Count Szechenyi Isrvan, a Hungarian statesman, born in Vienna, Sept. 21, 1791, died by his own hand at Dobling, April 8, 1860. He was the son of Count Francis Szechenyi, the founder of the national museum at Pesth, served in the last campaigns of Austria against Napoleon, and in 1825 took his seat in the upper house of the Hungarian diet. He contributed the sum of $30,000 toward the foundation of the Hungarian national academy, and was its vice president; and as leader of the national party he carried through a grand series of public enterprises. To popularize his schemes of reform, he published Hitel (" Credit," Pesth, 1830), and Vilag ("Light," 1832). Frightened by Kossuth's radical agitation, he wrote against him his Relet nepe (" People of the East," 1840), and combated him in the diet of 1847; but in 1848 he yielded to the current, and entered the Batthvanvi-Kossuth cabinet as minister of public works. On the outbreak of the war he became insane, and was taken to an asylum at Dobling near Vienna, in which, though he recovered after some time, he spent the remainder of his life.

In March, 1860, his abode and papers were searched by the Austrian police, and shortly after he shot himself.