LAJOS KOSSUTH 1802-1894
Lajos Kossuth, the Hungarian political reformer and leader of the 1848-1849 revolution for Hungarian independence, was one of the greatest statesmen and orators of the mid-19th century. He was a prominent figure, well known in the United States and Europe for his leadership of the democratic forces who sought Hungarian independence from Austrian domination. During his triumphal tour of the United States in 1851-1852, American journalist Horace Greeley said of Kossuth: "Among the orators, patriots, statesmen, exiles, he has, living or dead, no superior."
Kossuth was born in Monok, in northeastern Hungary in the year 1802. At that time Hungary was legally a separate kingdom but practically a part of the Austrian Empire ruled by the Habsburg Dynasty. Kossuth was born in modest circumstances, a member of the lower nobility. Young Lajos, following his father's profession, became an attorney and began his career as an agent for a local noblewoman.
In 1832 he was designated a substitute to represent another local noble in the Hungarian Diet (national parliament) in Pozsony, then the capital of Hungary, (now Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia). Kossuth produced an unofficial record of the Diet’s proceedings, continued as a kind of “samizdat” political journal. His advocacy of political reform resulted in his imprisonment for three years by the government. During his confinement, he taught himself English by studying the Bible and Shakespeare.
In 1847 Kossuth was elected to the Diet as a representative of the county of Pest, which included the twin cities of Buda and Pest. He became the leader of the opposition Reform Party, which was urging an extensive program of political and social reforms. The outbreak of the 1848 revolution in Paris in February gave the Hungarian reform movement new impetus. On March 3, in a powerful speech to the Diet, Kossuth demanded the removal of the dead hand of Habsburg absolutism as the only way to protect the liberties of the Hungarian and other peoples of the Monarchy. The outbreak of a popular uprising in Vienna on March 13 gave the Hungarian reformers new resolve to implement their goals. In another masterful address to the Diet on March 14, Kossuth voiced the popular demands for a new Hungarian government responsible to elected Hungarian representatives, and that liberal political and social reforms, similar to those being introduced in other parts of Europe at the time, be implemented throughout the Habsburg Monarchy.
The road to revolution
On March 15, in response to events taking place in the Diet at Pozsony and elsewhere throughout Europe, Hungarians in the city of Pest staged a massive peaceful uprising demanding radical political reforms. In recognition of the importance of these events, March 15 subsequently became the Hungarian National Day. On that same day in Vienna, Kossuth joined the Hungarian parliamentary delegation to Vienna which presented the demands of the Diet to the Vienna Court. The proposals gave Hungary virtual independence from the Austrian Empire, except for a “personal union” of the Habsburg Emperor, who was also the King of Hungary.
The Hungarian demands were accepted by the panic-stricken Court. Emperor Ferdinand I (King Ferdinand V of Hungary) appointed a Hungarian government responsible to a popularly elected Parliament, led by Count Lajos Batthyány as Prime Minister. When the new ministers took office on March 17, Kossuth was sworn in as minister of finance. Kossuth’s popularity among the Hungarian people was one of the greatest assets of the government.
Initiated by the new government, the last act of the old-style Diet was passing a set of reform laws, known later as the "April laws" or the "1848 legislation," which eliminated the vestiges of feudalism and transformed Hungary into a modern constitutional state. The reform program, however, failed to deal with two critical issues - the pending issues of the relationship of Hungary to Austria and the rights and status of the non-Hungarian ethnic population in Hungary. The plan was to resolve these two issues later through further negotiations, but the failure to resolve the first intensified the confrontation with Austrian authorities, and failure to resolve the second led to national discontent among non-Hungarians and resulted in a serious weakening of the government.
In July Kossuth played a major role in the final break with Austria. He convinced the Diet to link the sending of 20,000 Hungarian troops to the imperial territories in Italy under Austrian command with political demands for Hungary. Vienna found this demand unacceptable. On that same occasion, Kossuth urged the Diet to mobilize a national military force of 200,000 to defend Hungary against the threatening of Croatian and Serbian military units of the Habsburg Army.
Earlier King Ferdinand had appointed Baron Joseph Jellacic the Ban (governor) of Croatia, an autonomous kingdom under the Hungarian crown. Count Batthyány's government attempted unsuccessfully to negotiate with Jellacic, while the Vienna government incited the Croats against Hungary. On June 5, the Croatian-Slavonian legislative assembly rejected the authority of Batthyány's Hungarian government. In September, with the blessing of the Vienna government, Jellacic's army invaded Hungary in an effort to suppress the Hungarian “rebellion”, i.e. the independence of Hungary. Batthyány's government resigned and the new Parliament (elected in the summer) appointed Kossuth President of the newly formed Committee of National Defense and gave him almost full powers.
A leader is born
Kossuth's personal magnetism and courage, his unparalleled oratorical skills, his organizational talent, and his genius for leadership enabled him to mobilize the Hungarian nation against these overwhelming odds. No one but Kossuth could have given the Hungarians the heart to face threat before them. Kossuth established the new Hungarian military force, called “Honvéd” (Home Defence) which was aided by contingents of Slovaks and Ruthenians, as well as by volunteers from abroad, who came to the aid of Hungary from Vienna, Italy, and Poland.
Jellacic was made commander-in-chief of all imperial forces against Hungary, but the quickly-mobilized Hungarian troops drove him out and forced him back to within sight of Vienna, where a revolution, sympathetic to Hungary, broke out. The forces under Jellacic then joined other imperial troops and suppressed it, taking control of Vienna. By the end of 1848, the imperial government (which had fled to Innsbruck) succeeded in putting down the revolutions throughout the empire, with the exception of Hungary. Ferdinand, who had sanctioned the Hungarian Diet's April Laws and whose coronation oath obliged him to recognize the substantial measure of independence Hungary had achieved, was forced to abdicate in favor of his nephew Franz Josef I. The new emperor and his government did not consider themselves bound by the previous promises and agreements with Hungary. On March 4,1849, the Imperial Court issued a new constitution which annulled the Diet's April Laws of 1848 and abolished Hungary's independence.
In January an imperial force succeeded in occupying Buda and Pest and won a further victory at Kápolna in February. The Hungarian troops under the leadership of General Arthur Görgei, however, rallied and, in a brilliant campaign, won a series of spectacular victories against the Habsburg Army by April of 1849 they had again forced the imperial troops to evacuate nearly all of Hungary.
Elected Governor
On April 14, the Hungarian Parliament meeting in Debrecen, inspired by Kossuth, proclaimed the complete independence of Hungary from Austria and deposed the Habsburg dynasty. The Hungarian Declaration of Independence was inspired and influenced by the American document. At this same time the Parliament elected Kossuth "governor-president". Hungary was the last bastion of the democratic revolutions of 1848 to remain standing against the forces of absolutism, and Hungarian developments were carefully followed with considerable sympathy by the governments and people of Europe and the United States.
The inability of the imperial government to reestablish its authority over Hungary was of great concern to the autocratic government of Russia. Czar Nicholas I offered to aid Franz Josef in suppressing the Hungarian revolution. The offer was accepted. On June 17-18, a powerful Russian army of more than 200,000 invaded Hungary from the north, while at the same time an Austrian army began to move against Hungary from the west. The imperial government in Vienna continued to stir up discontent among the Croats, Serbs, and Romanians within Hungary. The exhausted Hungarian army of only 152,000 men was no match for this massive gathering of forces, but troops under General Görgei put up a vigorous resistance. The Russian army swept through eastern Hungary and Transylvania and defeated the Polish general Bem, at Segesvár, and the major Hungarian army at the Battle of Temesvár. The situation was hopeless. Kossuth transferred government authority to Görgei who surrendered to the Russian commander at Világos on August 13.
Despite promises of clemency by the Russian commander and subsequent demands by the governments of Great Britain and France the surrender led to savage reprisals, carried out with imperial authorization by the Austrian commander, General Haynau. Former Prime Minister Batthyány was executed, as were thirteen generals and hundreds of other Hungarian military officers. The execution of the generals on October 6 at Arad (now in Romania) later became a Hungarian day of commemoration. Hungary was put under military occupation and subjected to an absolutist rule from Vienna, carried out by a foreign bureaucracy under the Imperial Minister of the Interior.
Life in exile
At the time of the Hungarian surrender, Kossuth with many of his loyal followers and thousands of Hungarian troops and some Polish volunteers fled to the Lower Danube, which was then a part of the Turkish Empire, to escape Russian and Austrian forces. Kossuth spent two years in exile in Kutahiyah in Asia Minor.
The deposed Head of the Hungarian State, whose inclination to act never abated when it came to a cause concerning his country, elaborated a plan while in exile, which became famous under the name “The Kutahiyan Constitution”. It was a model of a civil state based on comprehensive individual rights, freedom of associaton and local self-governments. The specialty of this model from a constitutional point of view was that Kossuth, about half a century ahead of his time, drew up the idea of an independent body, the “Guard of Constitution” (a precusor of the European Constitutional Courts of today), which would set limits to central power, its legislative and executive branches.
Kossuth realized that the hostile behavior of the different ethnic groups living within the territory of Hungary contributed to the failure of the War of Independence. Therefore he proposed various national groups living on the historic territory of Hungary full collective rights, alongside with equality before the law, and unrestricted use of their mother tongue. In the relations of Hungary and its neighbors he drew up a plan of a Danubian Confederation. That is how, upon Kossuth’s ideas, the notion of a United States of the Danube evolved, to have been cited so often in the course of history.
The governments of Great Britain, the United States, and other West European nations successfully pressured the Turkish Sultan to refuse the Austrian and Russian demands for Kossuth's extradition. The President of the United States invited him for a visit and sent a ship to fetch him to the United States. On September 10, 1851, Kossuth steamed from the Turkish port of Smyrna (now Izmir) aboard the U.S. Navy’s frigate Mississippi.
Glorious visit to the US
After brief stops in France and Britain, he arrived in New York City on December 5, 1851, to great public acclaim. His triumphant six-month tour throughout the country was an unprecedented popular success.
Although Kossuth did not achieve his goal of winning official United States Government support and recognition for continuing his struggle for Hungarian independence, his visit did leave a permanent legacy in America. He gave several hundred speeches in all parts of the United States, including separate addresses to both Houses of Congress.
During his trip Kossuth expressed his view on many occasions that the young Republic as a model for freedom and democracy should end its isolationism, should play an active role in international politics and, in the name of self-determination, should help the oppressed peoples against the dictatorial, autocratic powers. More than half a century later Kossuth’s ideas were adopted by President Wilson and became part of the foundations of foreign policy in the 20th Century. Various representatives of the American people were right in claiming that Kossuth was “a most genuine European representative of freedom and democracy” and, alongside George Washington, a symbol of “universal human values”.
During Kossuth’s tour 250 poems, dozens of books, hundreds of pamphlets, and thousands of editorials were written about him and his democratic ideals. His achievements were praised by English and American political leaders and intellectuals, such as Matthew Arnold, Elizabeth Browning, Algernon Charles Swinburne, John Griscom, William Lloyd Garrison, James Russell Lowell, John Edward Massey, John Greenleaf Whittier, William Cullen Bryant, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Horace Greeley.
Kossuth left the United States after six months, returning to Europe in July 1852 in an effort to rally support there for the Hungarian cause. He lived for a period of time in London, and eventually settled in Turin in exile, he continued his efforts for Hungarian independence, but he did not return to Hungary.
Following his death in Turin in 1894, his body was returned to Hungary, where he was buried amid nationwide mourning. After his death, Kossuth continued as the popular symbol of the aspirations of the Hungarian people for independence.
