BESZÉDES

HUNGARY (see also List of Individuals)

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13.2.1787 Magyarkanizsa/H - 28.2.1852 Dunaföldvár/H

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József Beszédes completed his university studies in Eger and Pest, graduating from the Pest Institutum Geometricum in 1813 as a civil engineer. In 1819, he also obtained the doctorate in philosophy. He started his practical activities at the Sárvíz Nádor Csatorna Water Board and continued working on drainage projects around the cities of Veszprém, Tolna, Komárom, Pozsony and Nyitra. From 1816, Beszédes directed the Sárvíz Water Board which led then to regulation works of the Sárvíz, the Sió and the Kapos Rivers until 1825. He integrated thereby uniform flood protection levees along the Danube River reach between Baja and Báta. The latter project served as the basis for the economical rise of the Sárköz Region. In 1827, Beszédes was also invited to design the railway line between Linz and Budweis in Austria and to drain its surroundings.

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The third large project in which Beszédes was involved was the Nádor Mill Canal originating from the Fehér-Körös River in Arad County, today in Romania. He thereby was the first to consider a regulation of the Lower Danube for ensuring its navigability and to design a deep-cut multipurpose canal connecting the Danube with the Tisza River. On the initiative of Count István Széchenyi (1791-1860), the Hungarian Parliament accepted in 1840 an Act on the construction of that canal. Among his numerous projects of note are those relating to the level lowering of Lake Balaton in Western Hungary, the drainage of the Fertö-Hanság Region and the addition of a flood protection scheme to the Upper Tisza Valley. Beszédes was further a pioneer in hydropower and agricultural engineering at an international level. He added also significantly to the technical writings in Hungary.

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_{Anonymous (1967). József Beszédes. Magyar életrajzi lexikon 1: 203-204. Akadémiai Kiadó: Budapest. P}

_{Anonymous (1994). Beszédes József. Magyar Nagylexikon 3: 740-741. Budapest. P}

_{Beszédes, J. (1840). Flusskarte von Ungarn zum Gebrauch der Slavonischen Gesellschaft.}

_Budapest.

_{Fodor, F. (1952). József Beszédes. Vízügyi Közlemények (2): 159-160 (in Hungarian).}

_{Károlyi, Z. (1953). Life and activities of József Beszédes. Budapest, with bibliography (in Hungarian). P}

_{László, F. (1963). József Beszédes, the outstanding hydraulic engineer of the Hungarian Reform Period. Vízgazdálkodás (1): 4-6 (in Hungarian).}