Buza Péter: Spring and Fountains - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1994)

prayer, quoted from an old Hungarian church hymn, chiselled into the fountain’s column, would be answered. Here is the inscription on the fountain: “Magyarországról, édes hazánkról / Ne feledkezzél meg / Szegény magyarokról!” [Remember our beloved fatherland Hungary and us poor Hungarians.]

That the wish in the prayer was not granted is witnessed by the birth of another ideological fountain. “Magyar Igazság Kútja” [The Fountain of Justice for Hungary] was erected in 1929 in what is today Szabó Ervin tér. On the plinth above the basin stands Justitia with a sword and scales in hand. At her feet lies the allegorical female figure of Hungary begging her for protection. On the base there was a relief of Lord Rother mere, virtually the only statesman in Europe who insisted, in the face of what the victorious powers claimed to be just, on fair treatment for Hungary. This is, first in Hungarian and then in English, how the inscription carved into the rim of the basin summed up the feelings of those who ordered the fountain:

E KCITAT HÁLÁS MAGYAROK EMELTÉK NAGYBRITAN- NIA MÉLTÓ FIA, VISCOUNT ROTHERMERE TISZTELETÉRE.

Samu PECZ’S drinking fountain

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