175 years ago, on October 6, 1849, 13 Hungarian army officers were executed in Arad. The bloody revenge following the suppression of the revolution of 1848-1849 was one of the most sorrowful events of the revolution, leading Lajos Kossuth, who was already elderly and in exile in Turin, to express in his message sent for the unveiling of the Liberty Statue that “Arad is the Hungarian Golgotha.” On October 6, the attention of the Hungarian diaspora worldwide is focused on Arad. The central commemoration takes place at the martyrs’ monument, but more than two dozen memorial sites remain throughout the counties, and some buildings still bear the traces of the events of the 1848-1849 revolution.
The Hungarian community in Arad has been carrying the memory of the heroic generals close to their hearts since the execution on October 6, 1849. After the suppression of the revolution, during the dictatorship, it was not possible to remember freely, but it became possible only after the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867. Memorials were erected, and collections were started to create a museum from relics related to the revolution, which the Romanian authorities after World War I and then the communist dictatorship tried to erase from the collective memory. Despite this, more than two dozen memorials remain in Arad County, and in the county seat, some buildings still preserve the traces of the events in Arad in 1848-1849. The initiator of the first, rudimentary memorial after the easing was Péter Barabás, a carpenter and the father of Béla Barabás, later a member of parliament.
“A strawberry tree was dug up from his own garden, which he had brought with his men to the execution site. Thirteen branches were left, on which the names of the generals were written on notes. Allegedly, someone wanted to bring a souvenir home and broke a branch off the tree. Unfortunately, bad examples are contagious, and this strawberry tree was soon left bare,” narrates Péter Puskel, a journalist, local historian, who mentioned the incident in his book “Stories and Legends about the Arad Martyrs” published in 2011.
In 1871, a granite plate was placed at the presumed site of the execution, ten years later, in 1881, the obelisk that is still visible today was erected, and in its pedestal, in 1974, the earthly remains of 11 of the martyr generals were laid to rest on the 125th anniversary of the execution.
Ernő Kiss was buried in Elemér, Serbia, while Aristid Dessewfyy was reburied in Margonya, Slovakia, decades earlier, at the request of their families. Four generals were shot dead near Gate No. 6 of the castle early on October 6, 1849, while nine were hanged outside the castle walls. However, the Austrian castle commander did not allow the executed to be Christianly buried, saying “the soldier should rest where he fell.”
Peter Csernovics, the former government commissioner, paid off the executioner and the guards of Lahner György and Damjanich János at the request of Emília, Damjanich János’ wife. His men smuggled the bodies of Damjanich and Lahner, and reburied them in the park of the Csernovics Castle in Mácsa. At the request of the families, Count Leiningen-Westerburg’s body was exhumed and reburied in the seventies of the 19th century in Borosjenő, and his mortal remains were brought from there to the pedestal of the obelisk at the execution site,” recounted Puskel Péter.
The bones of the others and the fragments of the gallows were found during excavations in the 1930s and were laid to rest in the aradi common cemeteries, eventually reburied the generals in 1974. The research revealed that the public memory erroneously identified the site of the executions because it was about 200-250 meters from the current obelisk, between the Maros River and the castle wall, where the road leading towards Temesvár now runs – explained Péter Puskel, summarizing: “They gave their lives for Hungarian freedom, but none of the 13 rest in present-day Hungary.”
In 1867, a call was published in the newspaper “Alföld,” which led to a nationwide collection for the establishment of the ’48 Relic Museum. The work was organized by the Kölcsey Society, which was established to support public education and preserve the memory of the martyrs, and in 1893, the first exhibition opened on March 15.
Initially, the relics were housed in the theater’s upstairs rooms, but the collection continued to grow, and when the Cultural Palace was built in 1913, they were moved to the more than 17,000 objects and documents. Today, the official Romanian cultural policy regards the Relic Museum as the predecessor of the current Arad County Museum, and last year, the founding’s 130th anniversary was tied to this date.
The collection survived the First World War and the Trianon border changes, as well as the first dark periods of the communist dictatorship, but in the mid-1970s, when the Ceaușescu era began to dominate, the relics were banished to the depths of the warehouses, leaving only a few objects in a corner. In 2009 and 2010, with the support of the Szeged Móra Ferenc Museum and the Budapest Military History Institute and Museum, the relics were restored and cataloged, and since October 1, 2015, the Arad Museum’s second floor displays a permanent exhibition.
Zakár Péter, a historian from Szeged and one of the project leaders, called it a unique thematic collection that was created through civic initiative and civil cooperation. “We found documents that can complement our existing knowledge of the 1848 revolution and objects that visitors can see to get an idea of how these people lived their everyday lives,” he said earlier.
In Arad, rare items are on display such as Kossuth Lajos’s pipe, Count Leiningen-Westerburg Károly’s perfume flask, Damjanich János’s cane and folding armchair, or pieces of the carriage that carried Damjanich to the execution site.
The idea of statue erection was also raised in Arad in the 1880s. The city’s statue commission was won by Adolf Huszár in a competition, but due to his unexpected death, the completion of the sculpture project was entrusted to the young sculptor from Lendava, György Zala.
It was not completed by the fortieth anniversary of the events, so it was unveiled on October 6, 1890, behind the theater on Liberty Square.
Unfortunately, it stood on the square for only 35 years, and even during this time, the people of Arad could not see it as the introduced Romanian administration during the First World War removed it.
In 1921, the Brătianu government decided to dismantle it, board it up, and then in 1925, it was dismantled into pieces,” said Péter Puskel.
Until October 1, the allegorical statue figures were kept in the Arad castle, and following a Romanian-Hungarian government intergovernmental agreement, they were brought out and, after restoration, re-erected in April 2004 on the city square: not in its original location, but in the former Attila, later Firefighters Square, where the Romanian-Hungarian Reconciliation Park was created.
Arad is not only associated with the tragic outcome of the revolution but also with glorious battles: on February 8, 1849, in addition to the Austrian regular troops, Serbian counterrevolutionary rebels from the Southern Meadow invaded the city. The soldiers – who were reportedly encouraged to battle by Captain Sándor Asztalos and the elderly government commissioner Boczkó Dániel with his walking stick – managed to drive out the enemy only at the cost of bloody sacrifices.
According to Puskel, this was an important psychological victory, as the news of the soldiers’ bravery spread, “Kossuth compared the bravery of the people of Arad to the heroism of the defenders of Eger.”
A carrara marble statue of Aradi Zsigmond, the Mourning Arad, commemorates this event in Arad, placed at the northern end of Andrássy Square (today’s main square), facing the theater. It was later relocated to the former Honvéd Cemetery and incorporated into the museum’s inventory after the cemetery was cleared and stored in the warehouse for 92 years. After a complete restoration, it has been on permanent display again since March this year in the Relic Museum collection.
This was the most sorrowful day for Arad during the revolution. There were lootings, robberies, killings, mounds of corpses in the city, and in addition to the many civilian casualties, about 250 soldiers also fell.
However, when the statue was erected on February 8, 1873, while many old honor officers who suffered that day were still alive, they did not erect a sword-clashing, victory-proclaiming statue, but a humble, sorrowful one, to symbolize that such a tragedy can happen,” said Károly Fekete, the Vice President of the Kölcsey Society, at the March opening.
The tragic outcome of the revolution was preceded by the Világos negotiations between General Artúr Görgey and the leaders of the Russian Tsarist troops called in by the Austrians, and the surrender on August 13, 1849, on the Csikérszőllő plain.
At the Szolosi field’s former mill building, near the capitulation site, the soldiers surrendered themselves. Today, only the walls of the mill remain.
The public is led to these historical sites by István Erdélyi as a tour guide, showing them the locations of the street battles fought against Serbian rebels in February 1849 as well.
Arad has many other well-known locations related to the events of 1848-1849. After the outbreak of the revolution, the castle remained in Austrian hands, and the castle commander bombarded the city for three months, resulting in the destruction of most medieval buildings.
The cannonballs can still be seen in some house walls: for example, in the former Rácz Quarter, in the Preparandia building’s wall, in the Main Street of Újarad, known as the Beller House, the new owners left the cannonballs from renovations as a memento.
The guided tour starts from the city center. “Here is the White Cross Hotel, where the stagecoach arrived with the twelve points and the news of the revolution, and where the officers were accommodated before the trial. From there, we reach the Liberty Square, where the former Town Hall was located, where the revolutionary government held its last meeting and where Kossuth vested Görgey with full power. Continuing, we see the old theater, where the twelve points were read, the German and Czech actors were chased away, and the Rákóczi Anthem was sung. We arrive at the Csernovics House, where Damjanich and Lahner’s bodies were brought after the execution, then transported to Mácsa. Along the way, we visit the big house, or the Winkler House, where the Austrian security operated,” describes István Erdélyi.
Less known figure of the revolution and war of independence is Gaál László, a Hungarian general who fought in a dozen victorious battles under the command of General Bem. Leaving Arad, he joined the Transylvanian army.
In early 1849, he lost his left leg in the Temesvár battle from a 12-pound cannonball. His faithful soldiers carried him for an hour and a half on rifles, then offered the carriage of Colonel Vilmos Lázár to him, who transported him to Bulcs, where he was hidden by Baron Fechtig until February 1850.
Legend says that when he learned of the Arad execution, he poisoned himself and was buried in Bulcs. However, there are more than 25 ’48 graves and memorial sites in Arad county. Among them is the lesser-known grave of Várady-Baranyai György in Világos, or the grave of the cannon founder bell-maker master Hönig Frigyes in the Arad cemetery.
Kossuth Lajos stayed here before going into exile through Orsova, commemorated on a plaque on the wall of a house in Máriaradna.
These are just a few of the many stories and historical locations intertwined with the events of 1848-1849 in Arad, showcasing the rich history and memory of the region.
