Charles Kraitsir

Charles Kraitsir (born Károly Krajtsir, ; 28 January 1804 in Szomolnok, Hungary – 7 May 1860 in Morrisania, New York) was a Hungarian medical doctor, Polish independence fighter and émigré activist, and American philologist.

Biography He graduated at Pest with a degree in medicine in 1828. Afterwards he worked as a doctor in Eperjes. He was a doctor in the Polish insurgent army, assigned to 9th Infantry Regiment. He did not take advantage of an amnesty announced by Emperor Nicholas I of Russia on November 1, 1831, and did not return to Hungary. Kraitsir issued and printed at his own cost a proclamation to the Hungarian people, calling for help for the Polish emigration in Western Europe, which was then smuggled into Hungary. While in France, he maintained contacts with several people in Eperjes, Hungary, and was suspected by the Austrian police of intending to conspire in Hungary. He remained its member until he left France for the United States in May 1833.

In 1848 he went to Europe in an attempt to join the Hungarian Revolution of 1848. While in Europe he met up with Lelewel again, but afterward returned to Boston, and in 1851 came to New York State and passed his last years in Morrisania, engaged in literary pursuits.

Literary works The Poles in the United States (Philadelphia, 1836/7) First Book of English Significance of the Alphabet (Boston, 1846) Glossology, being a Treatise on the Nature of Language and on the Language of Nature (New York, 1852)