I aim to discuss issues of national culture and the relationship between the figure of a national hero and that national culture. More particularly, I would like to examine how the image of a national hero contributes to the creation and maintenance of various forms of communal identity-most notably the diaspora identity, independent of state boundaries.

By way of illustration, I have chosen the three most important Kossuth monuments in the United States: those in Cleveland (1902), New York (1928) and Washington, DC (1990). These sculptures show how the Kossuth cult changed in the experience of Hungarians in the United States, and they also testify to the changing role of a national hero in establishing and strengthening social cohesion through the imagined world of national culture.

Lajos Kossuth became a myth in his own lifetime. Legends surrounding both his person and his deeds started during the 1848 Revolution and the ensuing War of Independence, and continued to spread after Hungary's military collapse in 1849. There are numerous folk songs, historical legends and anecdotes about him, which testify to the devotion people felt for Kossuth. His reputation was established primarily by the April Laws which dethroned the Habsburgs and declared Hungary's independence, and most notably by the emancipation of the serfs. His nationwide popularity grew with every one of his many recruiting drives, occasions when the rural population saw him in the flesh.1 Kossuth's legendary status was confirmed after the failure of the War of Independence, when his name became identified with protests against the absolutist regime. The final deed that established him as a true national hero was his staying out of the country: his willingness to live in exile for the sake of his patriotic ideals and his decision never to set foot again on Hungarian soil after the surrender at Világos (Siria) in August 1849. Kossuth's homecoming was eagerly awaited by the people, who were hoping for him to remedy the nation's grievances. The cult of Kossuth grew after the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867. Emotionally and politically motivated, this cult presented Kossuth as the symbol of national independence; and the cult's gradual adaptation to the existing political system, a parallel development, already then signified that times were changing.2

Kossuth's death in Turin in 1894 brought his status as a national hero to consummation. His death in exile set the seal on a self-sacrifice undertaken for the nation. In death-and only in death-Kossuth came home. The climax of the Kossuth legend was undoubtedly marked by his funeral, a political demonstration interwoven with sacral elements: the ceremonial return of the corpse, the refusal of an official burial, the funerary ceremony in Budapest, which attracted over half-a-million mourners, and the thousands of obituaries in the press. After this the cult began to fade, although some spectacular attempts to sustain it were still to come. The two decades that followed his death were marked by an eagerness all over the country to erect Kossuth statues, and by work on his mausoleum, but now without the important political message that his funeral had sent.

Legend and cult-both are social projections of the myth of a national hero and both have their own set of instruments creating the associated imagery. In his brilliant discussion of the elderly Kossuth, the historian Gyula Szekfű drew a clear distinction between the two phenomena: "The legend was spreading in the Hungarian lands from the moment he visited them, calling people to arms, wearing a sword and the Kossuth hat: a fine figure of a man, who was soon to disappear without a trace. The legend was born out of the prayer on the battle-field of Kápolna, where ‘noble Hungary is mourning, Kossuth, her true son, is feverish'-Kossuth did not, and indeed, could not, know this legend, as it was not customary to correspond with legendary heroes or to take a train to visit them." By contrast, the cult was created by the intellgentsia, "who saw Kossuth with their own eyes, heard his voice and read his writings."3 This cult was propagated in schools, in reading circles and in the press, and thus communicated to the many, in town and country.

The two modes of creating a national hero-legend and cult, the popular and the official (or institutional) processes-were rooted in emotions. However, the hero is also an ideological source for the establishment and the continuous reinterpretation of national culture. Kossuth's person and activities went hand in hand with scholarly analyses. The communal/public domain of national culture derives from these three sources, providing the raw material for monuments, recollections and anniversaries-both in Hungary and in the diaspora.

Kossuth as the focus of ethnic identity

We were scattered over the world like a second Israel," Kossuth wrote in the introduction to the first volume of his memoirs. These refugees were to be followed by further waves of Hungarian exiles and fugitives in the nearly one hundred years that began in the last third of the 19th century. The dispersion grew even more pronounced as Hungarian diasporas of various sizes and durations were being formed over a much larger area "over the world" than Kossuth had experienced in his lifetime.

"For Hungarian refugees leaving behind Hungary, a land of economic and political oppression, and arriving in the United States, a country of democracy and personal freedom, Lajos Kossuth became the idol, and the Kossuth tune their prayer, which was sent flying towards Turin on the wings of heavy sighs from the lips of thousands upon thousands of Hungarian-Americans. Whenever a Hungarian community in the United States launched a patriotic initiative, the magic of Kossuth's name was sounded."5 From the very beginning, the legend and the cult of Kossuth were instrumental in forging the ethnic loyalty of Hungarian-Americans; they made their own contribution to the formation of Kossuth's image as a national hero, partly by idealizing the emigrant status and partly by nurturing a distinctly local, American tradition, when evoking the memories of Kossuth's American tour in 1851/52. The "Kossuth-Craze",6 Kossuth's idolization by American society in the last century, provided a distinctive source of communal identity for subsequent Hungarian exiles.

Creating self-esteem: Cleveland, 1902

Hungarian migrants in the United States wanted to erect a monument to Kossuth even in his own lifetime-at a time when no one in Hungary thought of doing so. The first attempt, in 1893, in New York, foundered due to the rivalry between the various communities and their leaders, as well as for the lack of an appropriate organizational framework.7 This plan to erect a statue fits into the line of events marking the Kossuth cult in America after the 1880s. From the very beginning, Kossuth and the 1848 traditions were crucial in the communal life and historical conscience of the emigrants; this was enhanced by the fact that Kossuth was popular in the United States.

A few years later a small group of 1848 emigrants, the Honvéd Veterans' Club of Cleveland, decided to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Kossuth's visit to their city by placing a plaque on the wall of American House, from the balcony of which Kossuth had delivered his speech on February 2, 1852. To carry out their plan, they approached the other Hungarian organizations in Cleveland and jointly formed the Committee of the United Hungarian Associations. In the course of the preparations, the public notary Lajos Perczel suggested that it might be more appropriate to mark the 100th anniversary of Kossuth's birth with a statue. The issue was finally settled on an American cue on October 6, 1901, during a commemoration of the Arad martyrs (the thirteen generals executed by the Austrians), when a Cleveland lawyer, C.W. Pollner made it known that the city's American population was also considering the idea of a Kossuth statue. The Americans were only waiting for the initiative to come from the Hungarians. This explains why a broadly based fund-raising campaign was quickly organized. Most of the local Hungarian associations and local newspapers were active in their support. The fund-raising campaign was launched with a proclamation by the Protestant clergyman Elek Csutoros: "Let us put together our pennies and erect a statue for Kossuth, a prayer book made of bronze in which all people, great and small, can read about patriotism, faith and hope! Let it be us, castaway but loyal children of our motherland, that set an example to the entire Hungarian nation!"8

On May 24, 1902 the Cleveland papers announced that the city's Council of Public Works had given permission to erect Kossuth's statue right in the heart of Cleveland, on Public Square. The immediate response of the leaders of the city's Czech and Slovak population was to try and foil the attempt. Two respected priests, Fathers Furdek and Horák, one Slovak and the other Czech, published a declaration in the Cleveland papers stating that the Slavs were appalled at the idea of the statue, since Kossuth had been "an oppressor of the nations". The Slovaks even went as far as to send a delegation to the Mayor in protest. They claimed that Kossuth was not the man the Hungarians tried to make him out to be, "because the Hungarians' love of freedom is a shamme, the nationalities are all oppressed in Kossuth's country."9 Debates followed both in the press and in public assemblies, where the Hungarians, the Slovaks and the Czechs rallied all their supporters to attempt to persuade the city authorities. Finally the City Council permitted the erection of the statue, not however on the original site but in one of the city parks, Euclid Circle (also known as University Circle). Rather than mention anything about the protests by local Slovaks and Czechs, they referred to traffic problems. The compromise satisfied the Hungarians, as they regarded the new site as one of the finest in the city.

The Kossuth statue of Cleveland, a copy of one by the Debrecen sculptor András Tóth in Nagyszalonta (Salonta, Romania), was unveiled on 28 September 1902. A mere five months had passed between the first public announcement and the ceremonial unveiling. More than 16,000 took part in the parade before the event and a crowd of between 60 and 70,000 watched. Between seven and eight thousand Hungarians from other US towns and cities came to Cleveland for the occasion. The unveiling was not simply an exclusively Hungarian ceremony, as the speakers included Cleveland's Mayor Tom L. Johnson, Governor of Ohio George Nash, Senator Mark C. Hanna and several other prominent Americans, as well as the Italian Consul. Besides the Hungarian societies, the local German and Italian associations also marched in the parade.10

Numerous elements of the Kossuth cult and of the 1848 traditions were resorted to in the ceremony. For example, surviving veterans of 1848 in America were in attendance. Members of the Batthyány Society sang the Kossuth song in front of the statue. Soil from battlefields was deposited around the pedestal. (It was sent from Hungary by various county administrations at the request of the statue committee.) In this way, according to the introductory words by Lajos Perczel, who sported a Kossuth beard, "in free America, we have been able to erect the statue of our nation's resuscitator, Lajos Kossuth, on the blood-stained soil of Hungary".11 For Hungarian migrants soil taken from the homeland was a romantic and symbolic token, their mythical tie with the mother nation. We must not forget, as he wrote, that Kossuth himself had taken "a pinch of soil" with him when he left Hungary after Világos.12 At the same time, in the manner of Hungarian soil mixed with the American earth, this nostalgic symbolism was mixed with the ideals of "free America", frequently brought up during the ceremony, with the heroic figure of Lajos Kossuth being evoked to render the message visible.

The Hungarian emigrants of the turn of the century, who were mostly of peasant stock, had no direct political connection with the Hungarian government through political parties or politicians. Furthermore, back in Hungary there was (in the words of a contemporary) no "serious interest" in the United States, a country largely overlooked "from a political point of view".13 Certain Hungarian-American religious and community leaders tried to ease their isolation in Hungary, albeit with only minimal (and temporary) success. The ceremonial presentation of an ornamental Hungarian tricolour in New York, which preceded that unveiling of the Kossuth statue, was an exception to the rule. A gift of the Hungarian National Association, the flag was presented to the "American Hungarians" by the Association's chairman.14 However, the Hungarian government did not concern itself with the impoverished masses who emigrated to the United States nor with the patriotic Hungarians of Cleveland. Contemporary chroniclers were embittered to note that the Hungarian government failed to send a message on the occasion, and not one of the Hungarians en poste in the United States was present at the event. Of all the wreaths, of which three were sent by Hungarian associations from the old country and twenty-two were placed on the pedestal by Hungarian clubs in America, "only one wreath, only one ribbon was missing: the wreath with the red-white-and-green ribbon of the Hungarian state."15

Kossuth's name failed to bring the emigrants closer to the homeland; quite the opposite was the case. This could be explained by the deep-seated desire, shared by most of them, for Hungary's sovereignty. The migrant Hungarians wished to belong to the nation through the person of Lajos Kossuth and this view clashed with the official position. It appears that, in creating their self-image, the emigrants chose the wrong symbol (at least in the eyes of the contemporary political establishment), because Kossuth never accepted the 1867 Compromise. Nor did the unveiling of the statue in Cleveland generate any response from the Hungarian opposition party, the Party of Independence, either, vividly demonstrating the fact that the emigrants had little weight in Hungarian politics.

The Hungarian-Americans' first momentous action in connection with Kossuth's name enabled migrants from various parts of Hungary to develop some sort of a collective identity. The national hero conjured up a shared historical background and common fate, thus contributing to group solidarity. On occasions, such as that in Cleveland, the power of ethnic identity, which was so effective in organizing groups and communities, could counteract the inherent fragmentation of immigrants. The New York reception of the national flag and the unveiling of the statue started a new era, when "the true history of Hungarian-Americans" began and when "Hungarian-Americans came together and joined in an embrace",16 as a contemporary recalled two decades later.

Secondly, Kossuth's person served the migrant Hungarians' self-definition. This had a twofold purpose: on the one hand, those identifying with Kossuth's ideals were able to present themselves as distinct from other natives of Austria-Hungary. This helped their transformation from migrant workers into a distinct ethnic group in the metropolitan and industrialized environment of the United States. On the other hand, the act of expressing their own national identity and characteristics gave them an awareness that they formed part of American society. In Kossuth's person, who was held in high esteem by Americans, they established some kind of a link with the American nation. The national hero helped to strengthen this link, which the immigrant peasants and their leaders could not take for granted. Ottokár Prohászka, the influential Catholic bishop, author and politician himself, noted this during his journey to the United States in 1904, when he remarked that "to be a Hungarian in America is not a very glorious feeling"; "with their economic and social backwardness" the uneducated masses of migrant workers and "desperadoes" "could not have made a good impression on American society". Yet, Kossuth's statue erected by the Hungarian-Americans stood tall in Cleveland, commemorating the man "who linked the greatest American ideals, freedom and the determination to fight for freedom, with the idea of Hungary for all eternity."17

Thirdly, we must emphasize once more that the Cleveland statue of Kossuth was wholly independent of the Hungarian state, of official politics. It was a grass-roots initiative, which concurred with similar movements in Hungary. By that time Kossuth statues clearly personified an opposition attitude.18 The Cleveland monument was the 29th, and the first abroad. It owed its existence to the independence tradition among elite circles of Hungarian-Americans, to the Kossuth cult and to the 1848 traditions of the migrant population as an "exported" national idea.

National representation and the Kossuth pilgrimage: New York, 1928

After the fiasco at the end of the last century, the plan to erect a statue for Lajos Kossuth in New York resurfaced in the mid-1920s. A campaign was started in 1927 by Géza D. Berkó, the editor of the New York Hungarian daily, the Amerikai Magyar Népszava. He urged Hungarians all over the United States to establish committees for the purpose of collecting money for the statue. Local journalists and communal and religious leaders proved to be the main supporters; they themselves professed the traditional, late-nineteenth-century and early twentieth century political views of the opposition in Hungary. (As I mentioned earlier, this view prevailed among the elite of Hungarian-Americans from the moment that Hungarian communities came to be established.)

The significance of the statue unveiled on March 15, 1928 was boosted by "Kossuth pilgrims", who came from Hungary to attend the ceremony.

Numerous aspects of the Cleveland ceremony were repeated, such as the involvement of prominent American public figures, the symbolic placing of Hungarian soil at the pediment of the monument, and so on. However, by this time the memory of Lajos Kossuth's American journey was fading, and no one in the crowd could have had personal recollections of Kossuth or his triumphant American tour. At the beginning of the century, some of those Americans who had seen and heard Kossuth in 1851 and 1852, and some 1848 exiles also, were still alive. No doubt family traditions, books and schools made up for the lack of such personal experience.19

From the viewpoint of the Hungarian-Americans, the 1928 ceremony clearly showed that co-operation within the strongly divided community was still possible. It was less than perfect, but despite all internal conflicts and jealousy between the leaders, a total of $40,000 was collected and a modified version of János Holvay's statue in Cegléd was erected in New York. Although contemporary newspapers contain numerous reports on the altercations, dubious financial dealings and instances of corruption, assumed or real, the occasion was hailed as an example of "the unity of Hungarian-Americans" at the unveiling ceremony as well as in the pages of the daily Amerikai Magyar Népszava and in the travel notes published by the Kossuth pilgrims. Unity was, indeed, born within the patriotic camp, but there was resistance on the part of Hungarian-Americans of liberal, socialist and communist leanings, most of whom had come to America after the collapse of the 1918 and 1919 revolutions. In his political analysis "Kossuth meggyalázása" (Kossuth's Defamation), the emigré historian Oszkár Jászi, a member of the 1918 Károlyi government, posed the question "Of what use was that comedy of the Kossuth statue to the Hungarian feudal fascists?"20 One of the most active groups of the protesters, the Anti-Horthy Liga (an association closely allied with the Communists) followed the Hungarian pilgrims along their travels, trying to interrupt even the unveiling ceremony. It was the publicity campaign for what they nicknamed the "Horthy–Kossuth" sculpture, that the protesters attacked, rather than Kossuth's person. Protesters, leaflets scattered from aeroplanes and articles in tough, occasionally rough, language in newspapers marked the limitations of the proclaimed national unity. Kossuth's name was on banners, when in fact he-and in a broader context the national hero-was subject to diametrically opposed interpretations.

Opinions on the prestige of both the event and the statue were also divided. "Quite frankly, Kossuth's immortal memory and the spirit that Kossuth had represented in America deserved a more monumental work in one of New York's finest parks", a pilgrim commented.21 But money was in short supply, and any assistance to erect a worthier monument was not forthcoming from Hungary. Whether there was corruption at play or simply on account of the poor quality of the material, within a few months the bronze started to deteriorate. This was loudly reported primarily by the Anti-Horthy Liga, who had opposed the idea of the statue from the start.22 However, others also noticed-including the Calvinist Bishop László Ravasz who visited the city in 1928-that after the great razzmatazz of the ceremony, the deteriorating statue was a pitiful sight.23 Eventually the statue had to be discretely replaced at considerable extra cost.24

The homeland, no doubt had political reasons to keep a high profile at the ceremony. Headed by Baron Zsigmond Perényi, who was Chairman of the Magyar Nemzeti Szövetség (Hungarian National Alliance), a deputation of more than five hundred people represented a broad section of the Hungarian political and social establishment. The Social Democrat working class and the peasantry were absent.25 The representatives of the homeland were invited by the originator of the idea, Géza D. Berkó, and his followers. By this gesture, the migrant elite transcended its narrower organizational function, one that was limited to the public life of Hungarian- Americans. In addition to uniting the Hungarian communities scattered all over America, which was equivalent to a nation- wide expression of the ethnic identity of Hungarian-Americans, the elite members talked about the "national mission" of the diaspora.

Beside being present at the inauguration ceremony, the pilgrims from the old country visited the more important sites of Kossuth's journey to the United States. They met politicians of all sorts, municipal, state, and federal, as well as businessmen, bankers and representatives of the leading American newspapers. Their professed aim was to pay homage to Kossuth, rather than to carry out propaganda. It is undeniable, however, that one concealed aim of the visit was to generate sympathy for the Hungarian cause, which was openly and continuously ridiculed by the Communist daily, Új Előre. The pilgrims, who surreptitiously promoted the "Hungarian truth" and the rejection of the Trianon Peace Treaty, assigned a new role to the Hungarian-Americans. "The Hungarian community in the United States", Lóránt Hegedűs wrote, "is a power to reckon with, and it is the pilgrims' duty to raise the Hungarian-Americans' status. Anyone who visits them must make them feel conscious of their own importance and instil in them an awareness that they have become a force in Hungarian history."26

On this occasion the Hungarian National Alliance gave the Hungarian-Americans a book on Hungary, which contained, in addition to historical, geographical, cultural and economic information, the essential facts of the Trianon Peace Treaty.27 They overlooked the fact, however, that while most Hungarian-Americans identified with some elements of the romantically orchestrated Kossuth myth, and were enthusiastic about the Kossuth statue, only very few of them showed a willingness (and still fewer had the means) to make a political and financial commitment to the homeland. From the viewpoint of Hungarian-Americans (or more precisely, of their elite), the most important message of the Kossuth statue was the gestures made by the pilgrims towards the emigrants. In this way, through Kossuth's person, a connection was established between the homeland and the Americanized emigrants. From the perspective of the Hungarian-Americans' past, the limited redress was a gesture signalling the will to forgive the "disloyalty" of physically deserting their country; therefore, it was more than a political manipulation, as frequently claimed by the contemporary opponents of the action.

On their return, the pilgrims-in numerous travel accounts and newspaper articles and even in books-declared their "national mission" successfully accomplished. However, they rarely examined their journey in the light of Kossuth's ideals. The only exception was, perhaps, Zoltán Horváth, a former member of the bourgeois radicals, who published his partisan view in the significantly named newspaper of the Independence Party of Kiskunfélegyháza, Csonkamagyarország (Truncated Hungary). In his view, America showed more respect to Kossuth than did Hungary, since the people of the United States followed Kossuth's advice. The author summed up the lessons of the American journey in suggestion that Hungary "immediately had to switch to the sincere and true, democratic and liberal methods of government in line with Kossuth's principles."28 The view that the Kossuth heritage was more than a narrowly interpreted national idea, and more than the consistent representation of national sovereignty, failed to win much support, as it could not compete with the image of a national hero who was being used indirectly to express the "Hungarian truth".

The Kossuth pilgrimage was captured not only in detailed travel accounts, but also in photographs and illustrated reports. Indeed, the Hungarian Film Office "kept the Hungarian audience informed" about the pilgrims' journey with the help of its "original report" on celluloid.29 The up-to-date mass media of the time played an important part in the unveiling. Several radio stations reported the ceremony live, and we know of newsreels covering the event. It appears that, besides the main features of the ceremony, such as the parade, the prominent Hungarians formally attired ŕ l'hongroise, the speakers and the wreaths, the American reporters also showed a marked interest in the more controversial aspects of the occasion: in the protesters carrying placards condemning the Horthy regime, and in aircraft dropping leaflets.30 Through the new mass media devices the national hero became "modernized", and the collective ideals could be presented through Kossuth's person to a wider public.

The past as model: Washington DC, 1990

In the more than sixty years that passed between 1928 and 1990 the cult grew, as new elements were added to the inevitable March 15 and October 6 celebrations. New interpretations of Kossuth and his exile surfaced, in conjunction with the arrival of new waves of Hungarian exiles and emigrants. In the period in question, another two Kossuth statues were erected, one in Los Angeles, California and one in Welland, Ontario, Canada.31 Thus Kossuth, the national hero continued to play a major part in the ethnic identity of the diaspora. The most recent effusion of the cult was associated with the political changes in Hungary, culminating in the unveiling of another statue.

A new element is that here we have a work by a Hungarian artist abroad, rather than a copy of a sculpture erected in Hungary. After leaving Hungary in 1945, Csaba Kúr settled in the United States in 1951. It was he who was responsible for the restoration of the Kossuth statue in Cleveland in 1985. In the following year he produced, with the support of the American Hungarian Federation, a bronze bust of Kossuth. Though they tried hard, no appropriate location was found for the sculpture in the United States. A number of the Federation's leaders argued that the Kossuth bust should be donated to the United States Congress, in this way securing a permanent and illustrious location for it. The Hungarian political changes gave a favourable impetus to the plan. At the proposal of the Hungarian-born Tom Lantos, the Democrat Congressman of California, who played an active role in the plan, both houses of the legislature supported the motion that the sculpture, a gift of the American Hungarian Federation, be put on permanent display on Capitol Hill.32

In association with the unveiling ceremony held on March 15, 1990, a memorial exhibition was arranged in the Russell Hall of the Senate, where Kossuth relics provided by the Library of Congress and Hungarian-Americans were on display. The exhibition mainly focused on Kossuth's visit to the United States, and was primarily based on contemporary documents, but some works of art inspired by the Kossuth cult were also displayed. Thus, two oils painted in 1990 by Sándor Bodó, who lives in Nashville, Tennessee, were shown (Kossuth on the Broadway and Kossuth on His Way to Boston).33

In addition to repeating and rephrasing the symbolic motifs mentioned above, the ceremony accompanying the unveiling of the Kossuth bust in the Great Rotunda of the United States Capitol produced some new elements. Instead of the independence motif favoured on earlier occasions, this action addressed the crucial questions of national identity after the political changes. The political turn in Eastern Europe and Hungary provided a new significance to Kossuth's ideas on freedom and independence, and the installation of the bust in the Congress building was in appreciation of the region's return to "the foundations of democracy". In this way, the event expanded beyond the immediate horizons of Hungarian-Americans' everyday lives, while also stimulating the sense of identity and the ambitions of the diaspora's elite.

Further emphasis was laid on the key element of present-day national rhetoric and culture, which is the unity of the region's divided Hungarian community, living in different states. Unlike in the case of the New York statue, when the main issue was the relationship between the diaspora and the homeland, the emphasis was on the ethnic Hungarians in countries adjacent to Hungary. The national hero no longer serves the purpose of building the nation, but of creating a symbolic cultural (and occasionally other) national unity.

As the heroic figure of the national past, more or less known and appreciated throughout the United States, Kossuth in the Capitol Rotunda represented and personified the connection between the past and present phases of a nation's culture, thus helping to legitimize the Transylvanian bishop László Tőkés, the modern-day hero, who honoured the occasion with his presence. In his welcoming speech, Congressman Tom Lantos described the link between Kossuth and Tőkés a direct connection. Kossuth was the freedom fighter of 1848, Tőkés of the Romanian revolution of 1989.

In the same way that Kossuth has legitimized Tőkés, the hero of the Hungarians in neighbouring countries, the latter incarnated the connection between Hungarian minorities and the nation as a cultural entity that transcends the frontiers of states. On this occasion, Hungary was represented by the country's highest dignitary, Mátyás Szűrös, the Interim President of the Republic of Hungary, and that "real life hero Reverend Tőkés"34 symbolized the spiritual union between the Hungarians in the whole of the Carpathian Basin and the core of the realm. Furthermore, through the gesture and ceremony of the unveiling, the leaders of the diaspora wished to give a pledge of the "active and steadfast patriotism"35 of that diaspora, an attitude they modelled on Kossuth.

Again in sharp contrast with the unveiling of the two earlier Kossuth statues, the question of the unity of Hungarian-Americans was not in the foreground. Although its initiators originally conceived the action as the Hungarian-Americans' joint effort, this could not be maintained in view of the deep and usually rather noisy conflicts at the time between the politically active organizations of Hungarian-Americans and their leaders. The internal crisis of the American Hungarian Federation a body founded in 1907 to integrate Hungarian organizations, reached its peak during the inauguration ceremony. As a result of the leaders' haggling, the organization first split into two factions, then divided into two rival associations. In that particular period the AHF (American Hungarian Federation) and the NFAH (National Federation of American Hungarians) were engaged in a law suit. Only the former was represented at the ceremony, but its chairman, a man of extreme right-wing views, who formally offered the statue to the United States legislature on behalf of the Federation, had earlier made himself politically unacceptable in the eyes of most people, when he placed a plaque celebrating the memory of Ferenc Szálasi, the Arrow-Cross leader (who was hanged as a major war criminal in 1945), in a Hungarian old people's home.36 It can be safely assumed that the two other Hungarian organizations, the Reformed Federation of American Hungarians and the Hungarian Human Rights Foundation, shared a common platform with the Federation only for this one occasion.

To signal the political differences, the reception following the unveiling was given by these two latter organizations (and by the charitable William Penn Association), and the Federation gave a dinner in Lajos Kossuth's memory. Kossuth's name thus continues to be a link between the emigrant associations, which on this occasion also served to demonstrate the commitment to the cause of Hungarian minorities.

Despite its intellectual and political motivations, the unveiling did not lack some of the folk manifestations of the Kossuth legend. To conclude the ceremony, the President of the Hungarian Reformed Federation of America, Imre Bertalan said a prayer. He began his speech by pointing out that Kossuth had not only been "a champion of liberty, he was also a man of prayer". He referred to the highly esteemed painting held in the Kossuth House, the Reformed Federation's Washington headquarters, which shows Kossuth praying on the battlefield of Kápolna over the dead bodies of his soldiers. Next he cited the entire text of what is known as "Kossuth's prayer at Kápolna", not merely in memory of Kossuth but also as a direct tribute to the "heroes of Timis¸oara", Romanians and Hungarians who died for freedom". Then the March 15 ceremony was ended by the crowd's singing the Kossuth song, Kossuth Lajos azt üzente... ("Kossuth's message...").

All this was not simply an ideological interpretation, but was part of the cult, or even of the legend. We know that Kossuth never went to the battlefield of Kápolna; his prayer was the figment of a journalist's imagination,37 which subsequently made its way into folk memory. Along with the accompanying print of which several versions are known, this element has been one of the most popular devices to sustain Kossuth's name in the public memory. The "prayer of Kápolna" can also serve to indicate that the almost religious veneration of the national hero, and the highly emo-tional identification with him, applies to this case, too, although it primarily had ideological and intellectual motives. In national culture, people's relationship with a hero are mainly emotional, and the fundamental values of such figures are also expressed in terms that are usually highly charged with emotion and often of a religious nature.

The national hero: permanent and changing elements

The first lesson of the three examples here discussed might come as a surprising observation. It seems that the statues, along with their symbolic place, were steadily shifting from the fringe towards the centre, from Cleveland through New York to the capital. However, this shift from a marginal position to the centre stage of the American scene has inevitably meant "losing" the masses. The festive spirit of the inaugurations in Cleveland and New York changed into an exclusive ceremony in Washington DC regardless of the fact that-as I mentioned earlier-some of the popular elements of the Kossuth cult were preserved.

The Hungarian-Americans' eagerness to erect statues, along with the public cult of the hero, permitted a peculiar sort of group formation in the diaspora. As a narrative, the participants rephrased their collective values in reference to Kossuth. Cleveland showed the formation and demonstration of self-esteem. Kossuth's name served to bind together the exiles and emigrants and American society. It bound them together by emphasizing the values that were common to them and counterbalancing the differences in social status under the given conditions. In New York the connection with the homeland became the crucial motif, the Hungarian government and public opinion looking upon Hungarian-Americans in a manner that was distinctly different from what had been true earlier. The Washington DC ceremony emphasized the nation as a cultural unit through Kossuth's person, and it did so in such a way that the three constituent parts-the Hungarians of Hungary, the Hun-garian minorities in neighbouring countries and Hungarian emigrants-were seen as complementary and equal elements.

Instead of existing in a definite and a priori given form, the true hero lives in a series of recreations using permanent and continuously changing elements. Remarkable skills are displayed in adapting to the changing requirements. Permanence is established by solidarity and group cohesion, the desire for unity. However, the professed desire for unity can also produce division. The fact remains, however, that in all three cases the figure of the hero was to further and to demonstrate co-operation. At the same time, all three events were different as regards the specific way in which the participants wanted to achieve and to express these values. Group solidarity, group awareness and pride permeated all three celebrations. Furthermore, it became apparent that the parti-cipants viewed themselves as part of a social and cultural unit larger than their immediate living space, as is well demonstrated by the second and the third examples. In those cases the distinctive function of the figure of Kossuth was to further the experience and awareness of an identity that transcended political borders.