Historical Highlights: Lajos Kossuth

Today we've got a pretty interesting character on our hands today, and I'm not just talking about his name.

Lajos Kossuth was born on September 19, 1802 in Monok, Hungary to a devout Lutheran noble family. He was popular within the community, and in 1825 he was appointed to the Hungarian National Diet. At the time Hungary was little more than a province of the Austrian Hapsburg Empire, but Kossuth was a Hungarian nationalist who believed that Hungary should become an independent nation. He soon became a journalist, writing numerous editorials condemning Austrian tyranny, which resulted in him becoming famous throughout Hungary. The Austrians, worried that he might cause a revolt, arrested him in 1837, causing an uproar throughout the country, ultimately forcing the Austrians to release him in 1840. Over the next few years Kossuth developed an ideology based around democracy and patriotism, ideas which were spreading throughout Europe at the time.

Then finally, the moment came. In 1848 revolution broke out in France and quickly spread to the German states, the Italian states, Austria, Denmark and Hungary. Kossuth, with his passionate and charismatic speeches, quickly became the leader of the democratic movement, not just in Hungary but throughout Europe, and he was quickly made President of Hungary, at which point he set about improving the country's infrastructure and liberating the Hungarian Jews. When Croatian forces invaded Hungary to restore Hapsburg rule, Kossuth raised a volunteer army called the Honved, that defeated the Hapsburg troops at the Battle of Pakozd. For a while it looked like Kossuth might indeed win independence for Hungary.

But it was not to be. The revolutionary forces in Germany, Italy, and Austria failed in 1849, and the Austrian forces regrouped and began handing defeat after defeat to the Hungarian forces. When the Russians invaded Hungary to help the Austrians, the Hungarian Revolution's fate was sealed.

After the war Kossuth went into exile in Britain and later America, where his speeches won him many admirers and he remained a hero amongst Hungarian nationalists. He died in 1894, several years before Hungary finally became independent in 1918, but the modern Hungarian nation is still largely based on his ideas of nationalist democracy.