Ferenc Kubiny's house in Losonc

The one-story building at No. 11, located in the northeastern part of the main street of Losonc, which the locals called the “gateway house” for a long time, has been the entrance to the shopping street called Arany Street since 1993. The spacious, arched entrance and the barrel-vaulted ground floor rooms hint at the building’s former glory, but there is nothing to indicate that this old townhouse had notable owners and no less notable guests in the 19th century - Mihály Vörösmarty, Gábor Egressy, Imre Madách, Artúr Görgei. The house of the prominent public figure and naturalist Kubinyi Ferenc 1796-1874, who was born in the neighboring Videfalva but lived in Losonc in the 1840s, and his wife, Franciska Losonczi Gyürky, is the center of the social life of the city and the county, and was the scene of charitable lectures and events during the Reform Era. ; As a representative of Nógrád, Kubinyi made his voice heard at the reform assemblies in Bratislava in the 1830s. He is mentioned among the leading figures of the Diet, along with Kossuth, Széchenyi, and Wesselényi. He points out the miserable fate of the peasants, the famine, and the shortcomings of the school system. In addition to his diverse public activities, he carries out scientific research, mainly in the fields of geology, paleontology, and archaeology. In 1837, he surveys and describes the petrified tree of Ipolytarnóc, a piece of which he places in his house in Losonc. In 1842, together with his wife, he supports the founding of the Losonc children's shelter, initiates a tannery, and becomes its president. As a chief civil servant, he is on the preparatory committee of the Nógrád National Institute, which is intended to promote the standard of education, the spread of the Hungarian language, and the education of women. In early 1848, he was a founding member of the Hungarian Geological Society. In March 1848, the nobles gathered in the Madách mansion in Csesztve elected him as a delegate to the People's Representative Parliament. The Kubinyi House, full of art treasures, was burned down by the Russians in 1849. After its reconstruction, it had various owners until it became the property of the city. After the defeat of the War of Independence, Kubinyi carried out scientific work in Pest. He was present again as a representative of Losonc at the 1861 Parliament, and together with Imre Madách, he stood up for the renewal of constitutionalism and independence. He died poor and lonely in 1874. He summed up his life thus: "What I did, I did out of duty to my dear country and in the interest of national science." In 1887, the Losonc city council renamed the Inner Market Square Kubinyi Square.