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Political heroes of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848-1849
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These three men are only three examples of the many great Hungarian political minds of the 19th century. It goes without saying that each and every Hungarian person who fought in the Hungarian Revolution of 1848-49 was a hero. The 15th of March will forever be a special day in Hungary.
Count Lajos Batthyány (1807-1849)
He was born into one of the wealthiest families in the country on 10 February 1807. On 17 March 1848, he became Hungary’s Prime Minister appointed by Archduke Stephen, palatine of Hungary. He was ready to take drastic measures for the Hungarian constitutionalism but only within the boundaries of the law. He was the one who organised both the Hungarian militia and army.
During the revolution, he was encouraged to leave the country but he was never willing to do that.
He was arrested on 8 January 1849; then he was court-martialled. He was sentenced to death by hanging on 30 August 1849. He found the sentence to be humiliating and made his wife, Antónia Zichy, smuggle in a dagger for him. The day before his sentence, he attempted suicide with that dagger. He stabbed himself in the neck, but he remained alive. He could not be hanged due to the injury on his neck, so he was sentenced to die by a bullet. While he was being executed, he never let the guards cover his eyes.
Even though he was a politician and not a soldier, he was just as brave as the men on the battle fields.
Lajos Kossuth (1802-1894)
Even though he was born into a poor gentry family, he managed to become one of the best-known figures of Hungarian history.
He was a lawyer, journalist, politician, statesman and Governor-President of the Kingdom of Hungary during the revolution of 1848–49.
In January 1841, he was the appointed editor of Pesti Hírlap, a new Liberal party newspaper. The government paid little attention to the Liberal party newspaper and considered it to be weak and powerless. However, Pesti Hírlap achieved unprecedented success. The paper managed to have more subscribers than any Hungarian paper before.
Lajos Kossuth then and there, laid the foundations for our modern Hungarian political journalism.
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