Last November a new Kossuth statue arrived to Boston. It weighed about half a ton and Honorary Consul Gábor Garai asked local Hungarian Americans to store it in their garage.
The statue, a generous present of the Orbán government to the City of Boston and planned to be installed at Faneuil Hall, where Lajos Kossuth gave a speech in 1852 when he visited the US. It seemed that the installation was pre-approved by the City well before shipping the statue to America.
Not exactly. It turned out that Boston never wanted the statue, they refused to install it at Faneuil Hall. Poor Kossuth was moved into a garage somewhere in Massachusetts. Another honorary consul, Dr. Peter Forgách stepped in and rescued it. He arranged to ship the statue to Buffalo where now it is planned to be installed at the grounds of Niagara University on October 2, 2021.
Dr. Forgach wrote to me: It is a little known secret, that the Niagara Frontier universities have been most generous in giving scholarships to students from the Carpathian Basin. Of these universities, Niagara University has been the most generous. Since the mid 1990’s approximately 250 students from the Carpathian Basin have received Master degrees, primarily in Business Administration from the area colleges. In addition during this period, the SUNY Buffalo medical school hosted anywhere from 8-12 medical students per year for a three month rotation. A symbolic thank you such as donating a statue is certainly in order. Lajos Kossuth visited the Niagara area during his tour of the United States, and in one of the suburbs of Buffalo there is even a street named after him.
As you know, the Niagara area is a great international tourist attraction. The statue will have excellent exposure being in the vicinity of the Niagara University Business School and the Niagara University Castellani Art Museum. There will also be a 24 hour surveillance of the statue.
Peter Forgach
I still had some reservations. Niagara University is a Catholic University and Kossuth was vehemently anti-Catholic. When he visited the US the Catholic Church boycotted and attacked him. How would Kossuth the great Protestant feel about the Catholic university where he will be now under 24-hour surveillance.
Dr Forgách assured me that at Niagara “besides Catholic students, there were Protestant, Jewish and non-affiliated students. This was never a problem. As far as the Kossuth statue is concerned, the University leadership did its due diligence on Kossuth Lajos and did not find it objectionable to place his statue on the university grounds.”
I also brought to Dr Forgách’s attention the corruption allegations against the sculptor Sándor Kligl. The sculptor’s wife, Györgyi Lengyel was a government official whose office oversaw the ordering her husband’s statues paid from Hungarian taxpayer’s money.
Dr. Forgách gave me the following answer: I haven’t seen too many actors, writers, artists, musicians who do not live an unorthodox questionable life. They all have skeletons in their closet. I am not an art critic so I cannot comment on the artistic value of the work, but I can tell you I have already received many positive feedback calls on the statue and hopefully it will have a positive uplifting impact on the local Hungarian community and the good name of the Hungarians.
Overall I’m happy for Kossuth. After many months in a garage he finally found a place to be seen at Niagara University.
György Lázár
