Ludmann Mihály - Az irredenta szobrok mesterei

On January 16, 1921, the irredenta sculpture group was inaugurated in Budapest's Szabadság Square in the presence of tens of thousands of people. The Italian word irredenta means "unredeemed, unliberated", which indicated that there were Italian-inhabited areas that still belonged to other states after Italian unification. The term irredentism was used for the movement and idea that was aimed at reclaiming the territories historically belonging to Hungary, awarded to foreign states by the Trianon peace decree, on which more than three million Hungarians lived as a minority. The inaugurated statues therefore bore the names of the four main skyscapes as their titles, also referring to the enclosed areas. The four statues were erected half a year after the signing of the decree, thereby expressing that Hungarian society rejected this imposed state of affairs and expressed the desire to change it. The sculptures were made by the renowned artists of the time, who were the defining masters of Hungarian sculpture even in the following decades. This is why the book undertook not only to present the sculptures of the four celestial bodies, the organizations and functioning of Hungarian artistic life between the two world wars, but also the life and artistic careers of Zsigmond Kisfaludi, János Pásztor, Ferenc Sidló and István Szentgyörgyi, as well as their significant works. too.