The Old Kossuth

The national hero of Hungary Lajos Kossuth had this picture made when he was ninety years old on 13 December 1892 in studio Schemboche in Turin. Kossuth (1802-1894) spent the last years of his life in Turin because it was impossible for him to return to his fatherland. The radical liberal had claimed the independence of Hungary from Austria in the slipstream of the 1848 revolutions and had become the leader of the new government in 1849. It only held for a few months. Even after restauration and Kossuths flight he kept referring to himself as 'regent'. In 1890 a speech of Kossuth was recorded by an Edison phonograph. He is the earliest born person whose voice was preserved.