Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
LAJOS KOSSUTH
Lajos Kossuth was the incarnation of post-Napoleonic bourgeois nationalism. Born into
landless gentry in 1802, he began his career as a lawyer, representing absentee magnates in
Parliament. His Parliamentary reports, which advocated greater liberalism than the Habs-
burgs would tolerate, became widely influential during the Reform era, and he was jailed
for sedition. While in prison, Kossuth taught himself English by reading Shakespeare.
Released in 1840, he became editor of the radical Pesti Hírlap , was elected to Parliament
and took the helm during the 1848 Revolution.
After Serbs, Croats and Romanians rebelled against Magyar rule and the Habsburgs in-
vaded Hungary, the Hungarians proclaimed a republic with Kossuth as de facto dictator.
After the Hungarians surrendered in August 1849, Kossuth escaped to Turkey and later
toured Britain and America, espousing liberty and trying to win support for the Hungarian
cause.SoeloquentwerehisdenunciationsofHabsburgtyrannythatLondonbrewerywork-
ers attacked General Haynau, the “Butcher of Vienna”, when he visited the city. One man
who did his best to undermine Kossuth's efforts was Karl Marx, who loathed Kossuth as a
bourgeois radical and wrote hostile articles in the New York Herald Tribune and the Lon-
don Times .
As a friend of the Italian patriot Mazzini, Kossuth spent his last years in Turin, where he
died in 1894. His remains now lie in the Kerepesi Cemetery .
Statue of Attila József
Immediately south of the Andrássy statue, close to the river, sits the brooding figure of Attila
József , one of Hungary's finest poets, who was expelled from the Communist Party for try-
ing to reconcile Marx and Freud, and committed suicide in 1937 after being rejected by his
lover. His powerful, turbulent verse has never lost its popularity, and he earns his place here
for his poem By the Danube .
Holocaust Memorial
Right on the riverbank 200m south of Parliament is a poignant HolocaustMemorial : dozens
of shoes cast in iron, marking the spot where hundreds of Jewish adults and children were
machine-gunned by the Arrow Cross and their bodies thrown into the Danube. Before being
massacred, they were made to remove their coats and footwear, which were earmarked for
use by German civilians. (Access from Parliament is dangerous as it means crossing the busy
embankment road; the nearest crossing is down by the tram stop before the Lánchíd.)
Parliament
Országház • V, Kossuth Lajos tér • Tours in English daily at 10am, noon, 1pm, 2pm & 3pm (no tours on national
holidays); tours in other major languages at different times • The ticket office opens at 8am (tickets sell fast)
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