In a park at the Piata Libertatii (Freedom Square) is a memorial for Imre
Szacsvay. The memorial consists of a life-size bronze statue of Imre Szacsvay on
a big stone pedestal. Next to the pedestal is a statue of a lion and a female
figure. The stone lion statue shows the strong muscles of the animal and the
lion is holding his head up with a lot of pride. The memorial was created by Ede
Margó in 1907. In 1937 the memorial was dismantled, because rumors said, that
the Romanian authorities wanted to remove it entirely.It was then stored in a
museum and in 1942, it was decided to erect it again on the spot where it is
standing today. The iscription on the pedestal has the Hungarian text:
Szacsvay
Csak egy tollvonás volt bune
Imre Szacsvay
"Imre Szacsvay (b. 1 November 1818, Chisirid, Austrian Empire - d. 24
October 1849, Pest, Kingdom of Hungary) was a Hungarian lawyer and
politician who took part in the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 and, after its
suppression, was sentenced to death and executed by the Austrian
authorities.
Biography
He was born in 1818 in the village of Chisirid in the commune of Nojorid
and was baptized in the Roman Catholic church in the village of Sauaieu.
Imre Szacsvay graduated from the Roman-Catholic High School in Oradea, after
which he studied law at the Royal Academy of Law in Kassa and became a
lawyer after an examination in Bratislava. From 1834 he joined the deputy
Ödön Beöthy (1796-1854), the leader of the liberal reformist opposition in
Bihor county, and worked for a time as an official in the National Assembly.
In 1840 he returned to Oradea, where he then opened a law office and held
several public offices.
In the spring of 1848 Imre Szacsvay participated as a representative of
the Liberals in the early events of the Hungarian Revolution. He played an
active role in promoting the revolutionary ideas in the city of Oradea and
helped to mobilize the citizens of Oradea on the morning of 13 March 1848.
Szacsvay was a supporter of Lajos Kossuth, who appointed him on May 10, 1848
as the prosecutor of Oradea County. He was elected deputy for Oradea
(Várad-Újváros and Várad-Olaszi) in the National Assembly of Hungary on 24
June 1848, and, after the seat of parliament was moved to Debrecen, he
became secretary-notary of the House of Representatives on 13 January 1849.
In the course of 1849 he began to radicalise and on 5 April 1849 became a
founding member and then one of the leading politicians of the Radical
Party, whose programme included Hungarian independence. On 13 April 1849, as
a representative of the Hungarian revolutionaries in Bihor County, he
supported Kossuth's motion to dethrone the House of Habsburg and actively
participated in the drafting of the Hungarian Declaration of Independence,
being one of its signatories. Szacsvay's radicalism manifested itself in a
series of legislative proposals such as the secularisation of church
property and its distribution to the population.
After the defeat of the Hungarian Revolution in 1848 and the signing of
the Peace of Yria, he went to Oradea and hid in the village of Arpasel in
the province of Biora, but was captured by the imperial commissioner Péter
Jósa and taken into custody in Pest. The imperial authorities accused him of
insurrection and treason by drafting and signing the Declaration of
Independence; Szacsvay rejected these charges, believing that he was only
doing his duty to his nation. He was sentenced to death and then, on 24
October 1849, was executed by hanging in Pest. The reason for his death
sentence was later summarised as follows: 'Only a feather was his fault' (in
Hungarian: Csak egy tollvonás volt bune).
Imre Szacsvay was buried in the Kerepesi cemetery in Budapest in a grave
that remained unmarked for 21 years. On 1 November 1870 a memorial was
erected on his grave and those of eight other Hungarian patriots."
Translated from source:
ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imre_Szacsvay_(avocat)