text:
Domingo Faustino Sarmiento

Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (born Domingo Faustino Fidel Valentín Sarmiento y Albarracín; 15 February 1811 – 11 September 1888) was an Argentine activist, intellectual, writer, statesman and President of Argentina. His writing spanned a wide range of genres and topics, from journalism to autobiography, to political philosophy and history. He was a member of a group of intellectuals, known as the Generation of 1837, who had a great influence on 19th-century Argentina. He was particularly concerned with educational issues and was also an important influence on the region's literature.

Sarmiento grew up in a poor but politically active family that paved the way for many of his future accomplishments. Between 1843 and 1850, he was frequently in exile, and wrote in both Chile and in Argentina. His greatest literary achievement was Facundo, a critique of Juan Manuel de Rosas, that Sarmiento wrote while working for the newspaper El Progreso during his exile in Chile. The book brought him far more than just literary recognition; he expended his efforts and energy on the war against dictatorships, specifically that of Rosas, and contrasted enlightened Europe—a world where, in his eyes, democracy, social services, and intelligent thought were valued—with the barbarism of the gaucho and especially the caudillo, the ruthless strongmen of nineteenth-century Argentina.

While president of Argentina from 1868 to 1874, Sarmiento championed intelligent thought—including education for children and women—and democracy for Latin America. He also took advantage of the opportunity to modernize and develop train systems, a postal system, and a comprehensive education system. He spent many years in ministerial roles on the federal and state levels where he travelled abroad and examined other education systems.

Sarmiento died in Asunción, Paraguay, at the age of 77 from a heart attack. He was buried in Buenos Aires. Today, he is respected as a political innovator and writer. Miguel de Unamuno considered him among the greatest writers of Castilian prose.

Youth and influences

Sarmiento was born in Carrascal, a poor suburb of San Juan, Argentina on 15 February 1811. His father, José Clemente Quiroga Sarmiento y Funes, had served in the military during the wars of independence, returning prisoners of war to San Juan. His mother, Doña Paula Zoila de Albarracín e Irrazábal, was a very pious woman, who lost her father at a young age and was left with very little to support herself. As a result, she took to selling her weaving in order to afford to build a house of her own. On 21 September 1801, José and Paula were married. They had 15 children, 9 of whom died; Domingo was the only son to survive to adulthood. Sarmiento was greatly influenced by his parents, his mother who was always working hard, and his father who told stories of being a patriot and serving his country, something Sarmiento strongly believed in. In Sarmiento's own words: "I was born in a family that lived long years in mediocrity bordering on destitution, and which is to this day poor in every sense of the word. My father is a good man whose life has nothing remarkable except [for his] having served in subordinate positions in the War of Independence... My mother is the true figure of Christianity in its purest sense; with her, trust in Providence was always the solution to all difficulties in life.'"

At the age of four, Sarmiento was taught to read by his father and his uncle, José Eufrasio Quiroga Sarmiento, who later became Bishop of Cuyo. Another uncle who influenced him in his youth was Domingo de Oro, a notable figure in the young Argentine Republic who was influential in bringing Juan Manuel de Rosas to power. Though Sarmiento did not follow de Oro's political and religious leanings, he learned the value of intellectual integrity and honesty. He developed scholarly and oratorical skills, qualities which de Oro was famous for. In 1816, at the age of five, Sarmiento began attending the primary school La Escuela de la Patria. He was a good student, and earned the title of First Citizen (Primer Ciudadano) of the school. After completing primary school, his mother wanted him to go to Córdoba to become a priest. He had spent a year reading the Bible and often spent time as a child helping his uncle with church services, but Sarmiento soon became bored with religion and school, and got involved with a group of aggressive children. Sarmiento's father took him to the Loreto Seminary in 1821, but for reasons unknown, Sarmiento did not enter the seminary, returning instead to San Juan with his father. In 1823, the Minister of State, Bernardino Rivadavia, announced that the six top pupils of each state would be selected to receive higher education in Buenos Aires. Sarmiento was at the top of the list in San Juan, but it was then announced that only ten pupils would receive the scholarship. The selection was made by lot, and Sarmiento was not one of the scholars whose name was drawn.

Like many other nineteenth century Argentines prominent in public life, he was a freemason.

Political background and exiles
In 1826, an assembly elected Bernardino Rivadavia as president of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata. This action roused the ire of the provinces, and civil war was the result. Support for a strong, centralized Argentine government was based in Buenos Aires, and gave rise to two opposing groups. The wealthy and educated of the Unitarian Party, such as Sarmiento, favored centralized government. In opposition to them were the Federalists, who were mainly based in rural areas and tended to reject European mores. Numbering figures such as Manuel Dorrego and Juan Facundo Quiroga among their ranks, they were in favor of a loose federation with more autonomy for the individual provinces.

Opinion of the Rivadavia government was divided between the two ideologies. For Unitarians like Sarmiento, Rivadavia's presidency was a positive experience. He set up a European-staffed university and supported a public education program for rural male children. He also supported theater and opera groups, publishing houses and a museum. These contributions were considered as civilizing influences by the Unitarians, but they upset the Federalist constituency. Common laborers had their salaries subjected to a government cap, and the gauchos were arrested by Rivadavia for vagrancy and forced to work on public projects, usually without pay.

In 1827, the Unitarians were challenged by Federalist forces. After the resignation of Rivadavia, Manuel Dorrego was installed as governor of Buenos Aires province. He quickly made peace with Brazil but, on returning to Argentina, was overthrown and executed by the Unitarian general Juan Lavalle, who took Dorrego's place. However, Lavalle did not spend long as governor either: he was soon overthrown by militias composed largely of gauchos led by Rosas and Estanislao López. By the end of 1829 the old legislature that Lavalle had disbanded was back in place and had appointed Rosas as governor of Buenos Aires.

The first time Sarmiento was forced to leave home was with his uncle, José de Oro, in 1827, because of his military activities. José de Oro was a priest who had fought in the Battle of Chacabuco under General San Martín. Together, Sarmiento and de Oro went to San Francisco del Monte de Oro, in the neighbour province of San Luis. He spent much of his time with his uncle learning and began to teach at the only school in town. Later that year, his mother wrote to him asking him to come home. Sarmiento refused, only to receive a response from his father that he was coming to collect him. His father had persuaded the governor of San Juan to send Sarmiento to Buenos Aires to study at the College of Moral Sciences (Colegio de Ciencias Morales).

Soon after Sarmiento's return, the province of San Juan broke out into civil war and Facundo Quiroga invaded Sarmiento's town. As historian William Katra describes this "traumatic experience": "At sixteen years of age, he stood in front of the shop he tended and viewed the entrance into San Juan of Facundo Quiroga and some six hundred mounted montonera horsemen. They constituted an unsettling presence [. . . ]. That sight, with its overwhelmingly negative associations, left an indelible impression on his budding consciousness. For the impressionable youth Quiroga's ascent to protagonist status in the province's affairs was akin to the rape of civilized society by incarnated evil." Unable to attend school in Buenos Aires due to the political turmoil, Sarmiento chose to fight against Quiroga. He joined and fought in the unitarian army, only to be placed under house arrest when San Juan was eventually taken over by Quiroga after the battle of Pilar. He was later released, only to join the forces of General Paz, a key unitarian figure.

First exile in Chile
Fighting and war soon resumed, but, one by one, Quiroga vanquished the main allies of General Paz, including the Governor of San Juan, and in 1831 Sarmiento fled to Chile. He did not return to Argentina for five years. At the time, Chile was noted for its good public administration, its constitutional organization, and the rare freedom to criticize the regime. In Sarmiento's view, Chile had "Security of property, the continuation of order, and with both of these, the love of work and the spirit of enterprise that causes the development of wealth and prosperity."

As a form of freedom of expression, Sarmiento began to write political commentary. In addition to writing, he also began teaching in Los Andes. Due to his innovative style of teaching, he found himself in conflict with the governor of the province. He founded his own school in Pocuro as a response to the governor. During this time, Sarmiento fell in love and had an illegitimate daughter named Ana Faustina, who Sarmiento did not acknowledge until she married.

San Juan and second and third exiles in Chile

In 1836, Sarmiento returned to San Juan, seriously ill with typhoid fever; his family and friends thought he would die upon his return, but he recovered and established an anti-federalist journal called El Zonda. The government of San Juan did not like Sarmiento's criticisms and censored the magazine by imposing an unaffordable tax upon each purchase. Sarmiento was forced to cease publication of the magazine in 1840. He also founded a school for girls during this time called the Santa Rosa High School, which was a preparatory school. In addition to the school, he founded a Literary Society.

It is around this time that Sarmiento became associated with the so-called "Generation of 1837". This was a group of activists, who included Esteban Echeverría, Juan Bautista Alberdi, and Bartolomé Mitre, who spent much of the 1830s to 1880s first agitating for and then bringing about social change, advocating republicanism, free trade, freedom of speech, and material progress. Though, based in San Juan, Sarmiento was absent from the initial creation of this group, in 1838 he wrote to Alberdi seeking the latter's advice; and in time he would become the group's most fervent supporter.

In 1840, after being arrested and accused of conspiracy, Sarmiento was forced into exile in Chile again. It was en route to Chile that, in the baths of Zonda, he wrote the graffiti "On ne tue point les idées," an incident that would later serve as the preface to his book Facundo. Once on the other side of the Andes, in 1841 Samiento started writing for the Valparaíso newspaper El Mercurio, as well working as a publisher of the Crónica Contemporánea de Latino América ("Contemporary Latin American Chronicle"). In 1842, Sarmiento was appointed the Director of the first Normal School in South America; the same year he also founded the newspaper El Progreso. During this time he sent for his family from San Juan to Chile. In 1843, Sarmiento published Mi Defensa ("My Defence"), while continuing to teach. And in May 1845, El Progreso started the serial publication of the first edition of his best-known work, Facundo; in July, Facundo appeared in book form.

Between the years 1845 and 1847, Sarmiento travelled on behalf of the Chilean government across parts of South America to Uruguay, Brazil, to Europe, France, Spain, Algeria, Italy, Armenia, Switzerland, England, to Cuba, and to North America, the United States and Canada in order to examine different education systems and the levels of education and communication. Based on his travels, he wrote the book Viajes por Europa, África, y América which was published in 1849.

In 1848, Sarmiento voluntarily left to Chile once again. During the same year, he met widow Benita Martínez Pastoriza, married her, and adopted her son, Domingo Fidel, or Dominguito, who would be killed in action during the War of the Triple Alliance at Curupaytí in 1866. Sarmiento continued to exercise the idea of freedom of the press and began two new periodicals entitled La Tribuna and La Crónica respectively, which strongly attacked Juan Manuel de Rosas. During this stay in Chile, Sarmiento's essays became more strongly opposed to Juan Manuel de Rosas. The Argentine government tried to have Sarmiento extradited from Chile to Argentina, but the Chilean government refused to hand him over.

In 1850, he published both Argirópolis and Recuerdos de Provincia (Recollections of a Provincial Past). In 1852, Rosas's regime was finally brought down. Sarmiento became involved in debates about the country's new constitution.

Return to Argentina
In 1854, Sarmiento briefly visited Mendoza, just across the border from Chile in Western Argentina, but he was arrested and imprisoned. Upon his release, he went back to Chile. But in 1855 he put an end to what was now his "self-imposed" exile in Chile: he arrived in Buenos Aires, soon to become editor-in-chief of the newspaper El Nacional. He was also appointed town councillor in 1856, and 1857 he joined the provincial Senate, a position he held until 1861.

It was in 1861, shortly after Mitre became Argentine president, that Sarmiento left Buenos Aires and returned to San Juan, where he was elected governor, a post he took up in 1862. It was then that he passed the Statutory Law of Public Education, making it mandatory for children to attend primary school. It allowed for a number of institutions to be opened including secondary schools, military schools and an all-girls school. While governor, he developed roads and infrastructure, built public buildings and hospitals, encouraged agriculture and allowed for mineral mining. He resumed his post as editor of El Zonda. In 1863, Sarmiento fought against the power of the caudillo of La Rioja and found himself in conflict with the Interior Minister of General Mitre's government, Guillermo Rawson. Sarmiento stepped down as governor of San Juan to become the Plenipotentiary Minister to the United States, where he was sent in 1865, soon after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. Moved by the story of Lincoln, Sarmiento ended up writing his book Vida de Lincoln. It was on this trip that Sarmiento received an honorary degree from the University of Michigan. A bust of him stood in the Modern Languages Building at the University of Michigan until multiple student protests prompted its removal. Students installed plaques and painted the bust red to represent the controversies surrounding his policies towards the indigenous people in Argentina. There still stands a statue of Sarmiento at Brown University. While on this trip, he was asked to run for President again. He won, taking office on 12 October 1868.

President of Argentina, 1868–1874
Domingo Faustino Sarmiento served as President of the Republic of Argentina from 1868 to 1874, becoming president despite the maneuverings of his predecessor Bartolomé Mitre. According to biographer Allison Bunkley, his presidency "marks the advent of the middle, or land-owning classes as the pivot power of the nation. The age of the gaucho had ended, and the age of the merchant and cattleman had begun." Sarmiento sought to create basic freedoms, and wanted to ensure civil safety and progress for everyone, not just the few. Sarmiento's tour of the United States had given him many new ideas about politics, democracy, and the structure of society, especially when he was the Argentine ambassador to the country from 1865 to 1868. He found New England, specifically the Boston-Cambridge area to be the source of much of his influence, writing in an Argentine newspaper that New England was "the cradle of the modern republic, the school for all of America." He described Boston as "The pioneer city of the modern world, the Zion of the ancient Puritans ... Europe contemplates in New England the power which in the future will supplant her." Not only did Sarmiento evolve political ideas, but also structural ones by transitioning Argentina from a primarily agricultural economy to one focused on cities and industry.

Historian David Rock notes that, beyond putting an end to caudillismo, Sarmiento's main achievements in government concerned his promotion of education. As Rock reports, "between 1868 and 1874 educational subsidies from the central government to the provinces quadrupled." He established 800 educational and military institutions, and his improvements to the educational system enabled 100,000 children to attend school.

He also pushed forward modernization more generally, building infrastructure including 5000 km of telegraph line across the country for improved communications, making it easier for the government in Buenos Aires and the provinces to communicate; modernizing the postal and train systems which he believed to be integral for interregional and national economies, as well as building the Red Line, a train line that would bring goods to Buenos Aires in order to better facilitate trade with Great Britain. By the end of his presidency, the Red Line extended 1331 km. In 1869, he conducted Argentina's first national census.

Though Sarmiento is well known historically, he was not a popular president. Indeed, Rock judges that "by and large his administration was a disappointment". During his presidency, Argentina conducted an unpopular war against Paraguay; at the same time, people were displeased with him for not fighting for the Straits of Magellan from Chile. Although he increased productivity, he increased expenditures, which also negatively affected his popularity. In addition, the arrival of a large influx of European immigrants was blamed for the outbreak of Yellow Fever in Buenos Aires and the risk of civil war. Moreover, Sarmiento's presidency was further marked by ongoing rivalry between Buenos Aires and the provinces. In the war against Paraguay, Sarmiento's adopted son was killed. Sarmiento suffered from immense grief and was thought to never have been the same again.

On 22 August 1873, Sarmiento was the target of an unsuccessful assassination attempt, when two Italian anarchist brothers shot at his coach. They had been hired by federal caudillo Ricardo López Jordán. A year later in 1874, he completed his term as President and stepped down, handing his presidency over to Nicolás Avellaneda, his former Minister of Education.

Final years
In 1875, following his term as President, Sarmiento became the General Director of Schools for the Province of Buenos Aires. That same year, he became the Senator for San Juan, a post that he held until 1879, when he became Interior Minister. But he soon resigned, following conflict with the Governor of Buenos Aires, Carlos Tejedor. He then assumed the post of Superintendent General of Schools for the National Education Ministry under President Roca and published El Monitor de la Educación Común, which is a fundamental reference for Argentine education. In 1882, Sarmiento was successful in passing the sanction of Free Education allowing schools to be free, mandatory, and separate from that of religion.

In May 1888, Sarmiento left Argentina for Paraguay. He was accompanied by his daughter, Ana, and his companion Aurelia Vélez. He died in Asunción on 11 September 1888, from a heart attack, and was buried in Buenos Aires, after a ten-day trip. His tomb at La Recoleta Cemetery lies under a sculpture, a condor upon a pylon, designed by himself and executed by Victor de Pol. Pedro II, the Emperor of Brazil and a great admirer of Sarmiento, sent to his funeral procession a green and gold crown of flowers with a message written in Spanish remembering the highlights of his life: "Civilization and Barbarism, Tonelero, Monte Caseros, Petrópolis, Public Education. Remembrance and Homage from Pedro de Alcântara."

Philosophy
Sarmiento was well known for his modernization of the country, and for his improvements to the educational system. He firmly believed in democracy and European liberalism, but was most often seen as a romantic. Sarmiento was well versed in Western philosophy including the works of Karl Marx and John Stuart Mill. He was particularly fascinated with the liberty given to those living in the United States, which he witnessed as a representative of the Peruvian government. He did, however, see pitfalls to liberty, pointing for example to the aftermath of the French Revolution, which he compared to Argentina's own May Revolution. He believed that liberty could turn into anarchy and thus civil war, which is what happened in France and in Argentina. Therefore, his use of the term "liberty" was more in reference to a laissez-faire approach to the economy, and religious liberty. Though a Catholic himself, he began to adopt the ideas of separation of church and state modeled after the US. He believed that there should be more religious freedom, and less religious affiliation in schools. This was one of many ways in which Sarmiento tried to connect South America to North America.

Sarmiento believed that the material and social needs of people had to be satisfied but not at the cost of order and decorum. He put great importance on law and citizen participation. These ideas he most equated to Rome and to the United States, a society which he viewed as exhibiting similar qualities. In order to civilize the Argentine society and make it equal to that of Rome or the United States, Sarmiento believed in eliminating the caudillos, or the larger landholdings and establishing multiple agricultural colonies run by European immigrants.

Coming from a family of writers, orators, and clerics, Domingo Sarmiento placed a great value on education and learning. He opened a number of schools including the first school in Latin America for teachers in Santiago in 1842: La Escuela Normal Preceptores de Chile. He proceeded to open 18 more schools and had mostly female teachers from the United States come to Argentina to instruct graduates how to be effective when teaching. Sarmiento's belief was that education was the key to happiness and success, and that a nation could not be democratic if it was not educated. "We must educate our rulers," he said. "An ignorant people will always choose Rosas.". His views on the South American Indians have been more controversial, with some scholars arguing Sarmiento's views reflected the racism of his day. For example, in the periodical El Nacional, dated November 25, 1857, Sarmiento wrote: “Will we be able to exterminate the Indians? For the savages of America, I feel an invincible repugnance that I cannot cure. Those scoundrels are not anything more than disgusting Indians that I would hang if they reappeared. Lautaro and Caupolicán are dirty Indians, because that's how they are all. Incapable of progress, their extermination is providential and useful, sublime and great. They must be exterminated without even sparing the little one, who already has the instinctive hatred for the civilized man.”

Major works

 * Facundo – Civilización y Barbarie – Vida de Juan Facundo Quiroga, 1845. Written during his long exile in Chile. Originally published in 1845 in Chile in installments in El Progreso newspaper, Facundo is Sarmiento's most famous work. It was first published in book form in 1851, and the first English translation, by Mary Mann, appeared in 1868. A recent modern edition in English was translated by Kathleen Ross. Facundo promotes further civilization and European influence on Argentine culture through the use of anecdotes and references to Juan Facundo Quiroga, Argentine caudillo general. As well as being a call to progress, Sarmiento discusses the nature of Argentine peoples as well as including his thoughts and objections to Juan Manuel de Rosas, governor of Buenos Aires from 1829 to 1832 and again from 1835, due to the turmoil generated by Facundo's death, to 1852. As literary critic Sylvia Molloy observes, Sarmiento claimed that this book helped explain Argentine struggles to European readers, and was cited in European publications. Written with extensive assistance from others, Sarmiento adds to his own memory the quotes, accounts, and dossiers from other historians and companions of Facundo Quiroga. Facundo maintains its relevance in modern-day as well, bringing attention to the contrast of lifestyles in Latin America, the conflict and struggle for progress while maintaining tradition, as well as the moral and ethical treatment of the public by government officials and regimes.
 * Recuerdos de Provincia (Recollections of a Provincial Past), 1850. In this second autobiography, Sarmiento displays a stronger effort to include familial links and ties to his past, in contrast to Mi defensa, choosing to relate himself to San Juan and his Argentine heritage. Sarmiento discusses growing up in rural Argentina with basic ideologies and simple livings. Recuerdos discusses his Similar to Facundo, Sarmiento uses previous dossiers filed against himself by enemies to assist in writing Recuerdos and therefore fabricating an autobiography based on these files and from his own memory. Sarmiento's persuasion in this book is substantial. The accounts, whether all true or false against him, are a source of information to write Recuerdos as he is then able to object and rectify into what he creates as a 'true account' of autobiography.

Other works
Sarmiento was a prolific author. The following is a selection of his other works:

 * Mi defensa, 1843. This was Sarmiento's first autobiography in a pamphlet form, which omits any substantial information or recognition of his illegitimate daughter Ana. This would have discredited Sarmiento as a respected father of Argentina, as Sarmiento portrays himself as a sole individual, disregarding or denouncing important ties to other people and groups in his life.
 * Viajes por Europa, África, y América 1849. A description and observations while travelling as a representative of the Chilean government to learn more about educational systems around the world.
 * Argirópolis 1850. A description of a future utopian city in the River Plate States.
 * Comentarios sobre la constitución 1852. This is Sarmiento's official account of his ideologies promoting civilization and the "Europeanization" and "Americanization" of Argentina. This account includes dossiers, articles, speeches and information regarding the pending constitution.
 * Informes sobre educación, 1856. This report was the first official statistic report on education in Latin America includes information on gender and location distribution of pupils, salaries and wages, and comparative achievement. Informes sobre educación proposes new theories, plans, and methods of education as well as quality controls on schools and learning systems.
 * Las Escuelas, base de la prosperidad y de la republica en los Estados Unidos 1864. This work, along with the previous two, were intended to persuade Latin America and Argentines of the benefits of the educational, economic and political systems of the United States, which Sarmiento supported.
 * Conflicto y armonías de las razas en América 1883, deals with race issues in Latin America in the late 1800s. While situations in the book remain particular to the time period and location, race issues and conflicts of races are still prevalent and enable the book to be relevant in the present day.
 * Vida de Dominguito, 1886. A memoir of Dominguito, Sarmiento's adopted son who was the only child Sarmiento had always accepted. Many of the notes used to compile Vida de Dominguito had been written 20 years prior during one of Sarmiento's stays in Washington.
 * Educar al soberano, a compilation of letters written from 1870 to 1886 on the topic of improved education, promoting and suggesting new reforms such as secondary schools, parks, sporting fields and specialty schools. This compilation was met with far greater success than Ortografía, Instrucción Publica and received greater public support.
 * El camino de Lacio, which impacted Argentina by influencing many Italians to immigrate by relating Argentinas history to that of Latium of the Roman empire.
 * Inmigración y colonización, a publication which led to mass immigration of Europeans to mostly urban Argentina, which Sarmiento believed would assist in 'civilizing' the country over the more barbaric gauchos and rural provinces. This had a large impact on Argentine politics, especially as much of the civil tension in the country was divided between the rural provinces and the cities. In addition to increased urban population, these European immigrants had a cultural effect upon Argentina, providing what Sarmiento believed to be more civilized culture similar to North America's.
 * On the Condition of Foreigners, which helped to assist political changes for immigrants in 1860.
 * Ortografía, Instrucción Publica, an example of Sarmiento's passion for improved education. Sarmiento focused on illiteracy of the youth, and suggested simplifying reading and spelling for the public education system, a method which was never implemented.
 * Práctica Constitucional, a three volume work, describing current political methods as well as propositions for new methodologies.
 * Presidential Papers, a history of his presidency, formed of many personal and external documents.
 * Travels in the United States in 1847, (Edited and translated into English by Michael Aaron Rockland.)

Legacy
The impact of Domingo Faustino Sarmiento is most obviously seen in the establishment of September 11 as Panamerican Teacher's Day which was done in his honor at the 1943 Interamerican Conference on Education, held in Panama. Today, he is still considered to be Latin America's teacher. In his time, he opened countless schools, created free public libraries, opened immigration, and worked towards a Union of Plate States.

His impact was not only on the world of education, but also on Argentine political and social structure. His ideas are now revered as innovative, though at the time they were not widely accepted. He was a self-made man and believed in sociological and economic growth for Latin America, something that the Argentine people could not recognize at the time with the soaring standard of living which came with high prices, high wages, and an increased national debt.

There is a building named in his honor at the Argentine embassy in Washington D.C.

Today, there is a statue in honor of Sarmiento in Boston on the Commonwealth Avenue Mall, between Gloucester and Hereford streets, erected in 1973. There is a square, Plaza Sarmiento in Rosario, Argentina. One of Rodin's last sculptures was that of Sarmiento which is now in Buenos Aires.

title: Domingo Faustino Sarmiento


text:
Treaty of Oliva

The Treaty or Peace of Oliva of 23 April (OS)/3 May (NS) 1660 (Pokój Oliwski, Freden i Oliva, Vertrag von Oliva) was one of the peace treaties ending the Second Northern War (1655–1660). The Treaty of Oliva, the Treaty of Copenhagen in the same year, and the Treaty of Cardis in the following year marked the high point of the Swedish Empire.

At Oliwa (Oliva), Poland, peace was made between Sweden, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Habsburgs and Brandenburg-Prussia. Sweden was accepted as sovereign in Swedish Livonia, Brandenburg was accepted as sovereign in Ducal Prussia and John II Casimir Vasa withdrew his claims to the Swedish throne but was to retain the title of a hereditary Swedish king for life. All occupied territories were restored to their prewar sovereigns. Catholics in Livonia and Prussia were granted religious freedom.

The signatories were the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I, Elector Frederick William I of Brandenburg and King John II Casimir Vasa of Poland. Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie, the head of the Swedish delegation and the minor regency, signed on behalf of his nephew, King Charles XI of Sweden, who was still a minor.

Negotiations
During the Second Northern War, Poland–Lithuania and Sweden had been engaged in a ravaging war since 1655 and both wanted peace, in order to attend to their remaining enemies, Tsardom of Muscovy and Denmark respectively. In addition, the politically ambitious Polish queen Marie Louise Gonzaga, who had great influence over both the King of Poland and Sejm of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, wanted a peace with Sweden because she wanted a son of her close relative, the French Louis, Grand Condé, to be elected as successor to the Polish throne. This could only be achieved with the consent of the Kingdom of France and its ally Sweden.

On the other hand, the Danish and Dutch envoys, as well as those of the Holy Roman Empire and Brandenburg, did what they could to derail the proceedings. Their goal was assisted by the drawn-out formalities which always took place at negotiations of this age. Several months elapsed before the actual peace negotiations could begin, on 7 January 1660 (OS). Even then, so many hostile words were written in the documents being exchanged by the two parties that the head negotiator, French ambassador, found himself having to expurgate long sections which otherwise would have caused offense.A Polish-Lithuanian contingent headed by the archbishop of Gniezno wanted the war to continue in order to expel the exhausted Swedish forces in Livonia. The Danish delegates demanded Poland–Lithuania conclude a treaty together with Denmark; however, the Commonwealth did not want to tie themselves to the outcome of the poor Danish fortunes of war against Sweden. The Habsburgs, which wished to drive Sweden out of Germany through continued warfare, promised Poland–Lithuania reinforcements, but Habsburg intentions were treated with suspicion and the Senate of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth demurred. Even Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg offered assistance to Poland–Lithuania to continue the war, with the hope of conquering Swedish Pomerania.

France, in practice governed by Cardinal Mazarin, wanted a continued Swedish presence in Germany to counterbalance Austria and Spain, which were France's traditional enemies. France also feared that a continued war would increase Austria's influence in Germany and Poland–Lithuania. The Austrian and Brandenburgian intrusion into Swedish Pomerania was considered a breach of the Peace of Westphalia, which France was under the obligation to prosecute. France therefore threatened to contribute an army of 30,000 soldiers to the Swedish cause unless a treaty between Sweden and Brandenburg was concluded before February 1660.

Negotiations had begun in Toruń (Thorn) in autumn of 1659. The Polish delegation later moved to Gdańsk, and the Swedish delegation made the Baltic town of Sopot (Zoppot) its base.

When news of the death of King Charles X Gustav of Sweden arrived, Poland–Lithuania, Austria, and Brandenburg began to increase their demands. A new French threat of assistance to Sweden, however, finally made Poland–Lithuania give in. The treaty was signed in the monastery of Oliwa on 23 April 1660.

Terms
The treaty had John II Casimir renounce his claims to the Swedish crown, which his father Sigismund III Vasa had lost in 1599. Poland–Lithuania also formally ceded to Sweden Livonia and the city of Riga, which had been under Swedish control since the 1620s. The treaty settled conflicts between Sweden and Poland–Lithuania left standing since the War against Sigismund (1598–1599), the Polish–Swedish War (1600–1629) and the Northern Wars (1655–1660).

Brandenburg's House of Hohenzollern was also confirmed as independent and sovereign in the Duchy of Prussia. It had previously held the territory as a fief of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. If the Hohenzollern dynasty became extinct in the male line in Prussia, the territory was to revert to the Commonwealth.

The treaty was achieved by Brandenburg's diplomat, Christoph Caspar von Blumenthal, on the first diplomatic mission of his career.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Treaty of Oliva


text:
1604 in science

The year 1604 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Astronomy

 * 9 October – The supernova which becomes known as Kepler's Supernova (SN 1604) is first observed from northern Italy. From 17 October, Johannes Kepler begins a year's observation of it from Prague., this is the last supernova to be observed in the Milky Way, and the last visible by the naked eye until 1987.

Exploration

 * France begins settlement in French Guiana.
 * Russian city of Tomsk founded in Siberia.

Medicine

 * Johannes Kepler describes how the eye focuses light.
 * Hieronymus Fabricius's De formato foetu (On fetus development), an embryology textbook.
 * Joseph du Chesne's Ad veritatem hermeticae medicinae ex Hippocratis veterumque decretis ac therapeusi.

Physics

 * Johannes Kepler specifies the law of rectilinear propagation for light waves.
 * Luca Valerio publishes his treatise on determining the center of gravity of solids, De centro gravitatis solidorum libri tres, in Rome.

Technology

 * 1 October – The Wollaton Wagonway, from Strelley, Nottingham, to Wollaton in England, is known to have been completed by this date, being the world's first recorded overland wagonway. It runs for approximately two miles (5 km) and is built by Huntingdon Beaumont for coal haulage.

Births

 * 10 March – Johann Rudolf Glauber, German-born chemical engineer (died 1670)

Deaths

 * 5 June – Thomas Muffet, English naturalist and physician (born 1553)
 * before August – William Clowes, English surgeon (born c. 1543)
 * approximate date – Juan Fernández, Spanish explorer (born c. 1536)

title: 1604 in science


text:
Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine

Charles de Lorraine (17 February 1524 – 26 December 1574), Duke of Chevreuse, was a French Cardinal, a member of the powerful House of Guise. He was known at first as the Cardinal of Guise, and then as the second Cardinal of Lorraine, after the death of his uncle, Jean, Cardinal of Lorraine (1550). He was the protector of François Rabelais and Pierre de Ronsard and founded Reims University. He is sometimes known as the Cardinal de Lorraine.

Biography
Born in 1524, Joinville, Haute-Marne, Charles of Guise was the son of Claude, Duke of Guise and his wife Antoinette de Bourbon. His older brother was François, Duke of Guise. His sister Mary of Guise was wife of James V of Scotland and mother of Mary, Queen of Scots. He was made Archbishop of Reims in 1538, (the day after the coronation of king Henry II of France, at which he had officiated).

Cardinal
In a political move to draw France closer to the papacy, Pope Paul III consecrated Charles as cardinal in July 1547. He became coadjutor for Bishop of Metz, his uncle Cardinal Jean de Lorraine, on 16 November 1547. Charles' uncle died on 10 May 1550 and he resigned and was succeeded as Administrator by Cardinal Robert de Lenoncourt.

The efforts of Charles to enforce his family's pretensions to the Countship of Provence, and his temporary assumption, with this object, of the title of Cardinal of Anjou were without success. He failed also when he attempted, in 1551, to dissuade Henry II from uniting the Duchy of Lorraine to France. Charles succeeded, however, in creating for his family interests certain political alliances that occasionally seemed in conflict with each other. He coquetted for instance on the one hand with the Lutheran princes of Germany, and on the other his interview (1558) with the Cardinal de Granvelle (at Péronne) initiated friendly relations between the Guises and the royal house of Spain.

In March 1558 de Pierceville wrote to Charles about building works and furnishing of the royal palaces, including the Louvre with tapestry and hangings of cloth of gold and cloth of silver. He wondered how the heraldry of the Cardinal's niece Mary, Queen of Scots and the Dauphin should be blazoned, and whether she had an open or imperial crown. The couple were married on 24 April 1558. In 1562, he attended the Council of Trent. Louis de Saint-Gélais, Sieur de Lansac, Arnaud du Ferrier, president of the Parlement of Paris, and Guy de Faur de Pibrac, royal counsellor, who represented Charles IX at the council from 26 May 1562, towards the end of the year were joined by the Cardinal Lorraine. He was instructed to arrive at an understanding with the Germans, who proposed to reform the church in head and members and to authorize at once Communion under Both Kinds, prayers in the vernacular and the marriage of the clergy.

In the reform articles which he presented (2 January 1563), he was silent on the last point, but petitioned for the other two. Pius IV was indignant, and the cardinal denounced Rome as the source of all abuses. In the questions of precedence which arose between him and the Spanish ambassador, Count de Luna, Pius IV decided for the latter. However, in September 1563, on a visit to Rome, the cardinal, intent perhaps on securing the pope's assistance for the political ambitions of the Guises, professed opinions less decidedly Gallican. Moreover, when he learned that the French ambassadors, who had left the council, were dissatisfied because the papal legates had obtained from the council approval of a project for the "reformation of the princes", which the latter deemed contrary to the liberties of the Catholic Church in France (the "Gallican church"), he endeavoured, though without success, to bring about the return of the ambassadors, prevailed on the legates to withdraw the objectionable articles and strove to secure the immediate publication in France of the decrees of the council; this, however, was refused by Catherine de' Medici.

When in 1564, François de Montmorency, royal governor of Paris and his personal enemy, attempted to prevent Charles from entering the capital with an armed escort, the ensuing conflict and the precipitate flight of Charles gave rise to an outcry of derision which obliged him to retire to his diocese for two years. In 1570, he aroused the anger of Charles IX by inducing Duke Henri, the eldest of his nephews, to solicit the hand of Margaret of Valois, the king's sister. His share in the negotiations for the marriage between Charles IX and Elizabeth of Austria, and for that of Margaret of Valois with the prince of Navarre, granted him temporary favour. Shortly after the death of Charles IX, the cardinal appeared before his successor, Henry III, but died soon afterwards, at Avignon.

Legacy
As the Archbishop of Reims, Charles crowned successively Henry II, Francis II and Charles IX. He had a personal policy which was often at variance with that of the court. This policy rendered him at times an enigma to his contemporaries. The chronicler Pierre de L'Estoile accused Charles of great duplicity; Brantôme spoke of his "deeply stained soul, churchman though he was", accused him of skepticism and claimed to have heard him occasionally speak half approvingly of the Confession of Augsburg.

From 1560, at least twenty-two libelous pamphlets were in circulation and fell into Charles' hands; they damaged his reputation with posterity as well as among his contemporaries. One of them, "La Guerre Cardinale" (1565), accuses him of seeking to restore to the Holy Roman Empire the three former prince-bishoprics of Metz, Toul and Verdun, in Lorraine, which had been conquered by Henry II. A discourse attributed to Théodore de Bèze (1566) denounced the pluralism of the cardinal in the matter of benefices. He established Reims University and served as François Rabelais and Pierre de Ronsard's guardian.

title: Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine


text:
Lajos Kossuth

Lajos Kossuth de Udvard et Kossuthfalva (, udvardi és kossuthfalvi Kossuth Lajos, Ľudovít Košút, Louis Kossuth; 19 September 1802 – 20 March 1894) was a Hungarian nobleman, lawyer, journalist, politician, statesman and governor-president of the Kingdom of Hungary during the revolution of 1848–1849.

With the help of his talent in oratory in political debates and public speeches, Kossuth emerged from a poor gentry family into regent-president of the Kingdom of Hungary. As the influential contemporary American journalist Horace Greeley said of Kossuth: "Among the orators, patriots, statesmen, exiles, he has, living or dead, no superior."

Kossuth's powerful English and American speeches so impressed and touched the famous contemporary American orator Daniel Webster, that he wrote a book about Kossuth's life. He was widely honoured during his lifetime, including in Great Britain and the United States, as a freedom fighter and bellwether of democracy in Europe. Kossuth's bronze bust can be found in the United States Capitol with the inscription: Father of Hungarian Democracy, Hungarian Statesman, Freedom Fighter, 1848–1849. Friedrich Engels considered him to be "a truly revolutionary figure, a man who in the name of his people dares to accept the challenge of a desperate struggle, who for his nation is Danton and Carnot in one person [...]".

Family
Kossuth was born into an untitled lower noble (gentry) family in Monok, Kingdom of Hungary, a small town in the county of Zemplén in modern day Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County of Northern Hungary. He was the eldest of five children in a Lutheran noble family of Slovak origin. His father, László Kossuth (1762–1839), belonged to the lower nobility, had a small estate and was a lawyer by profession. László Kossuth had two brothers (Simon Kossuth and György Kossuth) and one sister (Jana). The House of Kossuth originated from the county of Turóc (now partially Turiec region, Košúty, north-central Slovakia). They acquired the rank of nobility in 1263 from King Béla IV. Kossuths married into Zathureczky, Nedeczky, Borcsány, Prónay families amongst others Lajos Kossuth's father's mother was a Beniczky and her Beniczky ancestors had married into following families: Farkas, Zmeskal(1/8 polish ancestry), Révay, Pajor (1/4 German Baierle Magyarized to Pajor) and finally, Prónay. Lajos Kossuth's mother, Karolina Weber (1770–1853), was born to a Lutheran family of 3/4-German and Magyarized-German (Kaltensteìn-Hidegkövy) and 1/4-unknown descent, living in Upper Hungary (today partially Slovakia).

Family-tree

 * Ancestry (Származása)

Early years
The family moved from Monok to Olaszliszka in 1803, and then to Sátoraljaújhely in 1808. Lajos had four younger sisters.

Karolina Kossuth raised her children as strict Lutherans. As a result of his mixed ancestry, and as was quite common during his era, her children spoke three languages – Hungarian, German and Slovak – even in their early childhood. He studied at the Piarist college of Sátoraljaújhely and the Calvinist college of Sárospatak (for one year) and the University of Pest (now Budapest). At nineteen he entered his father's legal practice. Between 1824 and 1832 he practiced law in his native Zemplén County. His career quickly took off, thanks also to his father, who was a lawyer for several higher aristocratic families, and thus involved his son in the administration, and his son soon took over some of his father's work. He first became a lawyer in the Lutheran parish of Sátoraljaújhely, in 1827 he became a judge, and later he became a prosecutor in Sátoraljaújhely. During this time, in addition to his office work, he made historical chronologies and translations. In the national census of 1828, in which taxpayers were counted in order to eliminate tax disparities, Kossuth assisted in the organization of the census of Zemplén county. He was popular locally, and having been appointed steward to the countess Szapáry, a widow with large estates, he became her voting representative in the county assembly and settled in Pest. He was subsequently dismissed on the grounds of some misunderstanding in regards to estate funds.

Entry into national politics
Shortly after his dismissal by Countess Szapáry, Kossuth was appointed as deputy to Count Hunyady at the Diet of Hungary. The Diet met during 1825–27 and 1832–36 in Pressburg (Pozsony, present Bratislava), then capital of Hungary.

Only the upper aristocracy could vote in the House of Magnates (similar to the British House of Lords) and Kossuth took little part in the debates as a deputy of Count Hunyady. At the time, a struggle to reassert a Hungarian national identity was beginning to emerge under leaders such as Miklós Wesselényi and the Széchenyis. In part, it was also a struggle for fundamental economic and political and societal reforms against the stagnant and conservative Austrian government. Kossuth's duties to Count Hunyady included reporting on Diet proceedings in writing, as the Austrian government, fearing popular dissent, had banned published reports.

The high quality of Kossuth's letters led to their being circulated in manuscript among other liberal magnates. Readership demands led him to edit an organized parliamentary gazette (Országgyűlési tudósítások); spreading his name and influence further. Orders from the Official Censor halted circulation by lithograph printing. Distribution in manuscript by post was forbidden by the government, although circulation by hand continued.

In 1836, the Diet was dissolved. Kossuth continued to report (in letter form), covering the debates of the county assemblies. The newfound publicity gave the assemblies national political prominence. Previously, they had had little idea of each other's proceedings. His embellishment of the speeches from the liberals and reformers enhanced the impact of his newsletters. After the prohibition of his parliamentary gazette, Kossuth loudly demanded the legal declaration of freedom of the press and of speech in Hungary and in the entire Habsburg Empire. The government attempted in vain to suppress the letters, and, other means having failed, he was arrested in May 1837, with Wesselényi and several others, on a charge of high treason.

After spending a year in prison at Buda awaiting trial, he was condemned to four more years' imprisonment. Kossuth and his friend Count Miklós Wesselényi were placed in separated solitary cells. Count Wesselényi's cell did not have even a window, and he went blind in the darkness. Kossuth, however, had a small window and with the help of a politically well-informed young woman, Theresa Meszlényi, he remained informed about political events. Meszlényi lied to the prison commander, telling him she and Kossuth were engaged. In reality, Kossuth did not know Meszlényi before his imprisonment, but this permitted her to visit. Meszlényi also provided books. Strict confinement damaged Kossuth's health, but he spent much time reading. He greatly increased his political knowledge and acquired fluency in English from study of the King James Version of the Bible and William Shakespeare which he henceforth always spoke with a certain archaic eloquence. While Wesselényi was broken mentally, Kossuth, supported by Terézia Meszlényi's frequent visits, emerged from prison in much better condition. His arrest had caused great controversy. The Diet, which reconvened in 1839, demanded the release of the political prisoners and refused to pass any government measures. Austrian chancellor Metternich long remained obdurate, but the danger of war in 1840 obliged him to give way.

Marriage and children
On the day of his release from the prison, Kossuth and Meszlényi were married, and she remained a firm supporter of his politics. She was a Catholic and her Church refused to bless the marriage since Kossuth, a proud Protestant, would not convert. Before their marriage it was unheard that people of different religions married. According to the traditional practice, the bride or more rarely the fiancé had to convert to the religion of his or her spouse before the wedding ceremony. However Kossuth refused to convert to Roman Catholicism, and Meszlényi also refused to convert to Lutheranism. Their mixed religious marriage caused a great scandal at the time. This experience influenced Kossuth's firm defense of mixed marriages. The couple had three children: Ferenc Lajos Ákos (1841–1914), Minister for Trade between 1906 and 1910; Vilma (1843–1862); and Lajos Tódor Károly (1844–1918).

Journalist and political leader
Kossuth had now become a national icon. He regained full health in January 1841. In January 1841 he became editor of the Pesti Hírlap. The job was offered to him by Lajos Landerer, the owner of a big printing house company in Pest (in fact, Landerer was an undercover agent of the Vienna secret police). The government circles and the secret police believed that censorship and financial interests would curtail Kossuth's opposition, and they did not consider the small circulation of the paper to be dangerous anyway. However, Kossuth created modern Hungarian political journalism. His editorials dealt with the pressing problems of the economy, the social injustices and the existing legal inequality of the common people. The articles combined a critique of the present with an outline of the future, combining and supplementing the reform ideas that had emerged up to that point into a coherent programme. The paper achieved unprecedented success, soon reaching the then immense circulation of 7000 copies. A competing pro-government newspaper, Világ, started up, but it only served to increase Kossuth's visibility and add to the general political fervor.

Kossuth's ideas stand on the enlightened Western European type liberal nationalism (based on the "jus soli" principle, that is the complete opposition of the typical Eastern European ethnic nationalism, which based on "jus sanguinis").

Kossuth followed the ideas of the French nation state ideology, which was a ruling liberal idea of his era. Accordingly, he considered and regarded automatically everybody as "Hungarian" – regardless of their mother tongue and ethnic ancestry – who were born and lived in the territory of Hungary. He even quoted King Stephen I of Hungary's admonition: "A nation of one language and the same customs is weak and fragile."

Kossuth pleaded in the newspaper Pesti Hírlap for rapid Magyarization: "Let us hurry, let us hurry to Magyarize the Croats, the Romanians, and the Saxons, for otherwise we shall perish". In 1842 he argued that Hungarian had to be the exclusive language in public life. He also stated that "in one country it is impossible to speak in a hundred different languages. There must be one language and in Hungary this must be Hungarian".

Kossuth's assimilatory ambitions were disapproved by Zsigmond Kemény, though he supported a multinational state led by Hungarians. István Széchenyi criticized Kossuth for "pitting one nationality against another". He publicly warned Kossuth that his appeals to the passions of the people would lead the nation to revolution. Kossuth, undaunted, did not stop at the publicly reasoned reforms demanded by all Liberals: the abolition of entail, the abolition of feudal burdens and taxation of the nobles. He went on to broach the possibility of separating from the House of Habsburg. By combining this nationalism with an insistence on the superiority of the Hungarian culture to the culture of Slavonic inhabitants of Hungary, he sowed the seeds of both the collapse of Hungary in 1849 and his own political demise.

In 1844, Kossuth was dismissed from Pesti Hírlap after a dispute with the proprietor over salary. It is believed that the dispute was rooted in government intrigue. Kossuth was unable to obtain permission to start his own newspaper. In a personal interview, Metternich offered to take him into the government service. Kossuth refused and spent the next three years without a regular position. He continued to agitate on behalf of both political and commercial independence for Hungary. He adopted the economic principles of Friedrich List, and was the founder of the popular "Védegylet" society whose members consumed only Hungarian industrial products. He also argued for the creation of a Hungarian port at Fiume.

Kossuth played a major role in the formation of the Opposition Party in 1847, whose programme was essentially formulated by him.

In autumn 1847, Kossuth was able to take his final key step. The support of Lajos Batthyány during a keenly fought campaign made him be elected to the new Diet as member for Pest. He proclaimed: "Now that I am a deputy, I will cease to be an agitator." He immediately became chief leader of the Opposition Party. Ferenc Deák was absent. As Headlam noted, his political rivals, Batthyány, István Széchenyi, Szemere, and József Eötvös, believed:

"his intense personal ambition and egoism led him always to assume the chief place, and to use his parliamentary position to establish himself as leader of the nation; but before his eloquence and energy all apprehensions were useless. His eloquence was of that nature, in its impassioned appeals to the strongest emotions, that it required for its full effect the highest themes and the most dramatic situations. In a time of rest, though he could never have been obscure, he would never have attained the highest power. It was therefore a necessity of his nature, perhaps unconsciously, always to drive things to a crisis. The crisis came, and he used it to the full."

The "long debate" of reformers in the press
Count Széchenyi judged the reform system of Kossuth in a pamphlet, Kelet Népe from 1841. According to Széchenyi, economic, political and social reforms must be instituted slowly and carefully so that Hungary would avoid the violent interference of the Habsburg dynasty. Széchenyi was listening to the spread of the expansion of Kossuth's ideas in Hungarian society, which did not consider good relations with the Habsburg dynasty. Kossuth believed that society could not be forced into a passive role by any reason through social change. According to Kossuth, the wider social movements can not be continually excluded from political life. Behind Kossuth's conception of society was a notion of freedom that emphasized the unitary origin of rights, which he saw manifested in universal suffrage. In exercising political rights, Széchenyi took into account wealth and education of the citizens, thus he supported only limited suffrage similar to the Western European (British, French and Belgian) limited suffrage of the era. In 1885, Kossuth called Széchenyi a liberal elitist aristocrat while Széchenyi considered himself to be a democrat.

Széchenyi was an isolationist politician while, according to Kossuth, strong relations and collaboration with international liberal and progressive movements are essential for the success of liberty. Regarding foreign policy, Kossuth and his followers refused the isolationist policy of Széchenyi, thus they stood on the ground of the liberal internationalism: They supported countries and political forces that aligned with their moral and political standards. They also believed that governments and political movements sharing the same modern liberal values should form an alliance against the "feudal type" of monarchies.

Széchenyi's economic policy based on Anglo-Saxon free-market principles, while Kossuth supported the protective tariffs due to the weaker Hungarian industrial sector. Kossuth wanted to build a rapidly industrialized country in his vision while Széchenyi wanted to preserve the traditionally strong agricultural sector as the main character of the economy.

Minister of Finance
The crisis came, and he used it to the full. On 3 March 1848, shortly after the news of the revolution in Paris had arrived, in a speech of surpassing power he demanded parliamentary government for Hungary and constitutional government for the rest of Austria.

He appealed to the hope of the Habsburgs, "our beloved Archduke Franz Joseph" (then seventeen years old), to perpetuate the ancient glory of the dynasty by meeting half-way the aspirations of a free people. He at once became the leader of the European revolution; his speech was read aloud in the streets of Vienna to the mob which overthrew Metternich (13 March); when a deputation from the Diet visited Vienna to receive the assent of Emperor Ferdinand to their petition, Kossuth received the chief ovation. While Viennese masses celebrated Kossuth (and from the Diet in Pressburg a delegation went to Buda and sent the news of the Austrian Revolution) as their hero, revolution broke out in Buda on 15 March; Kossuth traveled home immediately. On 17 March 1848 the Emperor assented and Lajos Batthyány created the first Hungarian government, that was not anymore responsible to the King, but to the elected members of the Diet. On 23 March 1848, Pm. Batthyány commended his government to the Diet. In the new government Kossuth was appointed as the Minister of Finance.

He began developing the internal resources of the country: re-establishing a separate Hungarian coinage, and using every means to increase national self-consciousness. Characteristically, the new Hungarian bank notes had Kossuth's name as the most prominent inscription; making reference to "Kossuth Notes" a future byword.

A new paper was started, to which was given the name of Kossuth Hirlapja, so that from the first it was Kossuth rather than the Palatine or prime minister Batthyány whose name was in the minds of the people associated with the new government. Much more was this the case when, in the summer, the dangers from the Croats, Serbs and the reaction at Vienna increased.

In a speech on 11 July he asked that the nation should arm in self-defense, and demanded 200,000 men; amid a scene of wild enthusiasm this was granted by acclamation. However the danger had been exacerbated by Kossuth himself through appealing exclusively to the Magyar notables rather than including the other subject minorities of the Habsburg empire too. The Austrians, meanwhile, successfully used the other minorities as allies against the Magyar uprising.

While Croatian ban Josip Jelačić was marching on Pest, the Hungarian government was in serious military crisis due to the lack of soldiers, Kossuth used his popularity, he went from town to town rousing the people to the defense of the country, and the popular force of the Honvéd was his creation. When Batthyány resigned he was appointed with Szemere to carry on the government provisionally, and at the end of September he was made President of the Committee of National Defense. Prime minister Lajos Batthyány's desperate attempts to mediate with the Viennese royal court to achieve reconciliation and restore peace were no longer successful. Due to his unsuccessful peace missions, Batthyány slowly began to become politically isolated and increasingly lost the support of the parliament.

On 6 September, Kossuth ordered the first Hungarian banknotes to be issued to cover defence expenses.

The government meeting of 11 September, under Kossuth's leadership, adopted revolutionary decisions on finance and the military to defend the invaded homeland. Another attempt by Batthyány to form a cabinet failed, and Kossuth declared that until another government was appointed, he would retain his position as finance minister. Already on 14 September, a rapidly growing number of his supporters called in parliament for Kossuth to be given temporary dictatorial powers because of the critical and desperate war situation.

Regent-President of Hungary
On 7 December 1848, the Diet of Hungary formally refused to acknowledge the title of the new king, Franz Joseph I, "as without the knowledge and consent of the diet no one could sit on the Hungarian throne" and called the nation to arms. From a legal point of view, according to the coronation oath, a crowned Hungarian King could not relinquish from the Hungarian throne during his life, if the king was alive and unable do his duty as ruler, a governor (or regent with proper English terminology) had to deputize the royal duties. Constitutionally, his uncle, Ferdinand remained still the legal King of Hungary. If there was no possibility to inherit the throne automatically due to the death of the predecessor king (as Ferdinand was still alive), but the monarch wanted to relinquish his throne and appoint another king before his death, technically only one legal solution remained: the Diet had the power to depose the king and elect his successor as the new King of Hungary. Due to the legal and military tensions, the Hungarian parliament did not make that decision for Franz Joseph. This event gave to the revolt an excuse of legality. Actually, from this time until the collapse of the revolution, Lajos Kossuth (as elected regent-president) became the de facto and de jure ruler of Hungary.

President of the OHB
In early September 1848, after the Habsburg King of Hungary, Ferdinand V, compelled the Batthyány government to resign, the nation found itself once more bereft of executive authority. Subsequent to 28 September, the National Defence Committee (Országos Honvédelmi Bizottmány, or OHB) assumed the reins of power, initially in a provisional capacity and then, upon a parliamentary decree issued on 8 October, in a permanent manner for wartime. Lajos Kossuth was elected president of the OHB, which operated as the de facto government.

"For the first time in the revolutionary movements of 1848, for the first time since 1793, a nation surrounded by superior counterrevolutionary forces dares to counter the cowardly counterrevolutionary fury by revolutionary passion, the terreur blanche by the terreur rouge. For the first time after a long period we meet with a truly revolutionary figure, a man who in the name of his people dares to accept the challenge of desperate struggle, who for his nation is Danton and Carnot in one person – Lajos Kossuth"

From this time he had increased amounts of power. The direction of the whole government was in his hands. Without military experience, he had to control and direct the movements of armies; he was unable to keep control over the generals or to establish that military co-operation so essential to success. Arthur Görgey in particular, whose great abilities Kossuth was the first to recognize, refused obedience; the two men were very different personalities. Twice Kossuth removed him from command; twice he had to restore him.

Declaration of Independence
"The House of Lorraine-Habsburg is unexampled in the compass of its perjuries [...] Its determination to extinguish the independents of Hungary has been accompanied by a succession of criminal acts, comprising robbery, destruction of property by fire, murder, maiming [...] Humanity will shudder when reading this disgraceful page of history. [...] 'The house of Habsburg has forfeited the throne'."

Minority rights
Despite appealing exclusively to the Hungarian nobility in his speeches, Kossuth played an important part in the shaping of the law of minority rights in 1849. It was the first law which recognized minority rights in Europe. It gave minorities the freedom to use their mother tongue within the local administration and courts, in schools, in community life and even within the national guard of non-Magyar councils.

However, he did not support any kind of regional administration within Hungary based on the nationality principle. Kossuth accepted some national demands of the Romanians and the Croats, but he showed no understanding for the requests of the Slovaks. Despite his father's Slovak origin and the fact that his uncle György Kossuth was the main supporter of Slovak national movement, Kossuth considered himself Hungarian and went so far as to reject the very notion of a Slovak nation in the Kingdom of Hungary.

According to Oszkár Jászi, a huge part of the reason as to why Kossuth opposed giving large-scale autonomy (such as a separate parliament) to various ethnic groups in Hungary (such as the Romanians, Slovaks, Ruthenians, and Germans) is because he was afraid that this would be the first step towards a fragmentation and break-up of Hungary. Kossuth did not believe that a Hungary that was limited to its ethnic or linguistic borders would actually be a viable state.

Russian intervention and failure
During all the terrible winter that followed, Kossuth overcame the reluctance of the army to march to the relief of Vienna; after the defeat at the Battle of Schwechat, at which he was present, he sent Józef Bem to carry on the war in Transylvania.

At the end of the year, when the Austrians were approaching Pest, he asked for the mediation of William Henry Stiles, the American envoy. Alfred I, Prince of Windisch-Grätz, however, refused all terms, and the Diet and government fled to Debrecen, Kossuth taking with him the Crown of St Stephen, the sacred emblem of the Hungarian nation. In November 1848, Emperor Ferdinand abdicated in favour of Franz Joseph. The new Emperor revoked all the concessions granted in March and outlawed Kossuth and the Hungarian government, set up lawfully on the basis of the April laws.

By April 1849, when the Hungarians had won many successes, after sounding the army, he issued the celebrated Hungarian Declaration of Independence, in which he declared that "the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, perjured in the sight of God and man, had forfeited the Hungarian throne." It was a step characteristic of his love for extreme and dramatic action, but it added to the dissensions between him and those who wished only for autonomy under the old dynasty, and his enemies did not scruple to accuse him of aiming for kingship. The dethronement also made any compromise with the Habsburgs practically impossible.

For the time the future form of government was left undecided, and Kossuth was appointed regent-president (to satisfy both royalists and republicans). Kossuth played a key role in tying down the Hungarian army for weeks for the siege and recapture of Buda castle, finally successful on 4 May 1849. The hopes of ultimate success were, however, frustrated by the intervention of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia, who acted as the protector of ruling legitimism and as guardian against revolution; all appeals to the western powers were vain, and on 11 August Kossuth abdicated in favor of Görgey, on the ground that in the last extremity, the general alone could save the nation. Görgey capitulated at Világos (now Şiria, Romania) to the Russians, who handed over the army to the Austrians. Görgey was spared, at the insistence of the Russians. Reprisals were taken on the rest of the Hungarian army, including the execution of the 13 Martyrs of Arad. Kossuth steadfastly maintained until his death that Görgey alone was responsible for the humiliation.

Kossuth's calls for independence and cut off ties with the Habsburgs did not become British policy. Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston told parliament that Britain would consider it a great misfortune to Europe if Hungary became independent. He argued that a united Austrian Empire was a European necessity and a natural ally of Britain.

During this period, Hungarian lawyer George Lichtenstein served as Kossuth's private secretary. After the revolution, Lichtenstein fled to Königsberg and eventually settled in Edinburgh, where he became noted as a musician and influence on musical culture of the city.

Escape and tour of Britain and United States
Kossuth's time in power was at an end. A solitary fugitive, he crossed the Ottoman frontier. He was hospitably received by the Ottoman authorities, who, supported by the British, refused, notwithstanding the threats of the allied emperors, to surrender him and other fugitives to Austria. In January 1850, he was removed from Vidin, where he had been kept under house arrest, to Shumen, and thence to Kütahya in Asia Minor. There, he was joined by his children, who had been confined at Pressburg; his wife (a price had been set on her head) had joined him earlier, having escaped in disguise.

On 10 August 1851 the release of Kossuth was decided by the Sublime Porte, in spite of threats by Austria and Russia. The United States Congress approved having Kossuth come there, and on 1 September 1851, he boarded the ship USS Mississippi at Smyrna, with his family and fifty exiled followers.

The Magyar asked the crew of Mississippi to leave the shipboard at Gibraltar. During his journey on board the American frigate Mississippi on his way to London, an enormous French crowd waited to welcome Kossuth at the port of Marseille. However the French authorities did not allow the dangerous revolutionary to come ashore. At Marseille, Kossuth sought permission to travel through France to England, but Prince-President Louis Napoleon denied the request. Kossuth protested publicly, and officials saw that as a blatant disregard for the neutral position of the United States.

Great Britain

On 23 October, Kossuth landed at Southampton and spent three weeks in England, where he was generally feted. After his arrival, the press characterized the atmosphere of the streets of London as this: "It had seemed like a coronation day of Kings". Contemporary reports noticed: "Trafalgar Square was 'black with people' and Nelson's Monument peopled 'up to the fluted shaft.'"

Addresses were presented to him at Southampton, Birmingham and other towns; he was officially entertained by the Lord Mayor of the City of London; at each place, he spoke eloquently in English for the Hungarian cause; and he indirectly caused Queen Victoria to stretch the limits of her constitutional power over her Ministers to avoid embarrassment and eventually helped cause the fall of the government in power.

Having learned English during an earlier political imprisonment with the aid of a volume of Shakespeare, his spoken English was "wonderfully archaic" and theatrical. The Times, generally cool towards the revolutionaries of 1848 in general and Kossuth in particular, nevertheless reported that his speeches were "clear" and that a three-hour talk was not unusual for him; and also, that if he was occasionally overcome by emotion when describing the defeat of Hungarian aspirations, "it did not at all reduce his effectiveness".

At Southampton, he was greeted by a crowd of thousands outside the Mayor's balcony, who presented him with a flag of the Hungarian Republic. The City of London Corporation accompanied him in procession through the city, and the way to the Guildhall was lined by thousands of cheering people. He went thereafter to Winchester, Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham; at Birmingham the crowd that gathered to see him ride under the triumphal arches erected for his visit was described, even by his severest critics, as 75,000 individuals.

Many leading British politicians tried to suppress the so-called "Kossuth mania" in Britain without any success, the Kossuth mania proved to be unstoppable. When The Times tried to fiercely attack Kossuth, the copies of the newspaper were publicly burned in public houses, coffee houses, and in other public spaces throughout the country.

Back in London, he addressed the Trades Unions at Copenhagen Fields in Islington. Some twelve thousand "respectable artisans" formed a parade at Russell Square and marched out to meet him. At the Fields themselves, the crowd was enormous; but the hostile newspaper The Times estimated it conservatively at 25,000, while the Morning Chronicle described it as 50,000, and the demonstrators themselves 100,000.

The Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston, who had already proved himself a friend of the losing sides in several of the failed revolutions of 1848, was determined to receive him at his country house, Broadlands. The Cabinet had to vote to prevent it; Victoria reputedly was so incensed by the possibility of her Foreign Secretary supporting an outspoken republican that she asked the Prime Minister, Lord John Russell for Palmerston's resignation, but Russell claimed that such a dismissal would be drastically unpopular at that time and over that issue. When Palmerston upped the ante by receiving at his house, instead of Kossuth, a delegation of Trade Unionists from Islington and Finsbury and listened sympathetically as they read an address that praised Kossuth and declared the Emperors of Austria and Russia "despots, tyrants and odious assassins", it was noted as a mark of indifference to royal displeasure. That, together with Palmerston's support of Louis Napoleon, eventually caused the Russell government to fall.

Due to Kossuth activity, the anti-Austrian sentiment became strong in Britain, when Austrian general Julius Jacob von Haynau was recognized on the street, he was attacked by British draymen on his journey in England. In 1856, Kossuth toured Scotland extensively, giving lectures in major cities and small towns alike.

In addition, the indignation that he aroused against Russian policy had much to do with the strong anti-Russian feeling, which made the Crimean War possible. During the Crimean War, the activism of Kossuth also intensified in London, but since Austria did not side with Russia, there was no chance of Hungarian independence being achieved with Anglo-French military help. In the following years, Kossuth hoped that the conflicts between the great powers would allow the liberation of Hungary after all, and so he contacted the French Emperor Napoleon III. When Napoleon III and the Prime Minister of Sardinia, Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, promised to help liberate Hungary in the run-up to the Franco-Sardinian-Austrian war of 1859, Lajos Kossuth founded the Hungarian National Directorate with László Teleki and György Klapka and began to organise the Hungarian Legion. Following Napoleon III's unexpected peace with Austria after his brilliant victory at Solferino, Kossuth sought to link the liberation of Hungary more and more clearly to the movement of the peoples fighting for their independence. However, Giuseppe Garibaldi's invasion of Sicily in 1860 raised new hopes. Many Hungarians fought among his Redshirts, and his successes could have led to another Italo-Austrian war. In the event, the Hungarian Legion was re-established, and Kossuth negotiated cooperation with the Italians. But the war was not fought. Although Hungary remained under Austrian rule, the decline of Habsburg power increasingly forced compromise on the Austrian government. Hungarian passive resistance and the foreign activities of the Kossuth group reinforced each other. Kossuth and the émigré movement's armed preparations and negotiations with the great powers, on the other hand, were backed by the political backdrop of a silent and passively resistant country.

United States

From Britain Kossuth went to the United States of America. On 6 December 1851, this revolutionary hero arrived in New York City to a reception that only Washington and Lafayette had received before. On the posters and in the news, he appeared as an ambassador of the European nations yearning for freedom and democracy, an implacable opponent of the tyranny embodied by the Habsburgs and the Russian Romanovs.

The report of The Sun about the arrival of Kossuth in New York:

"Thus immediately previous to the Christmas of 1851 New York city underwent a period of Kossuth mania, and it affected the holiday presents. Every New Year's gift associated itself in some designation with Kossuth and Hungary. Restaurants abounded with Hungarian goulash, a savory dish of boiled beef and vegetables strongly infused with red peppers; and there were Kossuth cravats (formidable bands of satin or silk wound around the neck, with ends liberally folded over the shirt front), Kossuth pipes, Kossuth umbrellas, Kossuth belts and buckles, Kossuth purses, Kossuth jackets, and Kossuth braid and tassels for wearing apparel...The American Museum on Broadway 'was literally covered with paintings and flags. One, a portrait of Kossuth, in the folds of Hungarian and American flags, with the words at the bottom: 'Kossuth, the Washington of Hungary.'"

President Millard Fillmore entertained Kossuth at the White House on 31 December 1851 and 3 January 1852. The US Congress organized a banquet for Kossuth, which was supported by all political parties.

In early 1852, Kossuth, accompanied by his wife, his son Ferenc, and Theresa Pulszky, toured the American Midwest, South, and New England. Kossuth was the second foreigner after the Marquis de Lafayette to address a Joint Meeting of the United States Congress. He gave a speech before the Ohio General Assembly in February 1852 that probably influenced Lincoln's Gettysburg Address: "The spirit of our age is Democracy. All for the people, and all by the people. Nothing about the people without the people - That is Democracy! [...]"

Kossuth's cult spread far and wide across the continent. Even babies were named after him during his American tour. At the same time, dozens of books, hundreds of pamphlets and articles and essays, as well as about 250 poems were written to, for, or about him in the 1850s.

Queen Victoria had a negative remark about the American version of Kossuth fever too: "...the popular Kossuth fever of the time to ignorance of the man in whom they (the Americans) see a second Washington, when the fact is that he is an ambitious and rapacious humbug."

There is no evidence that Kossuth ever met Abraham Lincoln, although Lincoln did organize a celebration in Kossuth's honor in Springfield, Illinois, calling him a "most worthy and distinguished representative of the cause of civil and religious liberty on the continent of Europe". Kossuth believed that by appealing directly to European immigrants in the American heartland that he could rally them behind the cause of a free and democratic Hungary. United States officials feared that Kossuth's efforts to elicit support for a failed revolution were fraught with mischief. He would not denounce slavery or stand up for the Catholic Church, and when Kossuth declared George Washington had never intended for the policy of non-interference to serve as constitutional dogma, he caused further defection. Luckily for him, it was unknown then that he entertained a proposal to raise 1,500 mercenaries, who would overthrow Haiti with officers from the US Army and Navy. Ralph Waldo Emerson praised Kossuth: "You have earned your own nobility at home. We admit you ad eundem (as they say at College). We admit you to the same degree, without new trial. We suspend all rules before so paramount a merit. You may well sit a doctor in the college of liberty. You have achieved your right to interpret our Washington."

However, the issue of slavery was tearing America apart. Kossuth infuriated the abolitionists by refusing to say anything offensive to the pro-slavery establishment, which, however, did not give him much support. Abolitionists said that Kossuth's "hands off" position regarding American slavery was unacceptable. Wm. Lloyd Garrison, on behalf of the American Anti-Slavery Society, published a pamphlet "exposing the Hungarian as a self-seeking toady." Kossuth left the U.S. with only a fraction of the money he had hoped to earn on his tour. Kossuth ruined all chances for backing when he openly recommended to German Americans they should choose Franklin Pierce for president. The gaffe brought him back to London in July 1852.

Early the next year, he sent Ferenc Pulszky to meet with Pierce to obtain support for intervention in Europe. Pulszky was to also meet in secret with Lt. William Nelson USN and make plans for an expedition against Haiti and Santo Domingo. The plot ended with the failure of the Milanese riots of 1853, and Kossuth made no further efforts to win backing from the United States.

Attempted leadership in exile
After returning from America to Europe, he lived permanently in London for eight years, where he gained many important connections in British parliamentary, writer and journalistic circles. He also liaised with circles of French, Italian, Russian, German, and Polish emigrants, most notably Giuseppe Mazzini and Stanisław Gabriel Worcell, who were influential in organizing unsubstantiated uprising attempts in the early 1850s. In the following years, Kossuth expected that the conflicts between the great powers would still make it possible to liberate Hungary, and therefore he had even several personal talks with Emperor Napoleon III in Paris.

He made a close connection with his friend Giuseppe Mazzini, by whom, with some misgiving, he was persuaded to join the Revolutionary Committee. Quarrels of a kind only too common among exiles followed.

He watched with anxiety every opportunity of once more freeing his country from Austria. An attempt to organize a Hungarian legion during the Crimean War was stopped; but in 1859, he entered into negotiations with Napoleon III, left England for Italy and began the organization of a Hungarian legion, which was to make a descent on the coast of Dalmatia. The Peace of Villafranca made that impossible. There were still significant international forces supporting the Habsburgs to maintain their empire, because Austria was seen as an important element in the balance of great powers.

Gradually, his autocratic style and uncompromising outlook destroyed any real influence among the Hungarian expatriate community. Other Hungarian exiles protested against his appearing to claim to be the only national hero of the revolution. Count Kázmér Batthyány attacked him in The Times, and Bertalan Szemere, who had been prime minister under him, published a bitter criticism of his acts and character, accusing him of arrogance, cowardice and duplicity. Hungarians were especially offended by his continuing use of the title of Regent. Kossuth considered the use of his regent title constitutionally justified until the next democratic elections in Hungary. Accordingly, he used his title until the 1869 Hungarian parliamentary election.

Embittered break with Hungarian patriots
There were still significant international forces supporting the Habsburgs to maintain their empire, because Austria was seen as an important element in the continental balance of power. However, Garibaldi's invasion of Sicily in 1860 raised new hopes for Kossuth. Many Hungarian 1848 veterans fought among the Italian soldiers, and the Italian successes could have led to another Italian-Austrian war. To this end, the Hungarian Legion was re-established, and Kossuth negotiated cooperation with the Italians. However the promise of the international conference never took root. In 1861, Kossuth moved to Turin, Italy, had to watch Ferenc Deák guide Hungary toward a compromise with the Austrian monarchy. He did so with a bitter heart, and on the day before the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 (German: Ausgleich, Hungarian: Kiegyezés), he published an open letter condemning it and Deák. This so-called "Cassandra letter" rallied the opponents of the Compromise, but they could not prevent its adoption and subsequent continuation. Kossuth blamed Deák for giving up the nation's right of true independence and asserted that the conditions he had accepted went against the interests of the state's very existence. In the letter, his vision predicted that Hungary, having bound its fate to that of the Austrian German nation and the Habsburgs, would go down with them. He adumbrated a subsequent devastating European-scale war on the Continent, which would be fueled and induced by extremist nationalism, with Hungary on the side of a "dying empire".

"I see in the Compromise the death of our nation," he wrote.

From then on, Kossuth remained in Italy. He refused to follow the other Hungarian patriots, who, under the lead of Deák, negotiated the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 and the ensuing amnesty. It is doubted whether Emperor Franz Joseph would have allowed the amnesty to extend to Kossuth.

In 1874 Kossuth bought a villa in the village of Collegno with a large garden in a small hamlet called Baraccone not far from the train station, and spent his days with gardening, botanical expeditions to the Alps, writing his memoirs and receiving Hungarian guests. He was forced to sell the villa in 1882 due to financial difficulties plaguing him since he lost most of his wealth in the aftermath of the 1873 financial crisis. Reluctantly he moved back to the city of Turin.

European federalism

Publicly, Kossuth remained unreconciled to the house of Habsburg and committed to a fully independent state. He expressed the idea of uniting with the Hungarian and neighbouring peoples in his plans for the future, which also contained many utopian elements, and in his equally utopian plan for the future confederation of the already liberated peoples under the name of Republics of Danubian Confederation. Though elected to the Diet of 1869, he never took his seat. He continued to remain a widely popular figure, but he did not allow his name to be associated with dissent or any political cause. A law of 1879, which deprived of citizenship all Hungarians who had voluntarily been absent ten years, was a bitter blow to him. He displayed no interest in benefitting from a further amnesty in 1880. Kossuth wrote a one-volume autobiography, published in English in 1880 as Memoirs of My Exile. It mainly concerns his activities between 1859 and 1861 including his meetings with Napoleon III, his dealings with Italian statesman Count Camillo Benso di Cavour and his correspondence with the Balkan royal courts about his plans for a Danubian federation or confederation.

In 1890, a delegation of Hungarian pilgrims in Turin recorded a short patriotic speech delivered by the elderly Lajos Kossuth. The original recording on two wax cylinders for the Edison phonograph survives to this day, barely audible because of excess playback and unsuccessful early restoration attempts. Recording Kossuth's voice was one of the earliest applications of phonograph, and his few sentences are the earliest known recorded Hungarian speech. Until the discovery of a recording of Helmuth von Moltke in 2012, Lajos Kossuth was the person with the earliest birth date from whom a sound recording was known.

The "Kossuth party" in the Hungarian parliament
The Party of Independence and '48 was established in 1884 by a merger of the Independence Party and the Party of 1848. Although Kossuth had never returned to Hungary, he was the spiritual leader of this opposition party until he died in 1894, and the party was also referred to as the "Kossuth Party" thereafter. From the 1896 elections onwards, it was the main opposition to the ruling Liberal Party. The Kossuth party won the 1905, and 1906 elections, his older son Ferenc Kossuth was Minister for Trade between 1906 and 1910. However it lost the 1910 elections to the National Party of Work. Kossuth's political legacy achieved that ethnic Hungarians did not vote for the ruling pro-compromise Liberal Party in the Hungarian parliamentary elections, thus the political maintenance of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise was mostly a result of the popularity of the pro-compromise Liberal Party among the ethnic minorities.

Death, legacy, complete works
As Headlam noted, Kossuth died in Turin, after which "his body was taken to Pest (Budapest), where he was buried amid the mourning of the whole nation, Mór Jókai delivering the funeral oration"; furthermore, a "bronze statue (was) erected by public subscription, in the Kerepesi Cemetery..." which commemorates Kossuth as "Hungary's purest patriot and greatest orator."

A Hungarian language version of his complete works were published in Budapest between 1880 and 1895.

In Hungary
The main square of Budapest with the Hungarian Parliament Building is named after Kossuth, and the Kossuth Memorial is an important scene of national ceremonies. Most cities in Hungary have streets named after Kossuth, see: Public place names of Budapest. The first public statue commemorating Kossuth was erected in Miskolc in 1898. Kossuth Rádió, the main radio station of Hungary, is named after Lajos Kossuth.

Béla Bartók also wrote a symphonic poem named Kossuth, the funeral march which was transcribed for piano and published in Bartók's lifetime.

The memorials to Lajos Kossuth in the territories lost by Hungary after World War I, and again after World War II, were sooner or later demolished in neighboring countries. A few of them were re-erected following the Revolutions of 1989 by local councils or private associations. They play an important role as symbols of national identity of the Hungarian minority. Magyar Posta paid homage to Kossuth by bringing out eight postage stamps. Again, a set of four stamps commemorating 50 anniversary of the death of Lajos Kossuth were issued by Hungary on 20 March 1944

In Slovakia
The most important memorial outside the present-day borders of Hungary is a statue in Rožňava, that was knocked down twice but restored after much controversy in 2004.

In Romania
The only Kossuth statue that remained on its place after 1920 in Romania stands in Salonta. The demolished Kossuth Memorial of Târgu-Mureş was re-erected in 2001 in the little Székely village of Ciumani. The Kossuth Memorial in Arad, the work of Ede Margó from 1909, was removed by the order of the Brătianu government in 1925.

In the United Kingdom
There is a blue plaque on No. 39 Chepstow Villas, the house in Notting Hill in London, where Kossuth lived from 1850 to 1859. A street in Greenwich, also in London, is named Kossuth Street after him. There is a letter of support from Kossuth on display at the Wallace Monument, near Stirling. The building of the monument, dedicated to Scottish patriot William Wallace coincided with Kossuth's visit to Scotland.

Rest of Europe
In Serbia there are two statues of Kossuth in Stara Moravica and Novi Itebej. Memorials in Ukraine are situated in Berehove and Tiachiv. Lajos Kossuth Street exists in the cities of Dnipro, Kryvyi Rih, Mukachevo, Tyachiv, Uzhhorod. The house where Kossuth lived in exile in Shumen, Bulgaria, has been turned into the Lajos Kossuth Memorial House, exhibiting documents and items related to Kossuth's work and the Hungarian Revolution. A street in the centre of the Bulgarian capital Sofia also bears his name.

The house where Kossuth lived when in exile, on Macar Street (meaning Hungarian Street in Turkish) in Kütahya, Turkey, is now a museum (Kossuth Evi Müzesi). The house is on a hill, with two stories in the back and one facing Macar Street. The walled back yard has a life size statue of Kossuth. The interior is furnished with period pieces, and houses a portrait of Kossuth and a map of his travels.

In Turin, Italy, there is a plaque on the building in which Kossuth lived, as well as a street bearing his name (Corso Luigi Kossuth).

In the United States
Kossuth County, Iowa, is named in Kossuth's honor. A statue of the freedom fighter stands in front of the county Court House in Algona, Iowa, the county seat. The small towns of Kossuth, Ohio, Kossuth, Mississippi, Kossuth, Maine, Kossuth, Pennsylvania, and Kossuth, Wisconsin, as well as a populated area within the town of Bolivar, New York are named in honor of Kossuth.

A bust of Kossuth sits in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., which also boasts a Hungarian-American cultural center called Kossuth House (owned and operated by the Hungarian Reformed Federation of America). A statue of Kossuth stands in New York City on Riverside Drive at 113th Street near the Columbia University campus. Other statues of Kossuth are sprinkled throughout the US, including in University Circle in Cleveland, Ohio There is a Kossuth Park at the intersection of East 121st Street and East Shaker Boulevard, just west of Shaker Square, in Cleveland. In the Bronx, New York, Brooklyn, New York Utica, New York, Ronkonkoma, New York, Bohemia, New York, Newark, New Jersey, St. Louis, Missouri, Bridgeport, Connecticut, Haledon, New Jersey, Wharton, New Jersey, Lafayette, Indiana, and Columbus, Ohio there are streets named in honor of Kossuth. There is also a neighborhood in Dayton, Ohio known as the Kossuth Colony Historic District.

During an impassioned eulogy of Kossuth in New York, Alexander Kohut, a distinguished rabbinic scholar, took ill, and died several weeks later.

The bust of Kossuth that was added to the United States Capitol in 1990 is presently displayed in that building's "Freedom Foyer" alongside busts of Václav Havel and Winston Churchill.

In Canada
Kossuth Road in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada was named in Kossuth's honor as is Kossuth Park Wainfleet, Ontario Port Colborne, Ontario.

In Kurdistan, Iraq
The main street in Rawanduz was renamed in Kossuth's honor in 2017.

Works

 * Memories of My Exile
 * The Future of Nations
 * Kossuth in New England: A Full Account of the Hungarian Governor's Visit to Massachusetts, with His Speeches
 * The life of Louis Kossuth, Governor of Hungary, including notices of the men and scenes of the Hungarian revolution; to which is added an appendix containing his Principal speeches, &c
 * Gesammelte Werke: Aus dem ungarischen "Selected Works" Vol. I
 * Gesammelte Werke: Aus dem ungarischen "Selected Works" Vol. II
 * Die Katastrophe in Ungarn By Lajos Kossuth
 * Meine Schriften aus der Emigration By Lajos Kossuth'
 * A Pragmatica sanctio Magyarországban. Történeti, jogi és politikai szempontokból By Charles, Lajos Kossuth
 * Felelet gróf Széchenyi Istvánnak Kossuth Lajostól By Lajos Kossuth, gróf István Széchenyi
 * Felelet gróf Széchenyi Istvánnak Kossuth Lajostól By Lajos Kossuth, gróf István Széchenyi

title: Lajos Kossuth