Joseph Zichy

* Bratislava, 13 November 1841 – † Vedrőd, 11 November 1924 or 14 June 1926 / minister, chieftain, geographical traveler ; ; Zichy Ferenc (Bratislava, 24 January 1811 – Káloz, 17 July 1900) was the son of politician and diplomat Ferenc Zichy (Pozsony/Austria, 14 June 1852 – Vienna, 4 October 1925), a traveler. He studied law in Vienna. He then worked first at the Royal Curia, from 1867 to 1869 he was an honorary departmental councillor at the Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Trade, and was a member of parliament between 1868–1870 and 1872–1875. From 1870, he was the first governor of Fiume, then between 5 December 1872 and 21 March 1874, he was the minister of agriculture, industry and trade, and partly simultaneously (until 2 March 1875) the minister of public works and transport in the Szlávy and Bittó governments. In 1889–1893, he was also the governor of Bratislava County and City, and in a temporary capacity in 1891–1893, he was also the governor of Trenčín County. He resigned from his office due to opposition to the church policy bills. A member of the House of Lords, after his ministry and governorship, he kept himself away from active public activity. He made extensive trips to Europe, Asia and America, his most significant trip was to Asia with his younger brother Ágost in 1875–1877. They visited China, the Dutch East Indies, Siam, Japan, and then returned to Hungary via the Gobi Desert and Siberia. Ágost Zichy reported on this trip in several studies, and even held his academic chair on it. It was only in the sixties of the last century (around 1965) that József Zichy's Diary, which contains notes recorded during the trip, was discovered. The Hungarian manuscript was inherited from the family and was transferred to the Slovak National Archives in Bratislava. It was translated into Slovak by the editor Katarína Potoková, who lives in Nitra, and was published in 2006 with an afterword. The original text has not yet been published in print.