- ^ "I. | Turul 1883-1950 | Kézikönyvtár".
- ^ "Péter Beniczky". 26 April 2022.
- ^ a b "Kossuth család. (Kossuthfalvi és udvardi.) | Nagy Iván: Magyarország családai | Kézikönyvtár".
- ^ Macartney, Carlile Aylmer (2015). "Lajos Kossuth: Hungarian political leader". The Encyclopædia Britannica (online) [Dale Hoiberg, ed.] Retrieved 13 September 2015.
- ^ Révay Nagy Lexikona: Lovas–Mons. Vol. XII. Budapest: Révai Brothers Literary Institute. 1915.
- ^ https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KSTL-RHH
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- ^ "Tamás Beniczky, de Benicze". 6 November 1475.
- ^ Vö.: Nagy Iván: Magyarország családai czímerekkel és nemzékrendi táblákkal: I. kötet (Aaron - Benyovszky). Pest: Friebeisz István. 1857. 296. o. III. tábla, Zsuzsa, a IV. Péter (Prónay Évától)
- ^ Vö.: Nagy Iván: Magyarország családai czímerekkel és nemzékrendi táblákkal: V. kötet (Haagen - Justh). Pest: Ráth Mór. 1859. 110. o.: "Hidegkőy család: Hidegkőy előbb Klatenstein Tóbiás 1792-ben kelt czimeres nemes levél által nemesittetett meg. (...)"
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- ^ Romsics, Ignác; Béla K. Király. Geopolitics in the Danube Region: Hungarian Reconciliation Efforts, 1848–1998. p. 107.
- ^ Ioan Lupaș. The Hungarian Policy of Magyarization (p. 14). The Center for Transylvanians Studies
- ^ "The Hungarian Liberal Opposition's Approach to Nationalities and Social Reform". Mek.oszk.hu. Retrieved 19 September 2015.
- ^ Laszlo Deme. The radical left in the Hungarian revolution of 1848; accessed 31 October 2017.
- ^ Matthew P. Fitzpatrick. Liberal Imperialism in Europe; accessed 31 October 2017.
- ^ Peter F. Sugar, Péter Hanák, Tibor Frank. A History of Hungary; accessed 31 October 3017.
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- ^ Lacko p. 47
- ^ "Hungary's Place in Europe: Liberal–Conservative Foreign Policy Disputes in the Reform Era". 29 July 2023. Archived from the original on 30 July 2023. Retrieved 30 July 2023.
- ^ Gróf Széchenyi István írói és hírlapi vitája Kossuth Lajossal [Count Stephen Széchenyi's Literary and Publicistic Debate with Louis Kossuth], ed. Gyula Viszota, 2 vols. (Budapest: Magyar Történelmi Társulat, 1927–1930)
- ^ Peter F. Sugar, Péter Hanák, Tibor Frank: A History of Hungary (Indiana University Press, 1994) p. 213
- ^ György Ráthkay (1850). Kossuth parlamenti élete. Heckenast Gusztáv sajátja. p. 95.
- ^ a b public domain: Phillips, Walter Alison (1911). "Hungary". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 13 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 917. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the
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- ISBN 1-57607-800-0
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- ^ "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.
- ^ a b Albert, Eleanor. "Kossuth and the Treaty of Trianon". Foreign Affairs. Retrieved 21 April 2019.
- ^ Klari Kingston, "Gunboat liberalism: Palmerston, Europe and 1848 " History Today 47.2 (1997): 37–43 at p 41
- better source needed]
- ^ "TimesMachine: Thursday September 18, 1851". The New York Times. Retrieved 21 April 2019.
- ^ Donald A. Clark, The Notorious "Bull" Nelson: Murdered Civil War General (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2011), 23–30.
- ISBN 9780691200279.
- ^ Phineas Camp Headley: The Life of Louis Kossuth: Governor of Hungary, p. 241, Publisher: Miller, Orton & Mulligan, 1856
- ISBN 9781557531612
- ISBN 9780801864629
- ^ Hague Academy of International Law: Recueil Des Cours, Volume 326 p. 20, Publisher Hachette, 2007 [1]
- ^ See: Hague Academy of International Law: Recueil Des Cours
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- ^ Victuallers (10 December 2022), English: County Hotel, 3-11 High Street, Selkirk (hotel building in Selkirk, Scottish Borders, Scotland, UK), retrieved 10 December 2022
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- ^ "Kossuth Lajos felvételi kérelme a szabadkõmûves páholyba". Sk-szeged.hu. Retrieved 7 November 2012.
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- ^ ""All For the People, and All By the People"–Lajos Kossuth's Fight for Hungarian Independence ohiohistoryhost.org". Archived from the original on 14 April 2019. Retrieved 15 April 2019.
- ^ Steven B. Várdy, Ph.D.: (2008) "A Celebrated, Disillusioned Hungarian Revolutionary's Visit to Pittsburgh in 1852", p. 20 [3]
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- ISBN 9780823223459.
- ^ Ralph Waldo Emerson: Address to Kossuth at Concord, May 11, 1852
- ^ Garrison, Wm. Lloyd (1852). A letter to Louis Kossuth concerning freedom and slavery in the United States : in behalf of the American Anti-Slavery Society. Boston: R. F. Wallcut, for the American Anti-Slavery Society.
- ISBN 978-0814719220. Retrieved 1 August 2020.
- ^ Donald S. Spencer, Louis Kossuth and Young America A Study in Sectionalism and Foreign Policy 1848–1852 (Colombia, 1977)
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- ^ Francis and Theresa Pulszky, "White, Red, Black: Sketches of American Society", Living Age 37 (9 April 1853)
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- ^ Tanárky Gyula (1961). A Kossuth-emigráció szolgálatában. Tanárky Gyula naplója (1849–1866).
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- ^ 1 July 1932, Scott Catalog # 475, 30 filler; on 15 March 1947, Scott Catalog # 821, 40 filler; on 15 March 1952, Scott Catalog # 990, 20 filler this stamp shows Kossuth and speech at Debrecen; 17 February 1994, Scott Catalog # 3424, 19 forint in the Personalities series,
- ^ Scott # 621-24, denominations 4,20,30,50 filler
- ^ "8-cent Lajos Kossuth single". US Post Office / Smithsonian National Postal Museum. Retrieved 25 December 2023.
- ^ "Kossuth Populated Place Profile / Allegany County, New York Data".
- ^ "Kossuthhouse.org". Kossuthhouse.org. Archived from the original on 18 October 2015. Retrieved 19 September 2015.
- ^ Singer, Isidore; George Alexander Kohut; Cyrus Adler. "Kohut, Alexander". Jewish Encyclopedia.
- ^ "Kurdish poetry anthology published in Hungarian". Daily News Hungary. 24 February 2017. Retrieved 4 April 2017.
Further reading
- Deák, István. Lawful Revolution: Louis Kossuth and the Hungarians 1848–1849 (Phoenix, 2001)
- Horvath, Eugene. "Kossuth and Palmerston (1848–1849)." The Slavonic and East European Review 9#27 (1931): 612–631. in JSTOR
- Lada, Zsuzsanna. "The Invention of a Hero: Lajos Kossuth in England (1851)." European History Quarterly 43.1 (2013): 5–26.
- Laszlo Peter, Martyn Rady & Peter Sherwood, eds. Lajos Kossuth Sent Word (2003) scholarly essays online
- Moore, John Bassett. "Kossuth: A Sketch of a Revolutionist. I." Political Science Quarterly 10.1 (1895): 95–131. in JSTOR free; part II in JSTOR free
- Nobili, Johann. Hungary 1848: The Winter Campaign. Edited and translated Christopher Pringle. Warwick, UK: Helion & Company Ltd., 2021.
- Roberts, Tim. "Lajos Kossuth and the Permeable American Orient of the Mid-Nineteenth Century." Diplomatic History (2014) online doi: 10.1093/dh/dhu070
- Spencer, Donald S. Louis Kossuth and young America: a study of sectionalism and foreign policy 1848–1852 (Univ of Missouri Press, 1977)
- Stringer & Townsend.
- The Life of Gov. Louis Kossuth: With His Public Speeches in the United States, and a Brief History of the Hungarian War of Independence. New York: W. Lord. 1852.
External links
- Anonymous (1897). "Louis Kossuth (1802–1894) (Obituary Notice, Wednesday, March 21, 1894)". Eminent Persons; Biographies reprinted from The Times. Vol. VI (1893–1894). London and New York: Macmillan and Co & The Times Office. pp. 100–115. Retrieved 12 February 2019 – via Internet Archive.
- 1849 newspaper article
- 1851 Address to the American People (NY Tribune October 20, 1851 p. 5)
- Lajos Kossuth in Scotland Archived 23 September 2017 at the Wayback Machine
- Lajos Kossuth in North America
- Kossuth at the Capital, NY Times article, 30 December 1851.
- The American Hungarian Federation
- The Hungary Page, featuring Nobel Prize Winners and Famous Hungarians
- Part of his speech on YouTube on a wax phonograph cylinder(1890)
- Early articles of "The Times" about Lajos Kussuth
- Early New York Times articles about Kossuth
- Kossuth in New England (MEK)
- Works by Lajos Kossuth at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Lajos Kossuth at Internet Archive