HUNGARIAN LIBERALS AND THE PROBLEM OF NATIONAL EQUALITY IN HUNGARY 1848-1868.

Abstract

The political activity of the Hungarian liberal politicians had a profound influence on thepolitical life of Hungary and, periodically, on politics of Austrian Empire as a whole. From thethirties of the 19th century, they greatly contributed to the formation of public opinion and attitudetowards the Viennese court, as well as to the ethnic issue. During the period 1848-1868 it can benoticed certain conceptual development in their attitude toward the national question.Before the Revolution in 1848/1849, Hungarian liberals regarded national question as lessimportant than the problem of constitutional ties of Hungary to the Austrian Empire and the issueof necessary bourgeois transformation of civil society. Although they were aware of the complicatedethnic structure of the population, they believed that the abolition of the feudal social order,common civil liberties and the general economic and social enthusiasm will neutralize specificnational requirements. Also, they hoped that this enthusiasm will encourage not-Hungarian ethniccommunities to accept the Hungarian state idea and they will, in the long run, voluntarily assimilateto Hungarian ethnic nation. At this point, Hungarian liberal politicians believed that,parallel to the guaranteeing individual personal and political rights, also the use of the languagesof nationalities in their church, cultural and private affairs, it is acceptable to spread the Hungarianlanguage in its official use in administration and education.Revolution of 1848/49 showed to the Hungarian liberals the real seriousness of the nationalissue: Croats, Serbs, Romanians, demanded their recognition as political nations and they rose upin arms. It had strongly outstretched the issue of federalization of Hungary. Hungarian liberals(except for rare exceptions) were not prepared to agree to the federalization of the country. Hungarianpoliticians could not accept the demands for ethnic autonomous territories, because they believedthat in that way the state would lose its Hungarian character and that, in fact, it would leеdto the destruction of the state.As nationalities have not accepted the Law on Equality of Nationalities (1868), which approvedpersonal autonomy in the field of church matters, education on all levels, entrepreneurship, science,and culture, as well as the wide-spread use of mother tongue in the administration and judiciary,it seemed that there is no common ground for agreement. In the next decades, both, Hungariansand nationalities devoted less attention to improving their mutual relationships than to their ownnationalistic projects.