KOSSUTH, LAJOS. – Patriot and statesman, born at Monok in northern Hungary on 17 September 1802, died in exile at Turin on 20 March 1894. A brilliant orator, lawyer, and journalist, he was arrested in 1837 for the clandestine dissemination of the proceedings of the Assembly, prohibited by Metternich’s censorship. Granted an amnesty, in 1841 he assumed the direction of the daily Pesti Hirlap, where he fought for the reform of the ancient constitution according to the principles of national liberalism. He engaged in bitter polemics with Count Stefano Széchenyi, leader of the moderate reformist faction, who considered it more prudent to contain national aspirations within the limits of the economic and cultural sphere, so as not to expose the country to civil war.
Minister of Finance in March 1848, he was opposed by the radical left wing; in July he succeeded in postponing the further dispatch of Hungarian soldiers to Lombardy, and in October 1848 he recalled his compatriots from Radetzky’s army. When the Court of Vienna revoked constitutional liberties and provoked a war of races and nationalities in order to suppress the Hungarian movement, K., head of the Committee for the Defence of the Fatherland, created an army that defeated the Austrians, who called upon the Tsar’s troops.
K. concluded an alliance with Manin and prepared, with the assistance of the Italian legion organized in Hungary, an expedition to free Venice from the siege; but above all, Gen. Arturo Goerghey laid down his arms on 13 August 1849, and K. took refuge in Turkey.
In 1850 K. entered into correspondence with Mazzini and adhered to the democratic programme, reserving for the Hungarian people the choice of the future form of government. Having travelled to England and America as a champion of constitutional liberties and of the Magyar nation oppressed by reaction, in the summer of 1852 he settled in London, where he advocated the advisability of coordinating the movements of the Italian Risorgimento with a new insurrection in Hungary.
In 1859, having broken with Mazzini, he went to Napoleon III, Vittorio Emanuele II, and Prince Girolamo Bonaparte to persuade them to extend military operations along the Dalmatian coast, with the aim of liberating Hungary as well. Disappointed by the armistice of Villafranca, he returned to London; but in September 1860 at Turin he concluded agreements with Cavour, offering the assistance of the Hungarian legion for the liberation of Venetia, while the émigré generals Türr and Klapka were preparing a landing by Garibaldi at the mouths of the Danube in order to incite Hungary to revolt through Transylvania.
After the compromise of 1867 between Hungary and the Habsburg dynasty, in the famous letter Cassandra addressed to Francesco Deák, the architect of the settlement, he condemned the dualist regime and predicted the inevitable collapse of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Elected a deputy, he refused the invitation to return to his homeland and remained in Italy until his death.
Among other things, it was owing to his work that the Hungarian peasants were able legally, in 1848, to obtain ownership of those lands which until then they had cultivated on behalf of the feudal lord. Thanks to him, the Hungarian insurrection of 1848–49 did not degenerate into revolutionary excesses. When the Habsburgs were declared deprived of the Hungarian crown (14 April 1849), K. avoided the establishment of a republic, which would have split national unity. Although a Protestant, he showed deference toward the Catholic majority of his country.