When Americans think of monuments to George Washington in Europe, Paris usually comes to mind: Daniel Chester French’s majestic equestrian statue, presented by the Daughters of the American Revolution as a tribute to France’s indispensable role in securing American independence. Others may know the bronze statue in London’s Trafalgar Square, a replica of Jean-Antoine Houdon’s celebrated likeness of Washington, cast from the original that still stands on Virginia soil.
Almost no one thinks of Budapest.
Yet the Washington statue standing beside a quiet lake in Budapest’s picturesque City Park may be the most American of them all. Not because it is the oldest or the grandest, but because of who built it and why.
Unlike the monuments in Paris and London—products of diplomacy between nations—the Washington statue in Budapest was commissioned, financed, and presented by foreign-born American patriots. Hungarian immigrants living in the United States raised the funds needed to erect a monument to America’s first president in the capital of the country they had left behind. That distinction matters.
As America debates immigration, assimilation, and national identity on the sesquicentennial of its birth as a nation, this forgotten story offers a striking reminder of what successful immigration once looked like—not merely economically, but civically. The story begins not in Budapest, but in Cleveland.
By the turn of the twentieth century, hundreds of thousands of Hungarians had crossed the Atlantic in search of opportunity. Drawn by America’s booming steel mills, coal mines, railroads, and factories, they settled in industrial cities stretching from Pennsylvania to Illinois. By 1910, more than 300,000 Hungarians lived in the United States. Cleveland alone was home to some 60,000 Hungarians, while large communities flourished in New York, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Bridgeport, Buffalo, Detroit, Toledo, and Trenton.
Most arrived with little money. Many spoke almost no English.
Yet they encountered something many had never experienced under the Habsburg Monarchy: citizenship in a constitutional republic where political liberty rested not on imperial favor but on the rule of law.
In 1902, Cleveland’s Hungarian community erected a bronze statue of Lajos Kossuth, the “George Washington of Hungary,” the great champion of independence. The monument itself symbolized the remarkable success of Hungarian immigrants in America. But almost immediately another idea emerged: If America could honor Hungary’s greatest patriot, why shouldn’t Hungarian Americans honor America’s?
The proposal came from Tihamér Kohányi, editor of Cleveland’s Hungarian-language newspaper Szabadság. It spread rapidly through Hungarian-American churches, benevolent societies, newspapers, and civic organizations across the United States. Pastors and priests urged participation. Steelworkers, miners, machinists, merchants, and factory laborers contributed what they could. Donations arrived not only from immigrant communities across America but even from Hungary itself. Within a remarkably short time, the necessary funds—amounting to several thousand dollars, an enormous sum for working-class immigrants—had been raised.
Their purpose was simple: They wanted to prove that Hungarian immigrants could become loyal Americans without ceasing to honor the country of their birth.
As one contemporary account explained, they wished to demonstrate that they were “not strangers, but citizens” of the United States. America was not merely “the country that gives bread,” but a constitutional republic whose ideals deserved gratitude, loyalty, and service.
Their gratitude took the form of a monument, and Budapest enthusiastically accepted the gift.
The city council unanimously approved placing Washington among the capital’s public monuments. After considerable debate, officials selected a prominent site in Városliget (City Park), overlooking one of Budapest’s most picturesque landscapes. Washington would stand above a lake that becomes an ice rink each winter and a boating lake each summer, framed by the fairy-tale towers of Vajdahunyad Castle and, beyond them, Heroes’ Square.
The monument itself reflected extraordinary care.
Sculptor Gyula Bezerédi created a bronze figure just over nine feet tall, set atop a sixteen-foot granite pedestal. Determined to portray Washington faithfully, he studied every known contemporary portrait before ultimately modeling the face after Jean-Antoine Houdon’s celebrated life sculpture—the only likeness made from life and still regarded as the most authentic image of America’s first president.
This was patriotism without bitterness, and assimilation without amnesia.
The dedication on September 16, 1906, became one of the largest Hungarian-American civic celebrations ever held in Europe. Nearly five hundred Hungarian Americans crossed the Atlantic to participate. Thousands of Budapest residents joined them.
The day began with church services. Catholics gathered in St. Stephen’s Basilica, where Bishop Ottokár Prohászka celebrated Mass. Protestants assembled at Calvin Square for worship before both congregations converged on City Park. Hungarian and American flags lined the route. Civic associations marched beneath forests of banners. Choirs sang the Hungarian national anthem while the crowd stood bareheaded. Contemporary observers repeatedly remarked not on loud celebration but on the remarkable solemnity of the occasion. “It was the celebration of an idea”—one newspaper wrote.
Among those in attendance was Count Albert Apponyi, the country’s most celebrated parliamentarian and orator, along with cabinet ministers, members of Parliament, Budapest’s Mayor István Bárczy, university rectors, clergy, and representatives of dozens of Hungarian and American organizations. Invitations had even been sent to governors across the United States, forty American newspapers, and numerous American mayors. Cleveland, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and Trenton responded with especially warm letters comparing the friendship symbolized by Washington and Kossuth.
One notable absence remained.
The United States government declined official representation.
The reason had little to do with hostility. Washington, DC, worried that official participation might appear to endorse dual political loyalties among naturalized Americans. During the commemorative banquet, Apponyi addressed the issue directly. Hungarian Americans, he explained, had become loyal citizens of the United States while naturally retaining affection for the land of their birth. That sentiment lay at the heart of the entire celebration.
Again and again, speakers praised Washington not primarily as the victorious commander of the Continental Army but as the citizen who voluntarily surrendered military power, rejected monarchy, and established constitutional government.
Jenő Rákosi, Hungary’s leading newspaper editor, captured the point beautifully: Washington’s greatness rested on “simplicity, justice, fidelity, and devotion to duty.” He reminded the audience that Washington could have become a king but chose instead to remain “the servant of his nation, not its master.” That, Rákosi argued, was the true source of America’s greatness. Budapest’s mayor emphasized the same lesson.
Contemporary accounts described Hungarian Americans walking Budapest’s streets with tears in their eyes as they revisited the homeland many had not seen for decades. Yet there was no resentment toward America—quite the opposite.
Again and again, the speakers spoke less of prosperity than of liberty. They thanked the United States for opening its doors and for preserving the constitutional freedoms they believed Europe had denied them. Kossuth embodied the Hungary they carried in their hearts. Washington embodied the America in which they had built new lives.
This was patriotism without bitterness, and assimilation without amnesia.
The builders of Budapest’s Washington monument believed the greatest debt they owed America was civic rather than financial. America had given them constitutional liberty. Their response was to honor the man who made that liberty possible.
That is why Budapest’s Washington statue differs from Europe’s other monuments.
Paris celebrates an alliance between nations. London commemorates Anglo-American friendship. Budapest commemorates something rarer: the transformation of immigrants into grateful citizens.
The Washington monument in City Park survived two world wars, fascism, communism, and every political upheaval of the twentieth century. It still stands quietly beside the lake where Hungarian Americans placed it nearly 120 years ago.
Most Americans have never heard its story. They should. As the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary, we rightly celebrate the men who founded the republic. But the anniversary should also remind us of those who chose America later—and loved its ideals enough to carry them back across the Atlantic.