Kaján Imre (szerk.): Zalai Múzeum 20. (Zalaegerszeg, 2012)

Tanulmányok Asbóth Sándorról - Tar Ferenc: Asbóth Sándor az utókor emlékezetében

98

Tar Ferenc

69 VÁRDY Béla művei: Alexander Asbóth: Hungarian general in the American Civil War. In: Triumph in Adversity: Studies in Hungarian civilization in honor of Professor Ferenc Somogyi on the occasion of his eightieth birthday. Columbia University Press, New York, 1988.; The Hungarian-Americans. Boston, 1985.; The Hungarian-Americans: The Hungarian Experience in North America. New York, 1989.; Észrevételek Gereben Istvánnak Asbóth Sándorral kapcsolatos írásom kritikájára. Kapu, 1995. okt- nov. 10-11. sz.; Magyarok az Újvilágban. Budapest, 2000.; VÁRDY Béla - VÁRDY HUSZÁR Ágnes: Újvilági küzdelmek. Az amerikai magyarság és az óhaza. Budapest, 2005.

70 VÁRDY Béla: Magyarok az Újvilágban. Budapest, 2000. 146.

71 www.gyenesdiasihuszarok.hu

72 www.arlingtoncemetery.net/asaboth.htm

73 LÓSY-SCHMIDT Ede (1879-1948), mérnök, technikatörténész. Részt vett a Magyar Műszaki Múzeum felállításában (1936). F.m.: A hortobágyi kőhíd építése Debrecen város mátai pusztáján. 1827-1833. (Debrecen, 1926), Feketeházy János, a szegedi Tisza híd magyar tervezője (Szeged, 1933.), A műszaki muzeális ügy fejlődése hazánkban és a Magyar Műszaki Múzeum (Budapest, 1939)

74 LÓSY-SCHMIDT Ede: A szabadságharc mémökvezé- rei és mémökvezetői. Magyar Technika, 1948.3. sz. 54.

Sándor Asbóth in the Remembrance of Posterity

When Ödön Vasváry, a reformed pastor in America made a list of The Greatest Hungarians of 200 years’ in the newspaper Amerikai Magyar Világ in 1976, he put Sándor Asbóth, general of the American Civil War, to the fourth position.

The newspaper Magyarország és a Nagyvilág reported on Asbóth’s death in 1868: ’the government of the republic rushes to express condolence upon this grievous loss, joining thus the general’s memorial service honouring a representative of the noble American nation’. His nephew János Asbóth and the newspaper Hon commemorated his death too. A U. S. biographical cyclopaedia in 1928 and a later cyclopaedia from Chicago also has a record of the noble son of Keszthely.

There are a number of memoirs, books from the second half of the 19th century on the 1849-51 Exile in Turkey, and within that, on the adjutant loyal to Kossuth even during the exile. World traveller János Vado- na proudly notes that Central Park was designed by Asbóth. Asbóth’s older brother Lajos also speaks about his brother in his last military history book. In addition to József Balassa, Dénes Jánossy and Jenő Pivány, Tivadar Ács as well has written about Asbóth’s work under the title Tábornok, akinek golyó van a fejében.

Elemér Miklós and Andor Vér wrote in 1942 ’General Sándor Asbóth, who is, against all North American assumptions, buried in the old English cemetery in Buenos Aires, was the United States’ first ambassador to Argentina and Paraguay. His name is still familiar to people in these republics and he is considered to be the

guarantee of the freedom of the two states’. Asbóth’s remains were transported to Washington D. C. in 1990. ’The remains of Sándor Asbóth de Nemeskér were buried at Arlington National Cemetery on October 23, with a military parade befitting his rank.’

In 1996, commemorating the 1100th anniversary of the Hungarian Conquest, painter Győző Somogyi portrayed ’USA Lieutenant General’ Sándor Asbóth in his series of portraits of excellent Hungarian military leaders in the Museum of Ethnography in Budapest. In the 1980s the author of this study published a number of papers on the renowned son of Keszthely, then in 1998 he released a full volume on Lincoln’s Hungarian general. The local government in the town of Keszthely placed a plaque on the wall of Asbóth’s birth house, and the cultural hall in the local barrack was named after him. In 2001 a secondary school in Keszthely, in 2008 a hussar bandérium in the neighbouring Gyenesdiás took his name.

In 2010 Zala County and Asbóth’s town of birth commemorated the 200th anniversary of the general’s birth by organising an exhibition and a conference, and by placing a new plaque on his birth house.

Ede Lósy-Schmidt wrote, ’Sándor Asbóth ... was outstanding and great as an engineer, politician, military leader, diplomat and as a man too... He has brought credit and honour to our country and our age even at distant parts of the world; therefore the flag of remembrance and appreciation must be dipped in front of him with great respect.’