Introduction
The representatives of Hungarian liberal nationalism, like their Danish, Belgian, German, Polish, Italian and Spanish counterparts, were closely linked to their aristocratic, estate (Stände) and enlightened proto-liberal forebears. Their programme and strategy, rights-extending assimilation, was the most successful among the movements of East-Central and Southern European liberal nationalisms, as it provided the foundations for the two political system transformations of 1848 and 1867. However, the more the extension of rights was carried out, the more it turned out that it was unable to achieve its assimilation aim: salvaging the social and political power of the nobility through the mere extension of rights. In this way, Hungarian liberal nationalism, like all liberal nationalisms, became intellectually exhausted and politically marginalized, decayed, and gave way to conservative nationalism at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. Yet it had a unique role within the Habsburg Empire because it did succeed in establishing a civil state system from a rare and unusual estate (Stände) political pluralism.
Stirred by this relationship, the question I seek to answer in this study is: what were the characteristic features of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Hungarian political debates, in contrast to the strategies, programmes, fundamental concepts and presuppositions of the liberal-conservative disputes of the 1840s, and to the political aspects of the discourse on the national character in the interwar period? The change did not point from romanticism towards realism, as these positions bear both romantic and realistic elements, although not in the same proportions. As far as I can see, the debates were no longer determined by the discourse of liberal nationalist rights-extending assimilation, which I have chosen as a starting point for the comparison, yet public speech was not entirely determined by the ethnicist–essentialist subject matter of the later characterology discourse, my final line in the comparison. In between the two, the internal dilemma of the rights-extending assimilation was externalized. There were some who sought to advance the extension of rights in the direction of suffrage – nolens volens – foregoing assimilation. There were others who held on to rights extension in the hope of assimilation, and believed they could promote it through establishing institutions of public education and making them accessible to all. There were yet others who abided by rights-extending assimilation, but interpreted it in terms of individual cultivation. Yet others believed that their fears of historical Hungary falling apart and the decay of the national middle class could be counterbalanced by curtailing or revoking nationalities’ rights and enforcing exclusionary policies against them.
I will approach the broad change in discourse through a limited vista, presenting the positions of the liberal lawyer and political thinker Gyula Schvarcz (b. Székesfehérvár, 1838, d. Budapest, 1900), the liberal historian Henrik Marczali (b. Marcali, 1856, d. Budapest, 1940), the conservative-liberal journalist Gusztáv Beksics (b. Gamás, 1847, d. Budapest, 1906) and the conservative political thinker Mihály Réz (b. Maroscsapó, 1878, d. Geneva, 1921). My presupposition is that the thinkers selected are not only types in respect of the comparison between the Vormärz and the interwar period, but also representatives of their own age.
Context and Topics
The challenges of the absolutist, civilizing and modernizing policies of Joseph II elicited several responses from Hungarian political discourse, ranging from maintaining the status quo ante through progressive innovations to radical reforms. Among these, the position that came to acquire greatest import in the spring of 1848 was the rights-extending assimilationist programme and strategy of liberal nationalism. Its most important achievements were the legal sanctification and institutionalization of the sovereignty of the people in the form of popular representation, the separation and division of the branches of power, the liberation of serfs, general taxation and a ministerial government responsible to parliament. Following the Hungarian victories in the defensive war against Austria and the national-minority led civil wars, the joint military intervention by Austria and Russia in the summer of 1849 brought about the establishment of absolutism. Independent Hungarian statehood was excluded from the domain of politics, receding into internal and external exile. Political discourse was driven out of political institutions, and withdrew back into literature and society life. After the revolution, pamphleteering came into vogue. Almost all intellectuals who had participated in the revolution wrote interpretations of the recent past. In the fermenting period of 1860–1861, pamphleteering could again link up with the public opinion-shaping role of recuperating political institutions; however, absolutism had free reign over the country again for half a decade.
From 1867 on, political institutions began to be re-established, and political debate went public again. Adjusted to parliamentary politics, professional and matter-of-fact views were voiced together with emotionally charged opinions questioning the very foundations of the system being created. Within the framework of the Hungarian political nation, the Act on Nationalities embodied the rights-extending assimilationist programme and strategy of establishing a political community. The mode of constitutional progress and the order of liberty were primarily interpreted in the debates over the relationship between local government and central authority. These disputes often referred to the absolutism–constitutionalism opposition, but generally left it behind. The requirements of eliminating backwardness and civilizing were detailed in the specialized fields of policy, from infrastructure to creating a public educational system. The establishment of order was reinterpreted again and again in the continuing and practical definition of the limits of the Hungarian political nation, the determination of the relationship between central and local government and the discussions on concrete policies. Naturally, these involved clashes between values and interests, and reinterpretations of earlier perfectionist or utilitarian notions of the nation.
The timely issues of the partnership and economic alliance with Austria, the changes in foreign policy, the place of nationalities’ autonomies within the concept of the Hungarian political nation, the relationship with the winners and losers of economic competition, the actual and desirable relationship between state and church and between denominations all raised the questions of state intervention and neutralism, and made the participants in the debates take their stances on whatever they thought the proper direction, measure and pace of progress would be, and how this related to the meaning, characteristics and duties of state integrity and cohesion in the Hungarian political nation of a multinational Hungary.
Extending Democratic Mentality by Public Education
There are only three countries in Europe without fundamental laws systematically laying down the entire constitution – the UK, the Grand Duchy of the united Mecklenburg, and Hungary. Sweden has had a ‘written constitution’ for at least 12 years, and it has achieved more progress in terms of thought, morals, law, liberty and welfare in those 12 years than the entire previous generation. This is what Hungary should have done when changing the former feudal constitution to a representative one in 1848. It failed to do so. In part, it sought to imitate English constitutionalism. It was gravely mistaken. It had another opportunity to do so in 1867, but failed again – to the great detriment of its constitutional development. Had systematic fundamental laws been passed, which would have outlined not only the organizations and scopes of the existing institutions of the state, but – like the fundamental laws of other European countries – also the organizations and scopes of institutions, the establishment of which the spirit and governing ideas of that constitution would require, then the entire series of governments we have had since the coronation would not have been flustered, not have lacked governing ideas, would not have forgotten or intentionally neglected to fulfil crucial important state duties, and not have shyly had a dig or two at issues brought up by the interests of day-to-day and partisan politics, while never actually resolving them. This is the very advantage of a systematic basic law in respect of the constitutionalism of a backward country such as Hungary; it provides unified, determined guidance and animating spirit to the most influential minds of the legislature in building up the state organization almost from the foundations, due to the country’s century-long lag behind. (Schvarcz Reference Schvarcz1879, 492–497)
The lawyer and political thinker Gyula Schvarcz belonged to the group that sought to develop the liberal–nationalist strategy of rights-extending assimilation through public education towards democracy and general suffrage. By way of a rationalist–constructive procedure, he sought to break away from traditions, historical privileges, feudal constitutionalism and institutions. He believed it was not enough to rely on the spirit of the 1848 legislation, and that liberties and rights had to be precisely defined. In the spirit of rationalism, he believed all could be changed and improved. This was why he promoted codification, the elaboration of a fundamental law and precise basic laws. In part, he did so because, unless precisely worded laws contained it, state power with its regulations and authoritarian procedures would infringe on the private sphere, limiting its space. However, state intervention was obviously necessary in a number of areas such as the economy, education and welfare, and thus state power was to be kept under the strict control of rule-of-law institutions and civil initiative.
Schvarcz was a supporter of self-government and civil initiative on the basis of public education for extending democratic mentality. Should the two clash, he would opt for education and professionalism. Like many a liberal afraid of democracy, he made the extension of political rights conditional on educational guarantees. At the same time, he would not be content with the mere declaration of equal opportunity; and, noticing actual differences in opportunity, he proposed to equalize them through, to use a term of our time, affirmative action – progressive taxation and welfare measures taken by the fundamental institutions and legislature. He believed education had a vital role in this because education appropriately organized would not only civilize, but also democratize. He was convinced that anyone could join the educational system, go through its various levels, and thereby rise from his or her earlier condition. He believed educational reform would contribute to the democratization of a backward society.
He did not regard the democracies of the ancient Greek polises as ideals for modern ones; he much rather censured them for lacking features modern democracies had – quite unhistorically. What he was in search of was whether a given state fulfilled the requirements of a desired setup. He critiqued ancient democracies on normative grounds (Schvarcz Reference Schvarcz1865, Reference Schvarcz1886).
Gyula Schvarcz set himself against the cult of the reformist Hungarian politician István Széchenyi (1791–1860), taking sides with Lajos Kossuth (1802–1894); he severely criticized the Ausgleich, but, subsequently, worked for Hungarian renewal within its institutional framework. I believe that, with his normative approach, he wished to find a proper state setup and to promote Hungary’s catching up with Western Europe, to move from a backward country to belonging among civilized nations. His political language was therefore closer to the discourse of ‘following the European model’ than that of ‘national self-centredness’.
The Liberal Nationalist Moral and Cultural Model
Basing himself on extensive studies of sources and source criticism, the historian Henrik Marczali addressed the Hungarian history during the reign of the dynasty of Árpád (eleventh–fourteenth centuries), the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries, and the world history of the modern era. In his work, he professed a liberal approach, a constitutional patriotism, rights-extending assimilation and self- and public education, which he passionately practiced, as well.
As Béla Grünwald did in his A régi Magyarország (The Old Hungary), many regarded the eighteenth century as a period of decline and lacking national spirit. Marczali, however, came to a different conclusion in his multi-volume synthesis of the period. His researches led him to present a far more complex and ramified picture of the age with its many hues and shades.
We begin to write the history of a century that both our historians and public at large have deemed an age of enervation and decline. In contrast to the bloody and defiant struggles of the earlier generation and the intellectual and material efforts of the following generation, it was easy to brand the period between the Szatmár Peace (1711) and the period of Széchenyi as hapless, languished and forgoing the intellectual good of the nation. Our researches have led us to a judgment quite different. The continued excitement of the great religious and constitutional struggles of the 16th and 17th centuries almost did not allow the recognition of just how much loss the nation had suffered at the hands of the Turks, the Germans and particularly itself. Fever is followed by low spirits, weakness and, to use the term of the age, torpor. Calm was commanded not by cowardly submission, but care for the future of the nation. The result is now glaringly obvious. The nation, whose demise had been mourned by its sons, and whose fall its enemies had exulted at, had never before grown so much in strength and number, material wealth and intellectual powers as in this period mocked at for wanting national spirit. We are therefore justified in calling it the century of restoration… In the beginning, it was royal authority that attempted to organize the country, to lay the foundations of a state that were in line with the ideas of the age… It achieved great successes in this, almost reaching victory, but then it, as it were, propped up the entire nation only that it turn against it, the alien power in the way of and suppressing national recuperation. Subsequently, the nation, having grown conscious of its individuality, assumed the difficult tasks of state formation and shaping the future. The year 1790 was made remarkable by this attempt. Yet this organization activity did not succeed because the nation was still based on its aristocratic past, and resisted all the radical innovations that would have infringed the essence of its national constitution, but would have secured progress for the entire country. (Marczali Reference Marczali1898, 3–4)
In a lecture on national development held in 1905, Marczali outlined the future of the nation in terms of rights-extending assimilation, closing up with the West, education, and perfection. His interpretation seems to have been both a self-definition and a collective identification, a constitutional-patriotic formulation of the norm of an ‘exemplary nation’, one that ‘follows the European model’.
The strength of Hungarians cannot be in aggression but in setting an example, moral superiority, intellectual growth, and work. This is the way they can win over people with other tongues, and can make them be part of the nation just as it had done purely through warfare between the 14th and the 19th centuries… Since 1848, the external form of our state… has been in line with what has been in effect in Europe, even belonging among the most advanced examples. Though we have this constitutional and political form at our disposal, why are we not satisfied with it and ourselves, why are we not aware and proud that we are Hungarians and can make things good? The reason is that even the most sophisticated constitution and setup are but papers, which are filled with life by the feelings and thoughts of a nation; only a perfect nation can have a perfect constitution. In other words, if we were to educate a genuinely humane nation that embraces all the ideal treasures of the world, then we would reach the perfect state on a national basis. This should be the endeavour of all nations, the Hungarian as much as any other much greater and more powerful nation. We are the ones that make up this nation, and it is the duty of each one of us to fulfil this within our own scopes; and, simultaneously, the power of the nation lies in the extent to which we fulfil our particular duties, in how nationhood manifests and asserts itself in the whole area of humankind. After all, we are a small nation, yet, as the prophet has written, if the people be righteous, a little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation. (Marczali Reference Marczali1905, 109–110, cf. Jesájá/Isaiah, 60. 21–22)
On 14 April 1915, Henrik Marczali, as an evaluator in a habilitation committee, drafted a significant report on the scholarly work of his former student Gyula Szekfű. He did so with two hysterias behind his back – a press campaign reviling him in 1910 and the Szekfű scandal in 1914. He wrote a detailed, serene, summarizing, assessing, and critical review. He closed his report with the following passage:
I have sought to inform the Honourable Faculty to the best of my abilities on the work completed to date by a not common talent, interesting even in its mistakes, because it is good-willed. As regards Szekfű’s general qualifications and historical education, he already belongs to our best historians. His critical faculty is always alert; his diligence is astonishing, and his research method faultless. Yet his creative abilities are still not that high. He has received far too many impressions to be able to elaborate them all. As a result, he sets himself tasks too big to be able to grapple with. It should be born in mind that he is not a teacher, and it is therefore not his duty to be clear about all issues before publicly raising them, and that he is in an alien environment in Vienna. I am fully convinced that, once at home as a teacher, he will be able to give better expression to the extraordinarily valuable features of his being. I am also convinced that the features that made him write the history of a fugitive Rákóczi, i.e. a waning and uncreative period, would be relegated to the background. In this conviction, I highly recommend Dr. Gyula Szekfű to the Honourable Faculty of Arts and Letters for appointment as an honorary lecturer. (Marczali Reference Marczali1915)
Following the Treaty of Trianon in 1920, Henrik Marczali published a pamphlet in which he highlighted the Western features of Hungarian development, and justified Hungarian supremacy:
… the Hungarian nation went through all the stages of development Western peoples had done, later than they had, taking many things over from them, but not without return services. It had its ages of chivalry, renaissance, reformation, counter-reformation, enlightenment, and it took its admirable share in realizing the ideas of the 19th century. Its culture, therefore, has a much more solid foundation than those who, as it were, stepped from the 13th into the 20th century. We can also state the highest possible level of education for the nationalities was in line with the best Hungarian tradition, the genuine liberalism of Széchenyi, Deák and Eötvös. It would also have been in line with the interests of the Hungarian nation under the condition that Hungarians advanced in the same proportion as its pupils. For whatever reason, be it called sloppiness or reaction, Hungarians complained of being overburdened; and thus, having learned much less than their Western counterparts, Hungarians fell away from the right proportion, and Hungarian supremacy began to lose its moral foundations. Our efforts to establish a full-fledged Hungarian state, however, were not only natural, but would have ensured the advancement of culture. The author who perhaps knows us best and has a detached point of view writes the following on this rather disputed issue: ‘The Hungarians are not masters of their ambition; it is nature that commands it. Were they to constrain their perspective to the Hungarian Great Plain and Transdanubia, they could linger along as a folk group for a while, but that would be the end of their life as a nation. It is therefore an imperative necessity for them to remould their “historical” state into a “national” one’ (Louis Eisenmann: Le Compromis Austro-Hongrois, p. 555). The trouble was that what decided the questions of the nationalities just as the closely related issues of the economy and society was not genuine national thought, but partisan interest and individual selfishness. Acknowledge this we certainly must; but all must acknowledge that Hungarians have not only taken over culture as a fashionable dress, but there have always been many among our number who did not lag behind the sons of other nations in the honest investigation of spirit and truth. It was no Hungarian but Theodore Roosevelt who said he not only respected Hungary, but also admired it, because there are several teachings in the history of Hungary other nations could learn from.
We can learn the lesson of bravery, iron determination and persistence. The whole civilized world is the debtor to Hungary for its history. I know this history, and I wouldn’t hold myself an educated man if I didn’t know.
It rests with us to ensure that this holds not only for our past, but also our future. (Marczali Reference Marczali1920, 193–195)
It was in the name of the educational perfectionism of national liberalism that Marczali wrote his 1920 pamphlet. In the following year, he would nevertheless be quite critical about Szekfű’s Három nemzedék (Three Generations). Széchenyi was no conservative, the etymological source of liberalism was not around the 1812 Spanish parliament, but Bonaparte’s coup d’état, and the decline lasting until the end of the World War was the result of the rule of not liberalism, but reaction – he lined up the array of his counter-arguments.
His procedure is always the same. He has a ready-made cliché into which he squeezes the given person or idea, and paints them rosy or pale depending on party affiliation, or pitch-dark if one is radical. For example, it is such a cliché to call Széchenyi a romantic without any apparent reason. A similar cliché is the Germanic-Christian community taken over from Steinacker, which Hungarian historical development is quite difficult to press into. He proceeds no differently in respect of literature, which seems to be his hobby-horse. He says, referring to Kölcsey, the real liberal, ‘amid terrifying curses, calls his contemporaries a group of savages and a race of cowards.’ But he fails to say that this same poem, Kölcsey’s swan song, ‘Zrínyi’s Second Song’, finally strikes a tone of hope and trust: ‘Oh, save the faithful mother, better sons might arise…’ As Vörösmarty and Petőfi do not fit in his Procrustean bed, he wisely has little to say of them. He has but one word for our greatest poet. But this is the way he treats the revolution and the Bach period. Nevertheless, he affords separate chapters for liberalism and Jews…
Marczali concludes his review thus:
All in all, it is an interesting work, sometimes well written, but mostly wearisome. One feels his anguish in trying to fill in the frame he redetermined. It is nonetheless an ad hoc piece. We honestly and heartily wish him to return to objective and scholarly history, and achieve deserved success therein. (Marczali Reference Marczali1921, 10–11)
In opposition to the pamphlet presenting anti-liberal conservatism as modern and liberalism as passé and the intellectual current into which Three Generations belonged, Marczali continued to profess the former rights-extending assimilation. In his view, the former extension of rights was as much justified as willed assimilation. He would not take a stand on the priority of the two. Perhaps this was why he was forced into a defensive position in the face of the rejection of the former extension of rights.
Nation Building Programme by Strengthening the Hungarian Middle Class
Perhaps the most prolific and most influential Hungarian journalist in the last third of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century, Gusztáv Beksics sought to find the Hungarian functional counterpart of the French tiers état and the British middle class. He believed that the creation of a Hungarian middle class or bourgeoisie would meet these requirements. He held that the Hungarian democracy and middle class were based on the land-owing Hungarian nobility, which had relinquished its privileges in 1848, and had come to include the Hungarianized, formerly Jewish, German or nationality middle classes, but did not include the aristocracy. It was his concept of the middle class that the conservative historian Gyula Szekfű would rediscover and reinterpret – without referencing him – in 1920, and that the communist ideologue József Révai would restyle in 1932. In Szekfű’s view, the common nobility fulfilled the role of the tiers état in Hungary, while, in Révai’s terms, it functioned as the bourgeoisie, having assumed leadership in the 1848 revolution.
Beksics regard the centralists, the Hungarian doctrinarians, as his predecessors in formulating the programme of Hungarian middle-class classification. However, in contrast to them, he promoted the programme of Magyarization in the name of the Hungarian empire, Hungarian hegemony within the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, Magyarizing nationalities, and Hungarian expansion into the Balkans. In the closing volume of the representative A magyar nemzet története (History of the Hungarian Nation), published for the millennium in 1898, he sought to establish the historical justification for Magyarization within Hungary as well as Hungarian expansionism, and adumbrated a symbolic geography for it. In line with other European imperialist programmes, he outlined a rather romantic and illusionary image of a Hungarian Empire, based on the supremacy of the Hungarian national mission.
In his view, that Hungary should be a great power was a European necessity, a national vocation and the requirement of national survival.
The internal antagonism of the Hungarian problem is that our nation cannot remain a small nation, hide in a remote recess of modesty, as it has always assumed a decisive role in the struggle between East and West for a thousand years. Rule it must over the full empire of Saint Stephen, from the Carpathians to the Adriatic and the pass in the mountains at our eastern border. The moment it were reduced to the Hungarian Great Plain and Transdanubia by world events, it might survive as a race for a while under the new conditions, but as a nation it would cease to exist. Hungarian politics would have an easy task if the desires and aspirations of our nation encompassed only a limited sphere; our ambition depends, however, not merely on ourselves, but on our vocation, whereby we can only survive if great; if small, we perish. We must therefore hold the territory the wonderful providence of the peoples has portioned us in a single state, otherwise Hungary will disappear in the struggles of the future. (Beksics Reference Beksics1898, 825)
How could the nation be unified? What did Beksics mean by saying that the Hungarian state should remain Hungarian? What did he believe would make the Hungarian a great nation?
Our national consolidation requires not the persecution of the nationalities, much less, what would anyway be impossible, their extermination, but bringing them in harmony with Hungarian national and state interest. Our final consolidation cannot be conceived of without the nationality question losing its power to disrupt the state and the nation; in other words, that no-one can drive a wedge into the organism of the state and nation with help of this question. This means no forced assimilation of the nationalities, but such an unfolding of the Hungarian nation that the minority problem no longer includes harmful forces. Apart from the congregation of our kindred nationalities and elements allied with us, it is only a massive development of the Hungarian race that can lead to final consolidation. Through its inherently magnificent powers, the Hungarian race is capable of unlimited expansion, but our land-ownership policy must remove the obstacles in its way. The peaceful removal of these obstacles is our most immediate task. (Beksics Reference Beksics1898, 825–827)
Note that Gusztáv Beksics hereby reversed the order of the programmes of rights extension and assimilation which presupposed one another. Unlike the liberals of the Vormärz who wanted to achieve voluntary assimilation through the prior extension of rights, he formulated the programme of assimilation as opposed to the extension of rights, which could even have included the curtailment of rights.
In 1905, Beksics went even further when paralleling his programme of Hungarianization with King Mathias’ (Mathias Corvinus) empire expansion to both East and West, which represented the former glory of Hungarian statehood. The context of his programme was the defeat of the Liberal Party in the 1905 elections and the ruler’s appointment of the unelected Fejérváry cabinet, which toyed with the idea of introducing universal suffrage. The defeat of the governing Liberal Party created the impression that Hungary could overwhelm Austria, that there was a shift in the centre of gravity within the Monarchy, and that a Hungarian hegemony within the dualistic setup was possible. The manoeuvre concerning suffrage threatened by the advance of the nationalities, the extension of rights running counter to assimilation. In the face of these, Beksics now couched and developed his Hungarianization programme in social Darwinian terms, the vocation of the White Man and the colonizing mission of European and Hungarian national superiority. He also reinterpreted the multi-nationality character of the historical Hungarian nation and state in the direction of ethnic expansionism:
I have had to prove the national character of the historical Hungarian state many call into doubt… I did so in particular to prove that our nation was powerful enough in number as well in its relations with European peoples in the period of its former greatness; it must therefore become strong in the future, too, if it is to hold its ground in the struggle between the races… The Hungarian nation can become a strong and powerful nation even with its current capacity to develop; but its unfolding can be made even more rapid and massive through economic and cultural means… The Hungarian nation is irresistibly advancing on the way of asserting itself through the development of its physical powers apart from those of its moral ones. (Beksics Reference Beksics1905, VI–VIII)
Beksics maintained that a powerful Hungary and Hungarian nation were indispensable for the stability of the Monarchy, Central and Eastern Europe and international politics.
We can follow several of the traditions of Mathias with practical results… And Mathias’ traditions could hardly be fulfilled without Hungary growing above Austria and, as a powerful nation state meeting all the conditions of full independence, becoming the leader of the peoples of the Balkans … Hungary either becomes a great nation or it will soon cease to exist as a state. Its becoming great is in the interest of the Habsburg throne, Austria and even Europe. This is the only way a reliable and strong power can develop in the Central Danube region with its influence extending to the Black Sea in order stand up against Slavism … Austria can no longer be a unified and internally consolidated state; it is therefore Hungary that has to be more unified and consolidated. If the centrifugal forces of racial conflict tear and wear both states of the Monarchy, the woeful outcome is foreseeable. However, if one of the two states is capable of restoring its internal unity and becoming an indestructibly closed unity, then the other state with its looser structure can rely on the more solid rear-guard. This solid rear-guard can only be Hungary, not Austria. The nationally based, powerful unfolding of Hungary is therefore not only a purpose in itself of the Hungarian idea, but also the only proper solution to the problem of Central and Eastern Europe. It is the only means of retaining the monarchy and throne of the Habsburgs … A powerful Hungary and Hungarian nation are thus not merely a political rhapsody, the music of a dreamy future, but a necessity of world politics … The Hungarian state and nation have to be so unified and powerful as to meet all the conditions of independent existence. This the only way Hungary can be the support of the throne and of an Austria, which is well on the way to the catastrophe of racial decay. (Beksics Reference Beksics1905, 237–246)
How did Beksics believe a powerful Hungary and unified Hungarian nation could be established? The starting point of his train of thought recalls the liberal case for rights-extending assimilation, but it deviates from it after a while as it targets assimilation without extending rights.
…The mistakes in the edifice of the Hungarian nation have to be eliminated. Its bases have to be broadened, its backbone strengthened, and the roofing has to be brought into proportion with the foundations. By increasing small holdings, the Hungarians can increase their numbers in the Great Plain and Transdanubia, which will thus broaden the base of the nation. The number of Hungarians can be redoubled in half a century. Unhindered, the propagating power of our race would follow the half-century round anyway. But it will reach the desired result all the more, if a large-scale land-holding policy beyond industrialization opens the way to its free expansion; the improvement in public health will also decrease mortality rates. The redoubling of Hungarians in the Great Plain and Transdanubia would mean a massive national base, on which the proud edifice of our national greatness could hold fast. An industrialization and settlement policy aiming to strengthen Hungarians could lead Hungarians into nationality areas. Such a settlement policy could pass all the river valleys of Transylvania into the hands of Hungarians, and thereby isolate the masses of Saxons and Romanians. Industrialization could move Hungarians into the darkest regions of nationalities in Upper Hungary and Transylvania. At the same time, Hungarian culture also helps broaden the national basis. First, it absorbs the non-Hungarian population of the towns. Then, assisted by racial propagation, it will advance step by step in areas of the countryside where nationalities dominate. Apart from the Saxons, all the Germans, a great number of Slovaks and even large numbers Romanians can be assimilated into our national base where Hungarians are the majority. By assimilation I mean not only learning the Hungarian language. (Beksics Reference Beksics1905, 237–246)
What did assimilation mean to Beksics, and what was to assist it?
… Learning Hungarian is of course indispensable, but does not necessarily mean assimilation to Hungarians. Assimilation occurs when Germans, Romanians, Serbians, etc. acquire a sense of Hungarian national identity instead of their nationality identity. Assimilation in this sense can be expected to achieve major results in the ensuing half a century. Thus Hungarians can be expected to redouble their numbers, and great numbers of Germans, lesser number of Slovaks and some Romanians to assimilate. It goes without saying that the small blocks of peoples in Transdanubia, such as the Vends, etc., will assimilate to the Hungarians. If we apply the appropriate economic and cultural means, the national base will increase accordingly – if Hungarian government and social policies are not content with merely patriotic slogans, but take effectual action towards this ambitious aim. (Beksics Reference Beksics1905, 237–246)
How was the social basis of national assimilation policy to be created? How could the Hungarian middle class be strengthened so that it would assimilate other nationalities?
Parallel to broadening the national base, we must also strengthen the middle level of the national edifice. The demise of our old middle class is one of our lasting problems, because no new national middle layer has come to replace it or replace it sufficiently. It is in our national interest that the medium landowner layer succeeds in the struggle for life, and that even a new medium landowner layer be formed. A new medium leaseholder class could be established particularly in the nationality areas and on entailed estates, which would have the calling to strengthen the Hungarian social power in Upper Hungary and Transylvania. Industry and commerce have accomplished much in the way of supplementing and strengthening the old social strata everywhere. This is what has linked together the historical classes and the people in England. This can be expected to occur in Hungary, too. Through partial relocation, large estate owners and the aristocracy at their head will supplement and complete the new national edifice, giving it a splendid ornamentation. With the roots of their economic power remaining in the Great Plain and Transdanubia, they might flourish in Upper Hungary and Transylvania, as well. Through their economic and social power, they can closely embed those nationality crowds into Hungarian unity that have not taken up Hungarian culture and identity. Great national duty awaits second and third sons in particular. (Beksics Reference Beksics1905, 237–246)
Beksics believed internal colonization was needed to avoid declassification and in the stead of overseas colonization. What were the targeted areas of this internal colonization?
Hungarian national interest does not require them to lose their title and rank, and become simple citizens as in England, and conquer India or Africa for themselves. All Hungarian national interest requires of them is to relocate a part of their lands from the Great Plain and Transdanubia to the mountainous regions. They should build hunting mansions and factories, and thereby conquer the darkest regions populated by Romanians and Slovaks for the Hungarian national idea … A broad national base should be established by parcelling land in the Great Plain and Transdanubia, which would redouble the number of Hungarians there in half a century. The national base should also be extended towards the South and Transylvania, where Hungarians have a strong presence in the river valleys. And thus significant portions of the nationalities should be assimilated into this national base. Industrialization should move Hungarian national labour into the areas populated by nationalities. The Hungarian middle class should be supplemented and strengthened by these new elements. Finally, individual and property relocation should take place among large estate owners and the aristocracy. In this respect, the second and third sons of the aristocracy have a particular calling in restoring the declined splendour of Hungarian society in Upper Hungary and Transylvania. The national and state structure built up so in such fashion will finally ensure the permanent existence of the Hungarian nation and state – the Great Hungarian Nation and State. This will realize the first half of my often-repeated slogan: Hungary will either be great or cease to exist as a state. (Beksics Reference Beksics1905, 237–246)
This argument adumbrated by Gusztáv Beksics, generally regarded as a liberal journalist, was conceived in the name of a neo-conservative view of social organization aiming at protecting the national middle class. The programme reflecting the language of ‘national self-centredness’, the project of building up a Hungarian empire, was based not only on a romantic mythicizing of past Hungarian glory, but also on following the European model, the adaptation of the Western European colonizing experience, and an ethnicizing, social-Darwinist and biological interpretation of the nation.
Assimilation or Exclusion
The assimilation programme formulated against the extension of rights programme could be made more explicit and be further developed in the direction of a policy of privilege extension coupled with curbing rights and exclusionism. This was the position political science professor Mihály Réz, a member of István Tisza’s Magyar Figyelő (Hungarian Review) circle, took, increasingly expressing himself in the language of national self-centredness. He did so first in response to the election defeat of the governing Liberal Party, the draft on universal suffrage by the government the ruler appointed, the opposition this elicited in the county assemblies, and the subsequent programme for universal suffrage the bourgeois radicals adumbrated. His argument was that the constitutional bond with Austria and that over half of the population of the country was non-Hungarian should put Hungarian politicians on guard in respect of taking over democratic principles. And should a choice between democracy and the nation be made, Réz believed the latter was to be chosen. He based his position on several reasons, which anticipated the conservative right-wing radical reasoning of the inter-war years, and which had theoretical and methodological grounds. Reviewing them is, therefore, instructive.
Mihály Réz quoted Széchenyi in respect of the conflict between democracy and nation:
‘Our circumstances are such that Hungary is obviously bound up with the nobility and aristocracy, and we must admit that any democracy is harmful to the nation.’ … ‘If the nation is not our top priority, … then let me say, should it come to pass, others will take our place. And those taking our place might well be more honest and astute than we are, but that they will not be Hungarians – this is axiomatic in my mind.’ … ‘A constitution can be freely imposed in but twenty-four hours, but nationality cannot be propounded…’ (Réz Reference Réz1906, 3)
A democracy imposed from above would threaten the very existence of the nation:
As far as politics is concerned, the Hungarian nation is indeed aristocratic and conservative. It insists on its old institutions and slogans. It is so conservative that it holds on to the old slogans of liberalism and democracy that have come down to us from the past. But democracy at the time had meant the freedom of the people and the power of the nations; now, democracy is imposed on us from above. Its victory is the nation’s defeat; the forced acceptance of its programme breaches its right to independent domestic government. (Réz Reference Réz1906, 8)
Réz believed that the power entrusted to either the state or society could be turned against the nation, and that this was not to be tolerated. The extension of rights was not to be directed against the nation, partly because it was precisely national development that enabled it; and partly because should nation and democracy be pitted against one another, the nation was to be chosen.
We ought to include the people in the fortress of the constitution. We should strengthen the county, which has been called the bastion of the constitution. But alien forces must not be allowed into those bastions. And where there is an excess of alien forces, we should not seek our protection from strengthening those bastions, because strengthening them will not strengthen us. These are the principles we should follow in our domestic policy, and no other principle should deter us – not the principles of individual liberty, not human rights, nor democracy. All these should be relegated behind the national priority. Let those that reject these principles consider that, should though the national idea may hinder the immediate realization of democracy, it will open the way towards progress even now, while peaceful reform and democratic development would lose their very basis if Hungarian supremacy were overturned. And while now the Hungarian nation tries to implement democracy within the national idea, the interest of the preservation and supremacy of the Hungarian race would override all other aspects if the struggle between the races were to be unleashed. The moment this struggle comes to pass, there will no longer be any negotiation, we will consider no individual liberty, no liberalism, no self-government, and no democracy. However, we now seek to negotiate. Finding agreement is not easy even today. (Réz Reference Réz1906, 12–17)
To counterbalance alien influences, Réz believed, the national intelligentsia was to be reinforced.
Neither is our ruler nor is our society purely Hungarian; and if we have the care not to strengthen the rights of the ruler so as not to provide him any ammunition, we should likewise take care to seek guarantees without losing them on the opposite side, to take away powers from the crown without giving them to the nationalities. Their power can be turned against us in constitutional struggles just as the power of the crown can, but this would be far more dangerous because it has its nest in the very body of the nation, and can be deployed against us in every aspect of the life of the state, even when constitutional struggles are suspended. This is the dual danger Hungarian politics has to find a way round, to seek safeguards against both. Any excess we fall into in either direction will necessarily lead to harm in the other. Moderation and strong leadership are, therefore, a must. That the national intelligentsia should always have its proper weight is likewise a must (as establishing the direction of a national direction is difficult and complicated). This is the most important postulate of any healthy and sound politics. (Réz Reference Réz1906, 16–17)
Réz was convinced that the aristocratic national institutions guaranteed national supremacy and progress. The grievances of the minorities had no material basis. Nationalities were not to be allowed in public life, and he called for the revision of the Act on Nationalities. Self-government and democracy can be harmonized with the national interest by subjecting them both to it. There being no absolute law in political life, he held, great individuals had an extraordinary role in it. State law and order and the national idea, however, had an absolute validity. Réz regarded Széchenyi as his political icon, and deemed he had been right against Deák’s legal dogmatism and Kossuth’s emotional politics at the time, and was right now in 1909, as well (Réz Reference Réz1909, 89, 94, 154–155, 178, 181).
The principles of liberty and equality were bound to the conditions of eighteenth-century France, while national features have always characterized states. Thus, the principle of conservation was to be set against the desire to overthrow, as István Széchenyi and Aurél Dessewffy had done. The interests of progress, liberty, equality, and individual classes were to be subordinated to the national direction. The duty of Hungary was thus to become a point of crystallization in a Central-East Europe divided by nationalities through establishing the rule of Hungarians within its borders, Hungary’s leading role within the Monarchy, and the decisive role of a Hungarian-dominated Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in the Balkans.
Our situation confronts us with a special political problem: the problem of races. Our great calling is to solve this problem, and its solution is vital for us. In the universal struggle between the races, Hungarians face but one alternative: political decay or political dominance. We are entitled to a leading role in resolving these problems on the basis of the principle of dominance, the power of authority and the right due to our superior political maturity. The basis of imperialism is empire, and the basis of national greatness is national discipline. (Réz Reference Réz1909, 353-354)
The positions of Beksics and Réz are quite similar; they both rejected rights-extending assimilation. Réz was more outspoken in arguing his case; his conservatism and social Darwinism were theoretically more open, and his rights-restricting nationalism was more obvious. Béla Grünwald can be regarded as a predecessor of them both; the predecessors of Réz include János Asbóth, Iván Simonyi, the agrarians of the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century, primarily Sándor Károlyi and Aurél Dessewffy Jr. (Szabó Reference Szabó2003, 101–342).
Conclusion
Each stance reviewed has elements of both romanticism and realism – true, in varying places and varying proportions. We hardly noted any romantic features and procedures in Gyula Schvarcz, but all the more did we find realistic concerns and requirements in him. Perhaps this was why he was charged with being dogmatic. What particularly caught our attention are his hopes regarding public education, his étatist position, his anthropological optimism, his belief in progress, and his assimilation to Hungarians with his German roots.
A critical attitude and multi-factor explanation characterized the oeuvre of Henrik Marczali. Nevertheless, his view of constitutionalism, the change from military virtues to education and perfectionism in education make us ponder over the relationship between the elements of romanticism and realism. His particular life strategy and identity as a Jew-turned-Hungarian and his belief in the all-powerfulness of education are what smack of romanticized elements.
The attitude of Gusztáv Beksics seems all the more romantic; his emphasis on a glorious past, aristocratic institutions, nobiliary nation, the calling of Hungarians, the unified nation state, and a national empire suggest nation characterological features. He continually wavered between the roles of an objective enlightener and a romantic revealer of truth, often falling into the latter.
In Mihály Réz, organicist romanticism and romantic revelation have a defining role. We note all the romanticist elements we have seen with Beksics: the theses of a glorious past, aristocratic institutions, nobiliary nation, the calling of Hungarians, and a national empire. Although he expounded his positions in terms of systematic political science, we find several romantic themes and interpretations in his work. Most conspicuous among these are his particular version of the cult of the hero and his belief in the necessity of the genius of the political leader. This was based on his concept of politics and intuition presupposing an artistic handling of imponderables. This, in turn, was based on his concept that there were no general laws in the world of politics, except for perhaps national features, because, in his view, the world of politics was determined by national characteristics, traditions, customs, and conditions; in other words, by the internalization of past events. The present was, therefore, determined by the past; reason by tradition and custom; and rationality by instinct and emotion. Although Réz critically lacked reasonable action in events occurring, the norm he back-figured into the past was but a contrast of good reason and bad emotion.
Gyula Schvarcz connected liberalism and democracy. He opened liberalism towards democracy, and sought to establish their connection through public education and affirmative action. Yet, he believed to protect liberalism from the crowd rule he was so afraid of through educational guarantees.
Henrik Marczali’s view was more liberal than democratic. Between those seeking to extend rights and supporting assimilation, he assumed a constitutionalist patriotic position through a perfectionist cultivation of his profession, the introduction of professional source criticism in Hungary, the dissemination of his scholarly results, and the projection of his own personal example. Both the extension of rights and assimilation were close to him, but he did not wish to promote either politically. He set his own example to show the possibility of synthesizing the two – an example fewer and fewer were ready to follow.
Although theoretically Beksics was not an opponent of democracy, his version of it was a ‘Hungarian democracy’, the democracy of an idealized aristocratic nation. His liberalism came to be increasingly dominated by concepts of the nobiliary nation. His anti-democratic liberalism turned in the direction of conservatism. In his view, the extension of rights had been justified only in the past, and even then only as a referential basis for curtailing rights. In his view, the extension of rights and assimilation were pitted against one another in the present. His programme was definitely assimilationist. Although he did use liberal-nationalist terminology, the content and form of his message was a transition between liberal and conservative nationalism.
Mihály Réz rejected all liberal programmes of rights-extending assimilation whether past, present or future. Not only did he simply pit the extension of rights against assimilation, but he responded to one of the consequences of the decay of liberal nationalism, the bourgeois radical programme of universal suffrage, by pronouncing a programme of constraining rights, conservative social organization and exclusion. He formulated not universal, but national truths in the language of national self-centredness. He regarded his own position as timely and that of his opponents as anachronistic, which was synonymous with him representing, and his opponents jeopardizing, the national interest.
The four positions show the four phases of the exhaustion and decay of liberal nationalism; the first opened up liberalism towards democracy, applying educational guarantees as safeguards; the second placed its hopes in the cultural activities of the elite and their dissemination, in following an example set and the justification of its own life strategy; the third separated the extension of rights from assimilation, opted for assimilation, and crossed the border between liberalism and anti-liberalism in the name of the nation; while the fourth drew the conclusion that liberalism was anachronistic, the extension of rights threatened the existence of the nation, and therefore it was to be opposed and eliminated in the name of timeliness.
Epilogue
It was no coincidence that the conservative historian and ideologue Gyula Szekfű, who would openly turn against liberalism, regarded Mihály Réz as his predecessor. He spoke of Gyula Schvarcz with great admiration, cited him in agreement – true, rather selectively. He referred to Henrik Marczali only in the introduction of the second edition of his Three Generations, where he discussed the reviews of his book. He mentioned his former professor in the company of Győző Concha, Gyula Hornyánszky, Ferenc Patek, Jusztin Baranyai and József Leskó, those writers who had seriously reviewed and criticized his book, made objective comments to it, and sought to make scholarly responses to it.
I am particularly grateful to them for not letting themselves be frightened away from my work due to the political facets that have been attached to it, but have treated it with serious scholarly intent, which I have been able to profit by … What they have brought up I will try as far as I can to relate to what has reached me in various ways and means from the public at large. These can be grouped in three sets of questions, namely: first, liberalism; second, the Jewish question; and, third, the methods and resources of writing history. (Szekfű Reference Szekfű1922, 7–24)
With his list, Szekfű identified fundamentally different attitudes, as Concha, Hornyánszky and Marczali had been highly critical of his book, while Patek, Baranyai and Leskó had identified with it. Did Szekfű answer the objections and counter-arguments Marczali had raised? Szekfű argued his case against liberalism in response to Concha and Hornyánszky, but, by implication, also to Marczali.
Szekfű only noticed what separated him from Beksics in his writings – the mode of expression; while he did not recognize what linked him to Beksics – the rejection of extending rights. It was of course Mihály Réz to whom Szekfű manifestly related most.
About the Author
Iván Zoltán Dénes is a historian of ideas, conducting research on historical traumas and trauma management during the last decade. He is the author of 12 books (including eight monographs) and editor of 48 volumes. He served as researcher (Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Philosophy, 1973–1997), professor, chair (Debrecen University, 1997–2011), and founding president of the István Bibó Center for Advanced Studies of the Humanities and Social Sciences (Budapest, 1996–2012). Currently he is the principal investigator of Henrik Marczali Research Team, Budapest. Has been awarded several visiting professorships and scholarships, among others by the British Academy (London, Oxford, Cambridge), Fulbright Commission (Stanford), IREX (Johns Hopkins, Harvard), Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (Wassenaar), and by The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His books in English: The Art of Peacemaking. Political Essays by István Bibó (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2015); Conservative Ideology in the Making (Budapest; New York: CEU Press, 2009); Liberty and the Search for Identity. Liberal Nationalisms and the Legacy of Empires (Budapest; New York: CEU Press, 2006). He is a member of the Academia Europaea (1995–).
