Although this may sound somewhat pretentious to some, and although the
kingdom of Hungary also
had its share of political misfortunes, I am convinced that in the
course of the many centuries of
Magyar pre-eminence in the Carpathian Basin there was something that
we can call Pax Hungarica.
It was this Pax Hungarica that guarded the unity, social order, and
nationality peace in the area from
the ninth to the nineteenth century. True, there were many problems
during those centuries. But most
of these problems, which today are often characterized as manifestations
of "Magyar oppression" of
the national minorities, stemmed not so much from the dominance of
the largely Magyar Hungarian
nobility over the various nationalities of the Carpathian Basin, but
rather from the nature of the
prevailing social and economic conditions. The feudalistic and highly
stratified social system made the
peasant masses --- irrespective of their nationality --- economically
and personally dependent upon the
nobility. This phenomenon, however, was not limited to the lands of
the Hungarian crown; it was
characteristic of the social development throughout much of Central
and Eastern Europe. Within this
area that encompassed the lands of the so-called second serfdom, the
peasants of medieval and early
modern Hungary were undoubtedly better off than those of Russia or
of the Danubian Principalities of
Moldavia and Wallachia. And this holds true even though the exploitation
in those lands was the result
of the rule of a native boyar class and not of an alien or nationally
distinct nobility. In the case of the
Danubian Principalities, between 1711 and 1714 the native princes were
replaced by the Greek
Phanariots. But even some of these were really Hellenized Rumanians.
Moreover, whatever this
change may have brought in the ethnic composition of the ruling element
of the eighteenth and the
early nineteenth century, the latter could hardly be held responsible
for the social oppression and
exploitation of the earlier centuries under native princes and under
a native boyar class. Similarly, the
exploitation of the Moldavian and the
Wallachian peasants cannot be blamed upon the Turks alone --- as has
become the custom among
some historians. Contrary to most other parts of southeastern Europe
that fell under Ottoman rule, the
Rumanian Principalities were never fully integrated into the Turkish
administrative system. Thus, during
much of the Ottoman domination the Rumanian peasants were ruled and
exploited by their own native
princes and by their own native nobility. In other words --- and this
is the main point to be kept in mind
--- the exploitation of the peasant masses by the nobility --- whether
in Moldavia, Wallachia, or in
Hungarian or Habsburg-ruled Transylvania --- was basically always a
social phenomenon, at least up
to the nineteenth century. If the sources are credible, then in this
area of social exploitation the
Wallachian and the Moldavian (Rumanian) boyars out-performed their
counterparts, i.e., they were
always more oppressive than the Hungarian nobility in Transylvania.
If this were not true, history
would not have witnessed the continued and unceasing flight of the
Wallachian and the Moldavian
peasants into Transylvania throughout most of the medieval and modern
periods. Apparently these
Rumanian peasants felt that to exchange the rule and exploitation of
their own native boyars for the
rule and exploitation of the Hungarian nobility was not such a bad
deal after all.
In light of these well-known historical facts and developments, it is
really a mistake to try to make
some of the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century peasant rebellions of
Hungary and of Transylvania into
some sort of "national uprisings" against the allegedly oppressive
rule of certain alien landowning
classes --- which is a distinct tendency in the historiography of some
Eastern European nations. To do
so is not only anachronistic and tendentious, but also contrary to
the basic facts of the region's history.
The protective mantle of Pax Hungarica, of course, was not completely
free from various early forms
of national antagonism. But these antagonisms were largely limited
to the occasionally tense
relationships between various privileged groups within the Crownlands
of Saint Stephen. A good
example of this phenomenon is the fluctuating relationship among what
were called the Three Nations
of Transylvania (i.e., the Magyars, the Székelys, and the Saxons),
each of which was resentful toward
the others for their real or alleged encroachments on its long-standing
privileges. As such, even this
so-called national antagonism was not much more than the manifestation
of attempts to preserve
certain group rights derived from medieval royal grants by the kings
of Hungary, and from
long-standing historical traditions.
In light of the above, therefore, one can conclude that up to the
early nineteenth century, the lands of the Hungarian crown were basically
free from national
antagonisms. Moreover, insofar as the lands of Pax Hungarica were not
really "milk and honey" and
also experienced social exploitation, this exploitation fell equally
heavily on all lower social classes,
irrespective of their nationality.
National antagonisms arose largely as a result of the triumph of the
ideology of nationalism at the end
of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century. The
first to fall under its influence in the
Danube Valley --- discounting the Germans --- was the educated segment
of the Hungarian nobility
("Natio Hungarica"). The nationalism of the non-Magyar nationalities
came after, and largely in
consequence of, the Hungarian national revival. Of course, this does
not mean that there were no
scattered manifestations of national consciousness before this period.
But these were limited to a very
few educated intellectuals and writers. As an example, there is the
case of Bishop Inocentiu
Micu-Klein and his disciples of the Transylvanian Latinist School of
the eighteenth century. But such
early manifestations among the non-Magyars in the lands of the Hungarian
crown were preceded by
numerous and much earlier similar manifestations among Magyar intellectuals
(e.g., the poetry and
other writings of such sixteenth- and seventeenth-century authors as
Bálint Balassi, Miklós Zrínyi, and
Miklós Bethlen).
The following comments deal specifically with the studies of Paul Bődy
and Istvan Deak. Both authors
concern themselves basically with mid-nineteenth-century developments,
and both of them attempt to
examine some of the roots of the Hungarian-Rumanian national antagonism
that has plagued the
relations of these two nations for the past century and a half, and
which --- in light of recent
developments in Rumanian-controlled Transylvania --- does not seem
to be subsiding.
Paul Bődy's paper focuses on József Eötvös's
efforts to find a solution to the growing national
antagonisms in the kingdom of Hungary. It examines the role of this
great Hungarian reformer and
statesman in the period between the 1840s and the 1860s. But Bődy
also presents a brief summary of
what preceded these efforts, including references to both the Hungarian
and the Rumanian linguistic,
literary, and cultural revivals, as well as to the major Hungarian
push for social and political reform
during the so-called Hungarian Reform Period of the second quarter
of the nineteenth century. He also
points out that the majority of the Hungarian national leaders of those
days regarded the nation-state as
their ideal and simply assumed that social and political reforms would
take care of everyone's
problems. For this reason,
they failed to listen to those among them, including Ferenc Kazinczy,
Ferenc Kölcsey, István
Széchenyi, and József Eötvös, who recognized
that unless accompanied by special provisions for their
national aspirations, social and economic reforms alone would hardly
satisfy Hungary's non-Magyar
citizens.
In failing to recognize the significance of these factors, the spokesmen
of Magyar liberalism erred
seriously. Their errors and shortcomings, however, should not be interpreted
as errors that were
peculiar to them or errors that the leaders of the non-Magyars would
not have committed had they
been in a position to do so. Today's events, i.e., the violation of
the national rights of the Magyars in
some of the succession states, provide ample proofs for this assertion.[1]
But even in those days, not
even the liberal Nicolae Balcescu was willing to exchange his goals
in the area of nationalism for gains
in the field of liberalism. For as he said: "For my part, the question
of nationality is more important than
liberty."[2]
Two points of minor disagreements with Bődy's otherwise worthy
essay are his remarks about the
Rumanian national revival and his belief about the workability of Eötvös's
views on the national
minority question.
In his efforts to be absolutely fair and objective, Bődy has
placed an equation mark between the
Hungarian and the Rumanian national and linguistic revivals. Thus,
he discussed the "movement to
develop a literary Hungarian language" at the end of the eighteenth
and early nineteenth century as if
this development were identical with a comparable development among
the Rumanians. Nothing could
be further from the truth. The fact is that, in spite of the long dominance
of Latin as Hungary's
administrative and literary language, the Magyar literary language
has a long tradition reaching back at
least to the thirteenth century, and by the sixteenth century it had
already produced a significant
literature both in a prose and in a poetic form.[3] All that had to
be done in the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth century was to take this already existing literary language,
update it, and expand its
vocabulary --- an undertaking that even the Germans had to do. Moreover,
the administrative language
and the language of the Diet of Transylvania had always remained Magyar,
even during the centuries
when this was not true for Hungary proper.[4] Furthermore, while the
administration of Royal Hungary
switched over to Latin, the Turkish pashas of Hungary continued to
correspond with Vienna in the
Magyar language.[5]
The situation, of course, was totally different with the Rumanians,
whose literary language was Old
Church Slavonic, written in the Cyrillic
alphabet, right into the nineteenth century. As opposed to the Hungarians,
therefore, the Rumanians
had to start virtually from scratch in their attempt to create a literary
language out of the spoken
vernacular. This difference between the Hungarian and the Rumanian
linguistic revivals also applies to
the level of their respective national consciousness at the time of
the initiation of this movement, as well
as to the recognition rendered to them by others, including the fathers
of Marxist socialism (Marx and
Engels) --- a point that was also mentioned by Professor Deak in a
different connection. During the
Middle Ages only the Magyars, the Czechs, and the Poles were able to
establish significant and truly
lasting states in East Central Europe. Moreover, notwithstanding their
misfortunes in and after the
sixteenth century, the Magyars still managed to retain an important
position of power within the
Habsburg Empire --- a significance that was underlined many a time
during these centuries, right to
and including their partnership with Austria after 1867. None of the
other nationalities of the Danubian
Basin, including the Rumanians, was able to match these achievements.
Although a few years ago I too held similar views,[6] today I find unacceptable
Dr. Bődy's claim that
József Eötvös's proposals on the nationality question
could have solved the minority problems of
nineteenth-century Hungary. Eötvös's proposals constituted
perhaps the most liberal and conciliatory
views in contemporary Hungary. But the failure of the largely Eötvös-inspired
Hungarian Nationalities
Law of 1868 was due not only to the non-implementation of its spirit
and even some of its paragraphs
by members of the post-Eötvös generations, but also to the
fact that the only feasible solution at that
rather late date would have been some sort of federalization. And such
a federalization of the kingdom
of Hungary, including Transylvania, should have been carried out even
at the expense of creating
additional minorities in each of the newly formed nationality areas.
While Bődy concentrated on Eötvös's views concerning
the desired restructuring of Hungary to fit the
needs of the nineteenth century, Professor Deak dealt specifically
with some of the problems created
by the revolutionary upheavals of 1848--49 in Transylvania. His study
represents one of the most
balanced treatments of this question. His conclusions that everyone
was good and bad at the same
time, that everyone suffered and made others suffer, that for these
sufferings everyone has to take a
share of the blame, and that in the final analysis everyone lost and
won at the same time may be
viewed by some as an overly balanced presentation. But his assessment
to the effect that although "the
real losers of the civil war were the Rumanians..., [yet]
ultimately even... [they] profited..., if not politically then socially
and economically" deserves our
attention. This is a particularly significant point, for it also underlines
some of the earlier assertions of
this essay concerning the relative social oppression in Hungarian Transylvania
versus Rumanian
Wallachia and Moldavia during the Middle Ages and the early modern
period. Nor should one forget
that the serfs of Greater Hungary --- including the Transylvanian Rumanians
--- were emancipated
nearly two decades earlier than their counterparts in united Rumania.
Moreover, even after
emancipation, there remained a distinct qualitative difference between
the way of life of these two
groups of Rumanian peasants --- to the distinct advantage of those
under Hungarian rule. Therefore,
one can only agree with Professor Deak's claim to the effect that "the
Transylvanian balance sheet
was not entirely bleak."
Much more could and should have been done to ease the differences and
to lessen the burden on the
Magyar and non-Magyar peasantry of Hungary. But it is rather easy to
judge one's predecessors with
the hindsight of a century or more. Instead of simply judging the past,
however, one should also ask the
question: Have those who are in charge of the destinies of various
national minorities today learned
from the mistakes of the past? Or are they simply repeating those mistakes
and then intensifying their
impact through means that only a modern totalitarian state has at its
disposal? These are questions that
are certainly worth pondering.
Transylvania - The Roots of Ethnic Conflict