Kossuth - The Struggle for Independence

Down the long path of history, trampling across centuries and continents and the graves of kings and the necks of dictators, seeking always a way of life where the people have their freedom, believing, praying, fighting, dying, we came this way.

The NBC University of the Air, a public service feature of the National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated stations, presents We Came This Way, A new historical series for our listeners at home and overseas. With Kipton Atley as narrator, we present Chapter 7, the story of Koshoot, the struggle for independence in We Came This Way.

La Carte of Vienna, 1832. A place of waxed ballrooms, flirtatious eyes, handsomely uniformed officers guiding beautiful women across the dance floor. the courts of Vienna, a place also of intrigue, the power machine of imperialism, for the clinking of two wine glasses could signify the death of a nation.

Your highness is long as we continue to pit the races of Hungary against each other. Yes, yes, as we have done in the past. We do not stand in any immediate danger of Hungary ever becoming united strongly enough to demand its independence outright.

Urgh, no more politics, Prince Metonic, please. It is my birthday, I have some consideration, let us finish our wine and join the dancers." And while the emperor and Prince Methaneth laughed gaily with powdered ladies of the court, while feet were gliding gracefully across the checker dance floor, there was no dancing in the homes of Hungary, there was no music, no laughter, no gaiety.

Instead they were tears, and they were ringing hands and the all-too-familiar sound of a a hearse passing through the cobbled streets carrying away another citizen of hungering. Cholera had struck deep into the heart of a nation. There was hardly a family that had not been affected. Hardly a citizen who did not know at first hand