Kossuth Lajos and His Legacy
"100 Days of Jókai Mór" February 1- April 30, 2025
Anna's Thinking Cap: Iowa's 99, The journey begins in Kossuth County
Iowa City Press-Citizen Column by Anna Barker
Special to the Press-Citizen
January 4, 2025
The idea of visiting all 99 Iowa counties occurred in the most unlikely of places - the Kerepesi Cemetery in Budapest, Hungary's equivalent to Paris' Père-Lachaise. My dad, who died in 2021, was fated to be buried here - this was his favorite strolling park for decades. During our countless walks through the chestnut and linden-lined alleys, he introduced me to the graves and mausoleums of Hungary's greatest writers, painters, politicians, and the revolutionaries who died for Hungary's freedom in 1848, such as the first Prime Minister, Count Batthyany, executed by an Austrian firing squad. But Lajos Kossuth was always the greatest mystery - his was the largest mausoleum in Hungary - which correlated marvelously with the largest county in lowa, my home for the past 35 years.
As a child of Europe who visited every country on the old continent and a newcomer to the U.S. who drove through all 50 states, I decided to celebrate my Iowa anniversary with an introduction to all 99 counties in 2025 and document them in the
Press-Citizen.
Kossuth County was the perfect place to start. Founded in 1851, it was located to the south of Bancroft County, which, since it was unsuitable for farming and thus not economically viable in a newly formed agricultural state, was incorporated into Kossuth Country in 1857. Two subsequent attempts to reestablish the northern county, first as Crocker County in 1870-1871, then as Larrabee County in 1914, were unsuccessful. Thus, Iowa became a state with 99 instead of 100 counties, with Kossuth County remaining the largest at almost twice the size of its neighbors.
The namesake of Kossuth County was front page news during its formation in 1851. A political leader who fought for Hungary's independence from the Austrian Empire in
1848-1849, Kossuth, along with the revolution's poet Petöfi Sándor, whose March 15 recitation of the "National Song" ignited the Budapest Uprising in 1848, are legendary in Hungary, with streets and squares named after them in every Hungarian city and town. March 15 is commemorated as Hungarian National Day, with a bust of Kossuth unveiled in the U.S.
Capitol on March 15, 1990, celebrating his contribution to the cause of freedom worldwide.
When the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 was brutally suppressed by the combined forces of the Austrian and Russian empires and many of Kossuth's comrades were sentenced to death by firing squads, he managed to escape to Ottoman Turkey and continued to advocate for Hungarian freedom till his death in 1894. The US government granted him, his family, and fellow revolutionaries safe passage from Smyrna aboard the USS Mississippi. His arrival in Southampton caused a sensation in the UK, with tens of thousands attending his fiery speeches in support of democratic principles and national self-determination.
Kossuth learned English during his four-year Austrian imprisonment from books that were allowed in jail - Shakespeare and King James Bible - with his English acquiring the archaic cadence of a biblical prophet. The accolades he received from prominent British politicians, such as Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston, troubled the young Queen Victoria. The Revolution of 1848 toppled the monarchy of Louis Philippe and established the French Second Republic. Kossuth's anti-monarchist rhetoric caused a political scandal and the resignation of the Prime Minister, Lord John Russell.
During the subsequent 1851-1852 U.S. tour, Kossuth delivered more than 300 speeches supporting the cause of Hungarian independence, including in front of a joint session of Congress, the second foreign speaker granted this honor, after Marquis de Lafayette. He traveled to dozens of locations, from New York City to Springfield, Ilinois, where Kossuth made a strong impression on Abraham Lincoln, then in private law practice.
A 2001 statue of Kossuth decked in a distinctive Hungarian hussar jacket was dedicated in front of the county courthouse in Algona, a city that played a role in the history of another European conflict, with 10,000 WWII prisoners of war housed there between 1944 and 1946. A memorial marks the location of the camp near the Algona airport, with a museum chronicling the development of the camp unveiled in 2004.
The displays document the U.S.
involvement in WWII and the daily routines of the prisoners, including an exhibition of the artwork they created during their months and years in Kossuth County.
Iowa's 99 journey continues in February with Indian burial mounds along the Mississippi River, the history of European colonization of North America, and a visit to the grave of Julien Dubuque.
Lajos Kossuth (1802-1894) in 1848, lithograph by August Prinzhofer and Johann Rauh.
