AZ ORSZÁGOS SZÉCHÉNYI KÖNYVTÁR ÉVKÖNYVE 1959. Budapest (1961)

IV. Könyvtár- és művelődéstörténeti tanulmányok - Summaires

Kossuth's activity can be divided into three definite periods: his propagandistic activity in England and the United States in the interest of suppressed Hungary; his campaign at home against the Compromise of 1867 and finally, his activity as reflected by his work Iratok az emigrációból (Writings in exile) which was aimed at helping to create a country making for a community of East-European and Danubian peoples. In the first period his activity took the form of a series of"political articles for English and American newspapers (in 1851 Kossuth's writings created such a stir in the American press that was equalled only by the movement against negro slavery some ten years later; in fact, Kossuth became the "sensation" of the American newspapers, which at that time, in the middle of the 19th century, began to assume a very wide circulation). In the second period he made use of a so-called open letter, regularly sent to the Budapest papers from Italy. In the third period of Kossuth's activity as a publicist, he availed himself of the literary form Iratok (Documents); he did not intend these documents to serve as his memoirs, and not even as a collection of his articles and speeches—as was then and is even now believed —

,these writings represented a polemic, publicistic work. A noteworthy fact about Kossuth

: he was the founder of the daily newspaper Pesti Hírlap in 1841; as first in Hungary he introduced in his paper the political leading article. The three literary forms described above and created by Kossuth greatly contributed to the enrichment of the publicistic literature in the second half of the 19th century. Besides his greatness as a politician, Kossuth was the first outstanding personality in the history of the Hungarian press.