Human Resources Minister attends the reburial of famous statesman József Eötvös

Baron József Eötvös (1813-1871) was not only a 19th century politician but “a man that had written his name among history’s greatest,” Human Resources Minister Miklós Kásler said at the reburial of the late statesman and his family, an event which also marked Eötvös’s 150th death anniversary, on Saturday.

Eötvös and his contemporaries in Hungary’s Reform Age in the first half of the 19th century were working to “extend the rights of the nobility to the whole nation, sharing power and opportunities with them”, Kásler said in his address at the ceremony in Ercsi, south of Budapest.

National mourning: flag flown at half-mast in front of Parliament – PHOTOS

Eötvös, when public education minister, managed to resolve issues around ethnic minorities and the emancipation of Jews, he introduced free public education and implemented a reform of secondary and higher education, Kásler said.

The ceremony was attended by Tamás Freund, head of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, of which Eötvös had been the third president, as well as National Museum head László L. Simon.

Read alsoOne of the greatest Hungarian scientists, Loránd Eötvös was born 172 years ago

Source: MTI