Szatmári Gizella: Signs of Remembrance - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2005)
The funeral oration was given by Edmondo De Amicis, the writer best known to Hungarians for his children's novel Heart. It was during the night that the train carrying the mortal remains of Kossuth crossed Austria, where the "railway stations were guarded by bayonet-armed gendarmerie". At home the catafalque was set up in the round foyer of the National Museum, the stairs of which were covered with flowers. The replacement of the street signs following the rechristening of the street had been effected the previous day, on 30 March. The stock exchange did not open, and the ships on the Danube sailed under flags at half-mast. Although Francis Joseph forbade the attendance of government employees, soldiers and students at the funeral, a very large part of the city's population turned out in mourning to form an enormous crowd in the wake of the bier. The Somossy Orpheum, a "splendid and luxurious" establishment that had opened recently, was given rough treatment at the hands of the mourners: as the management had failed to put out a black flag, "the large glass windowpanes of the café, as well as the gaslights outside the opera house" fell victim to the wrath of the young demonstrators. Kossuth had been given honorary citizenship: the House of Representatives passed a decree to erect a memorial statue in the capital and, at the government expense, to set up a sepulchre of Kossuth's. As the proposed bill to enact his merits was received by a heated debate in the house, finding the altercation unworthy of Hungary's former Regent, Representative Géza Polo- nyi revoked his motion. The plaque is on the building at 2 Kossuth Lajos utca, on a corner pillar above the underground entrance. Granddad Elek’s Tales Elek Benedek, who was given the sobriquet "Granddaddy" by readers of his well-liked children’s magazine Pal, was a ruling-party MP at the beginning of his career between 1887 and 1892. As a journalist he published his writings first under the pennames of Székely Hussar and Kópé (Rogue). These pieces included short stories, feuilletons, and genre pieces inspired by the life of the Budapest bourgeoisie . His later writings were increasingly concerned with representing his native village, his family and his children. Such is the subject matter of his pieces 58
