István Széchenyi

Born Sept. 21, 1791, in Vienna; died Apr. 8, 1860. In Döbling. Hungarian political and public figure. Count and land magnate.

During the 1820’s and 1830’s, Széchenyi led the liberal nobility in a struggle for reforms. He favored the implementation of reforms by the nobility and was one of the main political opponents of L. Kossuth on the eve of Hungary’s Revolution of 1848–49. In April 1848 he joined the cabinet of L. Batthyány as minister of transportation and public works. He opposed the terrorist dictatorship established in Hungary after the suppression of the revolution. In 1857, in London, he published an anonymous work in which he indicted Hapsburg absolutism for the tragic fate of Hungary. Széchenyi took his own life.