Career
The origin of Kossuth family is dated back to the 13th century when king Béla IV of Hungary granted them the aristocratic title and the feod in Túróc (Slovak: Turiec) in 1263. The family residency was in the village Kosut (before Dvorec, now the part of Martin, Slovakia). The word “košút” in archaic Slovak means “a billy-goat” or “a somersault”.
The family was a typical example of provincial gentry in the Kingdom of Hungary and was kindred with other families of the local Slovak gentry in the region of Turóc and Liptó (Liptov) (Beniczky de Benice, Rakovszky de Rákó, Raksánszky de Kisraksa, Záborszky de Zábor and Zatureczky de Zaturcsány).
The family still exists in Slovakia. The father of György Kossuth was Pável Kossuth and his mother was Zsuzsanna Kossuth (née Beniczky).
László (1762–1839) was the father of Hungarian statesman Lajos Kossuth. György Kossuth was married to Anna (? – 1862?) but this couple had no children.
György Kossuth inherited and administered the family estate in Kosut.
He spoke Hungarian, Slovak, Czechoslovakian, Latin and German and served as a judge of provincial courts. He strongly supported the Slovak national movement and was one of 48 noblemen from Turóc who required government"s approval for publication of Slovak political newspapers. He later financially supported Slovak students and writers.
György Kossuth was an uncle of politician Lajos Kossuth (1802–1894).
But later when Lajos Kossuth adopted Magyar ethnical identity the relation between them was broken. György Kossuth reproached him “a treason of the Slovak nation and Kossuth family” and the fact that Lajos Kossuth as a chief-editor of the Magyar newspaper Hírlap refused to publish György Kossuth"s articles in which he was critical to the campaign of Magyarisation.
He also used to criticize the political style of Lajos Kossuth. He considered it as hyperemotional, aggressive, thoughtless, hysterical and even “crazy.” His widow (Anna) in 1862 disinherited Lajos Kossuth and entailed the family possession to the children of Lajos Kossuth (Ferenc Lajos, Vilma and Lajos Tódor).
