Today we wandered through City Park on our way from a market and came across this:
It's a statue of George Washington with a plaque stating "Hungarians in America 1906". Why? I have no idea. It's interesting that throughout Budapest there are several references to the U.S... A statue of Ronald Reagan. Roosevelt Park. Roosevelt Square. And more recently, a statue of Steve Jobs. Unusual. Anyone know why American men are honored around Budapest?
That statue was built by an institution called AHF.
ReplyDelete"In 1902, a movement started to build a Kossuth statue in Cleveland. The movement was spearheaded by the "Szabadsag" Hungarian language newspaper and its editor Tihamer Kohanyi. The needed funds were raised within few short weeks. Some 60,000 people attended the unveiling, but there were no representatives from Hungary.As a sign of unity and to symbolize that Hungarians and Americans were tied together inextricably from the start, Hungarian American leaders conceived an idea to place a statue of George Washington in Budapest. AHF's "Statue Committee" was organized and the collection started with the Szabadsag's donation of $100. Fundraising was again successful and construction began on a site in Budapest's beautiful City Park (Város Liget). In 1906, several hundred American Hungarians traveled to Hungary for the unveiling led by Tihamer Kohanyi, AHF's first President. The group laid wreaths on the statues of Szechenyi, Petofi and visited the last resting place of Kossuth."
Why they built that statue in Hungary? Probably political reasons , the Austrian-Hungarian monarchy did not know what to do about the 1848-1849 revolution, so a Kossuth Statue here was impossible as far as I know, so they built a Washington Statue he also was a freedom fighter wasn't he? So there was a discrete parallelism with the two statue, but this is just a speculation. The Steve Jobs statue built by a software company Graphysoft, so they built it probably because they like computers. :)
Thanks for a bit of info Anonymous. I know the Ronald Reagan statue is there because of his influence in the fall of Soviet communism in Hungary. I kinda get that one. Any ideas about Roosevelt? He got a couple city center spots.
ReplyDeleteI have to say, I think the George Washington statue is strange because I don't think other countries would come to America and make a statue of one of their leaders in a city park in Washington DC. Why does America do this kind of thing? I'm American, but it seems a little egotistical to me. :) What do non-Americans think about this?
Hello Kimberly.How are you?
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"I have to say, I think the George Washington statue is strange because I don't think other countries would come to America and make a statue of one of their leaders in a city park in Washington DC. Why does America do this kind of thing?"
ReplyDeleteI was not clear, the Washington statue was built by Hungarian-Americans,(sounds crazy nowadays) and even it is a Washington statue it was built for Kossuth,the emperor was the same Francz Josef(1848 dec2-1916) who crushed the 1848-1849 revolution, so during that time a Kossuth statue was impossible, so they built a Washington one but that statue honored Kossuth in reality ,this is especially obvious because they built a Kossuth statue in Cleveland.So knowing the historical background it is okay, of course it is strange nowadays.
"Any ideas about Roosevelt?"
Probably second world war, I agree it is ridiculous.
There are lot of places in Europe named after people and places of the 2nd WW.
ReplyDeleteFor example in paris one of the major squares (and metro stations) is called Place de Stalingrad - while in Russia itself there is no more Stalingrad (it changed name already).
Incidentally they also have metro station called Franklin D. Roosevelt :-)
That makes a little more sense about G. Washington.
ReplyDelete"I don't think other countries would come to America and make a statue of one of their leaders in a city park in Washington DC"
ReplyDeleteThere is, as one example, a statue of Ghandi in Washington DC paid for by non-US donors.
Pretty basic to find information like this using a search engine.
Even information about the Washington Statue in Budapest is drop dead easy to find:
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Washington+statue+Budapest