Lajor Kossuth in America, by Ari Sclar

Alas! Europe can no more secure to Europe fair play. [England] only remains; but even England casts a sorrowful glance over the waves. Still we will stand our place, "sink or swim, live or die." You know the word; it is your own. We will follow it; it will be a bloody path to tread. Despots have conspired against the world. Terror spreads over Europe, and, anticipating persecution, rules. From Paris to Pesth [Budapest] there is a gloomy silence, like the silence of Nature before the terrors of a hurricane…

Lajos Kossuth (Hungarian nationalist leader), Speech at dinner given

in his honor by the United States Congress, 1852

1. How would a historian use the above passage to describe the situation of Hungarian nationalism in the middle of the 19th Century?

1. Is there any significance of the speech’s date? Explain.

1. How would an ethnic Slav or ethnic German living next door to an ethnic Hungarian view this speech? Explain.