17. THE FRIENDS OF KOSSUTH

Ferenc Aurelius Pulszky, member of a prominent Hungarian family, was born at Eperies in 1814. Interested in archaeology, he showed a precocious talent for the subject, but became involved in the liberal movement that eventually produced Kossuth’s revolution in 1848. With Kossuth, Pulszky and his wife, Theresa, fled into exile after the failure of their uprising, and they were condemned to death in absentia. In 1852, the Pulszkys accompanied Kossuth in a tour of the United States. In 1853 the Pulszkys published White Red Black, an account, in English, of their travels in America, and then went to Italy where they collaborated in Garibaldi’s struggle for Italian independence. At last, in 1866, a pardon from Vienna made possible a return to Hungary. In 1872, Pulszky became director of state museums and libraries, and lived uneventfully in Budapest until his death in 1897.