Honvéd Monument in Iglo
Statue, monument, memorial plaque
Several battles of the Winter Campaign of 1849 took place in the historical Spiš region, in memory of which several monuments were erected by posterity. Of these, the Levoča and Igló national defense monuments were damaged and then destroyed (on March 16, 1919), and the Spišská Szombathely monument was transformed. Only the tombs erected in honor of the heroic dead of the battles of Igló and Braniszko have survived in their original form. These tombs were rediscovered by the participants of the National Heritage Cycling Tours a few years ago. ; In February 1849, 67 national defense soldiers who fell in the battle for the defense of the city of Igló were buried in a common grave, and a memorial plaque was attached to the huge granite block placed above the grave. The tomb was maintained for a long time by Hungarian high school students from the Highlands, participants of the Mobile University of Homeland Studies, and later by the citizens of Igló, who have also maintained the tomb in exemplary order in recent years. Despite the continuous care, the bronze memorial plaque disappeared from the granite rock in 2003. In 2009, on the 160th anniversary of the Battle of Igló, László Köteles, member of parliament, general vice-president of the Csemadok, and main organizer of the Mobile University of Homeland Studies, urged and undertook the restoration of the tomb and the replacement of the plaque. László Köteles, in cooperation with art historians from Košice, made a copy of the original memorial plaque at his own expense. The memorial plaque was solemnly inaugurated again on May 21, 2010, in the Igló cemetery, in the presence of students from the Hungarian high schools of Szeps and Rozsnyó. At the commemoration, László Köteles emphasized that it is now the responsibility of the young generation present to ensure that the memories that prove our past and values remain in their original places. Our memories prove that the borders of our history and culture are not the same as the current ethnic borders.