Magyar News, 2001. szeptember-2002. augusztus (12. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

2001-09-01 / 1. szám

center called Kossuth Square, on the banks of the River Thomson, near today's Davis City, did not last long. The settlers were highly educated, but not in the art of farming. Their idea was to attract many Hungarian exiles and to create a Little Hungary," a center to keep the language and the spirit so as to be able to help the cause of the freedom of Hungary from there. It was not a realistic scheme and only a handful Hungarians remained there. Those who did, became successful and respected citizens and some of their descendents are still to be found in the town of Leon.

There is no trace of New Buda and the Hungarian settlers of the 1850s in Iowa today. But let this statue be a reminder of the heroic struggle of Hungary in 1848/49, of its great leader, of his impact on contemporary Americans, which induced them to name this county after him. Also let this be a memorial to all Hungarians who escaped from tyranny or from poverty to the United States in the succeeding decades. A few made it to Iowa, where they contributed to the success story of America.

Today there are close to two million Americans who claim at least a partial Hungarian origin. In addition to them millions of Hungarians looked up to the United States for inspiration and support in their drive for freedom and independence in the last two centuries. That was a particularly strong feeling in 1956, during our Revolution against Soviet domination, and also at the end of the 1980s, when Hungary, together with Poland, initiated the spectacular political changes that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and of almost all the Communist dominoes.

Governor Kossuth, Kossuth Apánk, as we call you in Hungary! You dreamed about an independent Hungary allied to the United States of America. Your program, your will has been realized.”

Unveiling the statue

Kossuth Statue Dedication in Iowa

Remarks of Géza Jeszenszky, Ambassador of Hungary to the U.S.A. (left):

“Governer W i 1 s a c k , Auditor Johnson, members of the Kossuth on State Committee, Ladies and Gentlemen, dear Hungarian Compatriots, kedves magyar Honfitársaim!

It is a great distinction for me to be present when you mark the 150th birthday of Kossuth County by dedicating a statute to him.

Kossuth and his fellow Hungarians in exile represent a very important link between the two peoples, also expressed in the message of Mádl Ferenc the President of Hungary: The decision to commission such a statute was a wise one. Although Kossuth is not a household name in the U.S., but neither is he unknown. Everybody visiting the Capitol in Washington and passing through its hallways comes across a bust with the inscription: KOSSUTH, Father of Hungarian Democracy, Hungarian Statesman, Freedom Fighter.

In the last few months the citizens of Algona and Iowa in general had an opportunity to read and learn quite a lot about the man whose name this county bears. This is not the place and time to give an account of his significance in Hungarian and European history. Suffice it to refer to your great President, Abraham Lincoln, who welcomed Kossuth in the United States on the 9th of January, 1852 with the following words: ‘We recognize in Governor Kossuth of Hungary the most worthy and distinguished representative of the cause of civil and religious liberty on the contient of Europe.’

It must be a source of pride for you

that your county is named after such a great European statesman. Kossuth was not only a towering figure for Hungary, but also one of the first trying to bring the smaller peoples, who live in the Danube Basin, together, to unite them against any possible encroachment on their freedom. Thus we can say, without exaggeration, that he aspired to something what the Atlantic Alliance has finally realized.

This statue is more than just a memorial that immortalizes a great hero. This statute is also a memorial to the pioneers of this great state of Iowa. Very few Hungarians made it to here, to the county named after this great Hungarian. But quite a few of the followers of Kossuth settled in the south of your state, in Decatur County and established a settlement they named New Buda, after the historic capital city of Hungary. In 1915 a book was published on the history of Decatur county, with a chapter About New Buda and the Hungarians. It starts with a fair summary of Kossuth's life.

The Hungarian Revolution of 1848 was one of many ferments of the kind that affected all of Europe at that time. Before this there were ties binding Austria and Hungary into one political family, and the revolution was Hungary's hunger for freedom. The two figures that stand out in the limelight of that time were Louis Kossuth, the provisional president of the Hungarian Republic, and Görgey, the man of genius in the field of war. Kossuth was the orator, in some respects, without rival in all history. In a prison, with but meager material, he familiarized himself in the use of our English speech, to that extent that he held English and American audiences spellbound. So great a judge ... as Ralph Waldo Emerson declared that a part of his Birmingham speech reached the highest rung of oratory. His American tour was an ovation, and, brilliant as it was, failed to satisfy the fiery Magyar, he wanted armed intervention in the affairs of Hungary and felt piqued that there was no prospect of armies forthcoming. He was irreconcilable to the last, found an asylum at Turin and never returned to the home of his youth.

The settlement, with its