Ferenc Pulszky

Ferenc Aurél Pulszky de Cselfalva et Lubócz (17 September 1814 – 9 September 1897) was a Hungarian politician and writer.

He was born at Eperjes, now Prešov in Slovakia. After studying law and philosophy at the high schools of his native town and Miskolc, he travelled abroad. England particularly attracted him, and his book, Aus dem Tagebuch eines in Grossbritannien reisenden Ungarns (From the Diary of a Hungarian Travelling in Britain) (Pesth, 1837) gained for him the membership of the Hungarian Academy.

Elected to the Diet of Hungary of 1840, he was in 1848 appointed to a financial post in the Hungarian government, and was transferred in a similar capacity to Vienna under Esterházy. However, he was suspected of intriguing with the revolutionists of that year and fled to Budapest, where he became an active member of the Committee of National Defence. When obliged to flee after Hungary's defeat in the 1848–49 war of independence, he joined Lajos Kossuth in England and with him made a tour in the United States. In collaboration with his wife he wrote a narrative of this voyage entitled White, Red, Black (2 vols., London, 1853). He also wrote a historical introduction to his wife's Memoirs of a Hungarian Lady (by Theresa Pulszky, London, 1850).

Pulszky was condemned to death in contumaciam (in contempt of court, Pulszky having not attended) by a council of war in his home country in 1852. In 1860 he went to Italy, took part in Giuseppe Garibaldi's ill-fated expedition to Rome (1862), and was interned as a prisoner of war in Naples. Pulszky's salon in a villa in S. Margherita a Montici, Florence, was the liveliest in town. He financed the newspaper "Il Progresso." His son, Giulio Francesco Pulszky died on November 19, 1863, age 14, and is buried at English Cemetery, Florence. His surviving children were Augustus, Charles, Polixena, and Garibaldi.

Amnestied by the emperor of Austria in 1866, Pulszky returned home and re-entered public life. He was in 1867–76 and again in 1884 a member of the newly reformed Diet of Hungary, where he joined the Deák party.

In addition to his political activity, Pulszky was president of the literary section of the Hungarian Academy and director of the National Museum in Budapest, where he became distinguished for his archaeological researches. He employed his influence to promote both art and science and liberal views in his native country. He died in Budapest on 9 September 1897.

As Grand Master - János Jankó's caricature

Pulszky was initiated in 1863 into Lodge Dante Alighieri in Turin and was soon raised to the 33rd grade of the Scottish Rite. After his return to Hungary he contributed to re-establishing Hungarian freemasonry, first as Master of the Lodge "Einigkeit in Vaterland/Egység a hazában” (Unity in the Homeland), then as first Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of St John. After the establishment of the Symbolic Grand Lodge of Hungary (combining the Grand Lodge of St John and the Grand Orient at 1886) he became its first Grand Master. In 1875, he supported Countess Helene Hadik Barkóczy's initiation into a Masonic lodge.

Among his writings are Die Jacobiner in Ungarn (The Jacobins in Hungary) (Leipzig, 1851) and Életem és korom (My Life and Times) (Pest, 1880), and many treatises on Hungarian questions in the publications of the Hungarian Academy of Pest.