Fraternity-Testvériség, 1994 (72. évfolyam, 1-4. szám)

1994-01-01 / 1. szám

FRATERNITY

Page 10

Kossuth was known for his hats, plumbed with feathers.

the Whitney Arms Manufacturing Company, where he was shown a long row of stands stacked with firearms bearing the inscription “Material Aid for Hungary.” Others joined forces with Hungarian officers to set up a munitions plant in New Jersey. In 1860, when there was again hope of Hungarian independence, Colonel Alexander Asboth, Kossuth’s former aide-de-camp, and soon a Major General in Abraham Lincoln’s army, was able to report “with humble regard for His Excellency, the Governor of Hungary,” Lajos Kossuth, that he had rifles and ammunition for the leader’s planned military actions.

Kossuth, however, was destined to remain in exile for the rest of his life. While he may have become bitter toward some European heads of state, who betrayed him, after having used the Hungarian issue for their own advantage, his sentiments towards the United States, and especially towards the American people never changed. In the preface of his multi-volume recollections, entitled

Emlékem az emigrációból (1882; translated “Memories of my Exile”), he recalled his American sojourn as the most cherished, most warmly felt period of his émigrée life. Future generations, in both America and Hungary, have regarded Kossuth as the most powerful link between the two nations, a link so powerful and so shining that it has survived every adverse act and turn in history.

‘The above essay by Dr. Elemér Bakó, then Finno- Ugrian Area Specialist at the Library of Congress, appeared in a collection entitled “Abroad in America: Visitors to the New Nation, 1776-1914”, a companion volume to a historical exhibit presented by the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C. in 1975. The exhibit was part of an official program celebrating the “American Bicentennial”.

Dr. Bakó’s essay was published on pages 124 through 133 of the book.

■ Copyright, the Smithsonian Institution, 1976, reprinted with permission.

The illustrations in this article were selected from different sources related to the life of Lajos Kossuth, and contributed by the Hungarian Reformed Federation of America.

Lajos Kossuth in 1889