| Noble Lajos Kossuth de Udvard et Kossuthfalva | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Governor-President of Hungary | |
|
In office 14 April 1849 – 11 August 1849 | |
| Prime Minister | Bertalan Szemere |
| Preceded by | position established |
| Succeeded by | Artúr Görgey (as acting civil and military authority) |
| President of the Committee of National Defence | |
|
In office 2 October 1848 – 1 May 1849 | |
| Preceded by | Lajos Batthyány (Prime Minister) |
| Succeeded by | Bertalan Szemere (Prime Minister) |
| 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 |
19 September 1802 Monok, Kingdom of Hungary |
| Died |
20 March 1894 (aged 91) Turin, Kingdom of Italy |
| Resting place | Kerepesi Cemetery |
| Nationality | Hungarian |
| Political party | Opposition Party |
| Spouse(s) | Terézia Meszlényi |
| Children | Ferenc Kossuth |
| Signature |
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Lajos Kossuth de Udvard et Kossuthfalva (Hungarian: [ˈlɒjoʃ ˈkoʃut], archaically English: Louis Kossuth; 19 September 1802 – 20 March 1894) was a Hungarian lawyer, journalist, politician and Governor-President of the Kingdom of Hungary during the revolution of 1848–49. 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 Kingdom of Hungary. As the most influential contemporary American journalist Horace Greeley said of Kossuth: “Among the orators, patriots, statesmen, exiles, he has, living or dead, no superior.”[1][2] Kossuth's powerful English and American speeches so impressed and touched the most famous contemporary American orator Daniel Webster, that he wrote a book about Kossuth's life.[3] He was widely honored during his lifetime, including in Great Britain and the United States, as a freedom fighter and bellwether of democracy in Europe. Kossuth's bronze bust can be found in the United States Capitol with the inscription: "Father of Hungarian Democracy, Hungarian Statesman, Freedom Fighter, 1848–1849".
Family
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Kossuth was born in Monok, Kingdom of Hungary, a small town in the county of Zemplén, as the oldest of four children in a Lutheran noble family of Slovak origin. 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 Slovak: Turiec, northwest Slovakia) in the north of Hungary since the 13th century.[4][5] The mother of Lajos Kossuth, Karolina Weber (1770–1853) was born to a Lutheran family of partial German descent,[6] living in Upper Hungary (today Slovakia).
Early years
His mother raised the children as strict Lutherans. Kossuth studied at the Piarist college of Sátoraljaújhely and one year in the Calvinist college of Sárospatak and the University of Pest (now Budapest). Aged nineteen, he entered his father's legal practice. He was popular locally, and having been appointed steward to the countess Szapáry, a widow with large estates, he became her voting representative in the county assembly and settled in Pest. He was subsequently dismissed on the grounds of some misunderstanding in regards to estate funds.
Entry into national politics
Shortly after his dismissal by Countess Szapáry, Kossuth was appointed as deputy to Count Hunyady at the National Diet. The Diet met during 1825–1827 and 1832–1836 in Pressburg (Pozsony, present Bratislava), then capital of Hungary. Only the upper aristocracy could vote in the House of Magnates (similar to the House of Lords in Britain), however, and Kossuth took little part in the debates. At the time, a struggle to reassert a Hungarian national identity was beginning to emerge under leaders such as Wesselényi and the Széchenyis. In part, it was also a struggle for economic and political reforms against the stagnant 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 liberal magnates. Readership demands led him to edit an organized parliamentary gazette (Országgyűlési tudósítások); spreading his name and influence further. Orders from the Official Censor halted circulation by lithograph printing. Distribution in manuscript by post was forbidden by the government, although circulation by hand continued.
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 freedom of the press and of speech in Hungary and in the entire Habsburg Empire.[7] The government attempted in vain to suppress the letters, and, other means having failed, he was arrested in May 1837, with Wesselényi and several others, on a charge of high treason. After spending a year in prison at Buda awaiting trial, he was condemned to four more years' imprisonment. His strict confinement damaged his health, but he was allowed to read. He greatly increased his political knowledge, and also acquired, from the study of the Bible and Shakespeare, a thorough knowledge of English.
Kossuth's arrests caused great indignation. The Diet, which reconvened in 1839, demanded the release of the prisoners, and refused to pass any government measures. Austrian prime minister Metternich long remained obdurate, but the danger of war in 1840 obliged him to give way. While Wesselényi had been broken by his imprisonment, Kossuth, partly supported by the frequent visits of Teresa Meszleny, emerged from prison in better conditions. Immediately after his release, Kossuth and Meszleny were married, and she remained a firm supporter of his politics. Although Meszleny was a Catholic, Roman Catholic priests refused to bless the marriage, as Kossuth, a Protestant, would not convert. This experience influenced Kossuth's firm defense of mixed marriages.
They had three children: Ferenc Lajos Ákos (1841–1914), who was Minister for Trade between 1906 and 1910; Vilma (1843–1862) and Lajos Tódor Károly (1844–1918).
Journalist and political leader
Kossuth had now become a national icon. He regained full health in January 1841 and was appointed editor of Pesti Hírlap, a new Liberal party newspaper which received the government licence. 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 fervour.
Kossuth followed the ideas of the French nation state ideology, which was a ruling liberal idea of his era. Accordingly, he considered and regarded everybody as "Hungarian" -regardless of their mother tongue and ethnic ancestry - who 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"[8] Kossuth's ideas stand on the enlightened Western European type liberal nationalism (based on the "jus soli" principle)[9][10][11][12] (which is the complete opposition of the ethnic nationalism, which based on "jus sanguinis", an archaical "race-based" principle.)
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".[13] In 1842 he argued that Hungarian had to be the exclusive language in public life.[14] 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".[15] Kossuth's assimilatory ambitions were disapproved by Zsigmond Kemény, though he supported a multinational state led by Hungarians.[16]
István Széchenyi criticized Kossuth for "pitting one nationality against another".[17] He publicly warned Kossuth that his appeals to the passions of the people would lead the nation to revolution. 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. He went on to broach the possibility of separating from Austria. By combining this nationalism with an insistence on the superiority of the Hungarian culture to the culture of Slavonic inhabitants of Hungary, he sowed the seeds of both the collapse of Hungary in 1849 and his own political demise.
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 a "Védegylet" society whose members consumed only Hungarian produce. He also argued for the creation of a Hungarian port at Fiume (Rijeka).
In autumn 1847, Kossuth was able to take his final key step. The support of Lajos Batthyány during a keenly fought campaign made him be elected to the new Diet as member for Pest. He proclaimed: "Now that I am a deputy, I will cease to be an agitator." He immediately became chief leader of the Opposition Party. Ferenc Deák was absent. As Headlam noted, his political rivals, Batthyány, István Széchenyi, Szemere, and József Eötvös, believed:
"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."[18]
The "long debate" of reformers in the press
Count Széchenyi judged the reform system of Kossuth in the pamphlet of Kelet Népe from 184. According to Széchenyi, the economic, political and social reforms have to be installed slowly and very carefully so that Hungary avoid the violent interference of the Habsburg dynasty, which interference can lead to a tragic end.
Széchenyi was listening to the spread of the expansion of Kossuth’s ideas in the Hungarian society, which did not consider the good relation to the Habsburg dynasty. Kossuth ignored the role of aristocracy and intruded any kinds of social stratus.
In contrast, Kossuth believed that the 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 the political life. Therefore, he supported democracy and did not believe in the complete power of the elites and the government. In 1885, Kossuth named Széchenyi as a liberal elitist aristocrat while Széchenyi considered himself to be a democrat.[19]
Széchenyi was an isolationist politician while according to Kossuth the strong relations and collaboration with international liberal and progressive movements are essential for the success of liberty.[20]
Széchenyi's economic policy based on the 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.[21]
Regent-President of Hungary
Success
The crisis came, and he used it to the full. On 3 March 1848, shortly after the news of the revolution in Paris had arrived, in a speech of surpassing power he demanded parliamentary government for Hungary and constitutional government for the rest of Austria. 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. Lajos Batthyány, who formed the first responsible government, appointed Kossuth 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 Croatian ban Josip Jelačić was marching on Pest, Kossuth went from town to town rousing the people to the defense of the country, and the popular force of the Honvéd was his creation. When Batthyány resigned he was appointed with Szemere to carry on the government provisionally, and at the end of September he was made President of the Committee of National Defense.
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. Arthur Görgey in particular, whose great abilities Kossuth was the first to recognize, refused obedience; the two men were very different personalities. Twice Kossuth deposed him from the command; twice he had to restore him. It would have been well if Kossuth had had something more of Görgey's calculated ruthlessness, for, as has been truly said, the revolutionary power he had seized could only be held by revolutionary means; but he was by nature soft-hearted and always merciful; though often audacious, he lacked decision in dealing with men.
Failure
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