Andrássy - “A politician with healthy realism” - 2024-03-14 15:23:26

Written by ZI

To commemorate the 201st birthday of Count Gyula Andrássy, Andrássy University Budapest (AUB) organized a ceremonial wreath-laying ceremony in front of the Andrássy equestrian statue on Kossuth tér on Friday.

The event took place for the first time last year as part of Andrássy’s 200th birthday and is now set to become a tradition in the coming years.

Count Gyula Andrássy – The man of balance

After the Hungarian national anthem had faded, AUB Rector Prof. Dr. Zoltán Tibor Pállinger the politician Andrássy. According to Niccolo Machiavelli, a good politician has three qualities. He understands the necessity, recognizes opportunities for action, acts decisively, but also knows that he needs luck in his projects. “If you look at Andrássy’s life and work, you can quickly see that these characteristics apply to him.”

In his lecture, Pállinger also recalled the construction of the Andrássy monument next to the parliament building. The initiative came from the then Prime Minister Kálmán Tisza in 1890. The statue was presented to the public in 1906 by Emperor Franz Joseph, who was considered Andrássy’s former “arch enemy”. “Count Andrássy is one of the few politicians whose memory made it possible to bring together the highly polarized political camps.”

Pállinger also referred to the work of Andrássy. After his return from Paris in 1857, Andrássy gradually assumed a leading role in Hungarian political life. Supported by Empress Elisabeth, he was able to implement Ferenc Deák’s political ideas in the reconciliation negotiations and thus created the foundations of modern Hungarian statehood within the framework of the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy.

“Count Andrássy is one of the few politicians whose memory made it possible to bring together the highly polarized political camps.”

Designer of a new peace order

Finally, Pállinger went into the design of the monument. The statue depicts the count taking part in the royal coronation procession in Buda in 1867. As the first prime minister of the new Hungarian kingdom after reconciliation, he was the one who placed the Hungarian crown on the head of Emperor Franz Joseph. This same emperor had sentenced him to death in absentia during the Hungarian Revolution of 1848/49.

But from 1871 he became Franz Joseph’s constant advisor. Another relief on the statue shows Andrássy together with Chancellor Otto von Bismarck at the Berlin Congress of 1878. At this conference, which was also the highlight of his diplomatic career, he played a central role in shaping a new peace order for Central and Eastern Europe .

“In this sense, let us remember Andrássy, as an integrative personality as well as a politician and diplomat of national and European stature, who, equipped with a healthy realism, was able to repeatedly push the boundaries of the possible.”