Lajos Kossuth
Lajos Kossuth led the Hungarian revolution of 1848 and spent the rest of his life in exile arguing for independence. Born in 1802 in what is now Slovakia into a Lutheran family of impoverished minor nobility, he trained as a lawyer and made his name reporting the proceedings of the Hungarian diet in handwritten newsletters, since printing them was prohibited. He was imprisoned for three years from 1837 for sedition, and used the time to learn English by reading Shakespeare and the Bible. He edited Pesti Hírlap from 1841, arguing for the abolition of serfdom and noble tax exemption, for Hungarian rather than Latin or German as the language of administration, and for industrial development. In March 1848, as revolutions spread across Europe, his speech to the diet demanding a constitution for the whole Habsburg monarchy triggered the events in Vienna and Budapest. Hungary obtained a responsible ministry, in which he became finance minister, and passed the April Laws ending serfdom and noble privilege. The settlement broke down when Vienna recovered and when Croatian, Serbian and Romanian nationalities within Hungary resisted Magyar dominance. Kossuth became head of the national defence committee and then Regent-President in April 1849, when the diet declared the Habsburgs deposed. The Emperor Franz Joseph appealed to Nicholas I, and some two hundred thousand Russian troops entered Hungary. The army surrendered at Világos in August 1849, and Kossuth fled to the Ottoman Empire. He toured Britain and the United States to enormous crowds, addressing Congress. He refused to accept the compromise of 1867 and died in Turin in 1894.
- Lived: 1802 CE – 1894 CE
- Nationality: Hungarian
- Roles: statesman, revolutionary
