Jozsef Eotvos Author

Baron Jozsef Eotvos - whose statue stands in Budapest in the square that bears his name - was one of the most interesting and appealing Hungarian public figures of the 19th century: a statesman driven by deep humanitarianism, a much-admired political thinker, and the first master of the Hungarian realist novel. He was born to a noble family in Buda in 1813, at a time when Latin was the official State language and German the language encouraged by the Habsburg monarchy. He did not learn Hungarian until he was 13. By the time Jozsef visited Ireland, he already had a reputation as a poet; and over the next ten years, he would publish a number of novels, including Hungary's first realist novel - The Village Notary /A falu jegyzoje (1845) - which was immediately hailed as a classic and translated into many languages. He campaigned for the freedom of the serfs and the emancipation of the Jews. As a government minister, he introduced ground-breaking proposals for universal education. He died in 1871.