VOLUME XIII SLICE VIII Hudson River to Hurstmonceaux (continued 7)

It was a direct attack upon the constitution which, to use the words of István Széchenyi, first “startled the nation out of its sickly drowsiness.” In 1823, when the reactionary powers were meditating joint action to suppress the Hungarian revival. revolution in Spain, the government, without consulting the diet, imposed a war-tax and called out the recruits. The county assemblies instantly protested against this illegal act, and Francis I. was obliged, at the diet of 1823, to repudiate, the action of his ministers. But the estates felt that the maintenance of their liberties demanded more substantial guarantees than the dead letter of ancient laws. Széchenyi, who had resided abroad and studied Western institutions, was the recognized leader of all those who wished to create a new Hungary out of the old. For years he and his friends educated public opinion by issuing innumerable pamphlets in which the new Liberalism was eloquently expounded. In particular Széchenyi insisted that the people must not look exclusively to the government, or even to the diet, for the necessary reforms. Society itself must take the initiative by breaking down the barriers of class exclusiveness and reviving a healthy public spirit. The effect of this teaching was manifest at the diet of 1832, when the Liberals in the Lower Chamber had a large majority, prominent among whom were Francis Deák and Ödön Beöthy. In the Upper House, however, the magnates united with the government to form a conservative party obstinately opposed to any project of reform, which frustrated all the efforts of the Liberals.

The alarm of the government at the power and popularity of the Liberal party induced it, soon after the accession of the new king, the emperor Ferdinand I. (1835-1848), to attempt to crush the reform movement by arresting and imprisoning the most active agitators among them, Louis Kossuth and Miklós Wesselényi. But the nation was no longer to be cowed. The diet of 1839 refused to proceed to business till the political prisoners had been released, and, while in the Lower Chamber the reforming majority was larger than ever, a Liberal party was now also formed in the Upper House under the brilliant leadership of Count Louis Batthyány and Baron Joseph Eötvös. Two progressive measures of the highest importance were passed by this diet, one making Magyar the official language of Hungary, the other freeing the peasants’ holdings from all feudal obligations.

The results of the diet of 1839 did not satisfy the advanced Liberals, while the opposition of the government and of the Upper House still further embittered the general discontent. The chief exponent of this temper was the Kossuth. Pesti Hirlap, Hungary’s first political newspaper, founded in 1841 by Kossuth, whose articles, advocating armed reprisals if necessary, inflamed the extremists but alienated Széchenyi, who openly attacked Kossuth’s opinions. The polemic on both sides was violent; but, as usual, the extreme views prevailed, and on the assembling of the diet of 1843 Kossuth was more popular than ever, while the influence of Széchenyi had sensibly declined. The tone of this diet was passionate, and the government was fiercely attacked for interfering with the elections. Fresh triumphs were won by the Liberals. Magyar was now declared to be the language of the schools and the law-courts as well as of the legislature; mixed marriages were legalized; and official positions were thrown open to non-nobles.

The interval between the diet of 1843 and that of 1847 saw a complete disintegration and transformation of the various political parties. Széchenyi openly joined the government, while the moderate Liberals separated from the extremists and formed a new party, the Centralists. Immediately before the elections, however, Deák succeeded in reuniting all the Liberals on the common platform of “The Ten Points”: (1) Responsible ministries, (2) Popular representation, (3) The incorporation of Transylvania, (4) Right of public meeting, (6) Absolute religious liberty, (7) Universal equality before the law, (8) Universal taxation, (9) The abolition of the Aviticum, an obsolete and anomalous land-tenure, (10) The abolition of serfdom, with compensation to the landlords. The ensuing elections resulted in a complete victory of the Progressives. All efforts to bring about an understanding between the government and the opposition were fruitless. Kossuth demanded not merely the redress of actual grievances, but a reform which would make grievances impossible in the future. In the highest circles a dissolution of the diet now seemed to be the sole remedy; but, before it Revolution of 1848. The March Laws. could be carried out, tidings of the February revolution in Paris reached Pressburg38 (March 1), and on the 3rd of March Kossuth’s motion for the appointment of an independent, responsible ministry was accepted by the Lower House. The moderates, alarmed not so much by the motion itself as by its tone, again tried to intervene; but on the 13th of March the Vienna revolution broke out, and the king, yielding to pressure or panic, appointed Count Louis Batthyány premier of the first Hungarian responsible ministry, which included Kossuth, Széchenyi and Deák. The Ten Points, or the March Laws as they were now called, were then adopted by the legislature and received the royal assent (April 10). Hungary had, to all intents and purposes, become an independent state bound to Austria only by the fact that the palatine chanced to be an Austrian archduke.

In the assertion of their national aspirations, confused as these were with the new democratic ideals, the Magyars had had the support of the German democrats who temporarily held the reins of power in Vienna. On the other hand, The non-Magyar races. they were threatened by an ominous stirring of the subject races in Hungary itself. Croats, Vlachs, Serbs and Slovaks resented Magyar domination—a domination which had been carefully secured under the revolutionary constitution by a very narrow franchise, and out of the general chaos each race hoped to create for itself a separate national existence. The separatist movement was strongest in the south, where the Rumans were in touch with their kinsmen in Walachia and Moldavia, the Serbs with their brethren in Servia, and the Croats intent on reasserting the independence of the “Tri-une Kingdom.”

The attitude of the distracted imperial government towards these movements was at first openly suspicious and hostile. The emperor and his ministers hoped that, having conceded the demands of the Magyars, they would Jellachich. receive the help of the Hungarian government in crushing the revolution elsewhere, a hope that seemed to be justified by the readiness with which Batthyány consented to send a contingent to the assistance of the imperialists in Italy. That the encouragement of the Slav aspirations was soon deliberately adopted as a weapon against the Hungarian government was due, partly to the speedy predominance at Pest of Kossuth and the extreme party of which he was the mouthpiece, but mainly to the calculated policy of Baron Jellachich, who on the 14th of April was appointed ban of Croatia. Jellachich, who as a soldier was devoted to the interests of the imperial house, realized that the best way to break the revolutionary power of the Magyars and Germans would be to encourage the Slav national ideas, which were equally hostile to both; to set up against the Dualism in favour at Pest and Vienna the federal system advocated by the Slavs, and so to restore the traditional Habsburg principle of Divide et impera. This policy he pursued with masterly skill. His first acts on taking up his office were to repudiate the authority of the Hungarian diet, to replace the Magyar officials with ardent “Illyrians,” and to proclaim martial law. Under pressure from the palatine of Batthyány an imperial edict was issued, on the 7th day of May, ordering the ban to desist from his separatist plans and take his orders from Pest. He not only refused to obey, but on the 5th of June convoked to Agram the Croatian national diet, of which the first act was to declare the independence of the Tri-une Kingdom. Once more, at the instance of Batthyány, the emperor intervened; and on the 10th an imperial edict stripped Jellachich of all his offices.

Meanwhile, however, Jellachich had himself started for Innsbruck, where he succeeded in persuading the emperor of the loyalty of his intentions, and whence, though not as yet formally reinstated, he was allowed to return to Croatia with practically unfettered discretion. The Hungarian government, in fact, had played into his hands. At a time when everything depended on the army, they had destroyed the main tie which bound the Austrian court to their interests by tampering with the relation of the Hungarian army to the crown. In May a national guard had been created, the disaffected troops being bribed by increased pay to desert their colours and join this; and on the 1st of June the garrison of Pest had taken an oath to the constitution. All hope of crushing revolutionary Vienna with Magyar aid was thus at an end, and Jellachich, who on the 20th issued a proclamation to the Croat regiments in Italy to remain with their colours and fight for the common fatherland, was free to carry out his policy of identifying the cause of the southern Slavs with that of the imperial army. The alliance was cemented in July by a military demonstration, of which Jellachich was the hero, at Vienna; as the result of which the government mustered up courage to declare publicly that the basis of the Austrian state was “the recognition of the equal rights of all nationalities.” This was the challenge which the Magyars were not slow to accept.

In the Hungarian diet, which met on the 2nd of July, the influence of the conservative cabinet was wholly overshadowed by that of Kossuth, whose inflammatory orations—directed against the disruptive designs of the Slavs and Jellachich invades Hungary. the treachery of the Austrian government—precipitated the crisis. At his instance the diet not only refused to vote supplies for the troops of the ban of Croatia, but only consented to pass a motion for sending reinforcements to the army in Italy on condition that the anti-Magyar races in Hungary should be first disarmed. On the 11th, on his motion, a decree was passed by acclamation for a levy of 200,000 men and the raising of £4,500,000 for the defence of the independence of the country. Desultory fighting, in which Austrian officers with the tacit consent of the minister of war took part against the Magyars, had already broken out in the south. It was not, however, until the victory of Custozza (July 25) set free the army in Italy, that the Austrian government ventured on bolder measures. On the 4th of September, after weeks of fruitless negotiation, the king-emperor threw down the gauntlet by reinstating Jellachich in all his honours. Seven days later the ban declared open war on Hungary by crossing the Drave at the head of 36,000 Croatian troops (see Austria-Hungary: History). The immediate result was to place the extreme revolutionaries in power at Pest. Széchenyi had lost his reason some days before; Eötvös and Deák retired into private life; of the conservative ministers only Batthyány, to his undoing, consented to remain in office, though hardly in power. Kossuth alone was supreme.

The advance of Jellachich as far as Lake Balaton had not been checked, the Magyar troops, though—contrary to his expectation—none joined him, offering no opposition. The palatine, the Austrian Archduke Stephen, after fruitless attempts at negotiation, laid down his office on the 24th of September and left for Vienna. One more attempt at compromise was made, General Count Lamberg39 being sent to take command of all the troops, Slav or Magyar, in Hungary, with a view to arranging an armistice. His mission, which was a slight to Jellachich, was conceived as a concession to the Magyars, and had the general approval of Batthyány. Unhappily, however, when Lamberg arrived in Pest, Batthyány had not yet returned; the diet, on Kossuth’s motion, called on the army not to obey the new commander-in-chief, on the ground that his commission had not been countersigned by a minister at Pest. Next day, as he was crossing the bridge of Buda, Lamberg was dragged from his carriage by a frantic mob and torn to pieces. This made war inevitable; though Batthyány hurried to Vienna to try and arrange a settlement. Failing in this, he retired, and on the 2nd of October a royal proclamation, countersigned by his successor, Recsséy, placed Hungary under martial law and appointed Jellachich viceroy and commander of all the forces. This proclamation, together with the order given to certain Viennese regiments to march to the assistance of Jellachich, who had been defeated at Pákozd on the 29th of September, led to the émeute (Oct. 3) which ended in the murder of the minister of war, Latour, and the second flight of the emperor to Innsbruck. The fortunes of the German revolutionaries in Vienna and the Magyar revolutionists in Pest were now closely Fall of Vienna. bound up together; and when, on the 11th, Prince Windischgrätz laid siege to Vienna, it was to Hungary that the democrats of the capital looked for relief. The despatch of a large force of militia to the assistance of the Viennese was, in fact, the first act of open rebellion of the Hungarians. They suffered a defeat at Schwechat on the 30th of October, which sealed the fate of the revolutionists in Vienna and thus precipitated a conflict à outrance in Hungary itself.

In Austria the army was now supreme, and the appointment of Prince Felix Schwarzenberg as head of the government was a guarantee that its power would be used in a reactionary sense without weakness or scruple. The Austrian Francis Joseph. diet was transferred on the 15th of November to Kremsier, remote from revolutionary influences; and, though the government still thought it prudent to proclaim its constitutional principles, it also proclaimed its intention to preserve the unity of the monarchy. A still further step was taken when, on the 2nd of December, the emperor Ferdinand abdicated in favour of his nephew Francis Joseph. The new sovereign was a lad of eighteen, who for the present was likely to be the mere mouthpiece of Schwarzenberg’s policy. Moreover, he was not bound by the constitutional obligations unwillingly accepted by his uncle. The Magyars at once took up the challenge. On the 7th the Hungarian diet formally refused to acknowledge the title of the new king, “as without the knowledge and consent of the diet no one could sit on the Hungarian throne,” and called the nation to arms. Constitutionally, in the Magyar opinion, Ferdinand was still king of Hungary, and this gave to the revolt an excuse of legality. Actually, from this time until the collapse of the rising, Louis Kossuth was the ruler of Hungary.

The struggle opened with a series of Austrian successes. Prince Windischgrätz, who had received orders to reduce Hungary by fire and sword, began his advance on the 15th of December; opened up the way to the capital War of Independence. by the victory of Mór (Oct. 30), and on the 5th of January 1849 occupied Pest, while the Hungarian government and diet retired behind the Theiss and established themselves at Debreczen. A last attempt at reconciliation, made by the more moderate members of the diet in Windischgrätz’s camp at Bieské (Jan. 3), had foundered on the uncompromising attitude of the Austrian commander, who demanded unconditional submission; whereupon the moderates, including Deák and Batthyány, retired into private life, leaving Kossuth to carry on the struggle with the support of the enthusiastic extremists who constituted the rump of the diet at Debreczen. The question now was: how far the military would subordinate itself to the civil element of the national government. The first symptom of dissonance was a proclamation by the commander of the Upper Danube division, Arthur Görgei, from his camp at Vácz (Jan. 5) emphasizing the fact that the national defence was purely constitutional, and menacing all who might be led astray from this standpoint by republican aspirations. Immediately after this proclamation Görgei disappeared with his army among the hills of Upper Hungary, and, despite the difficulties of a phenomenally severe winter and the constant pursuit of vastly superior forces, fought his way down to the valley of Hernád—and safety. This masterly winter-campaign first revealed Görgei’s military genius, and the discipline of that terrible month of marching and counter-marching had hardened his recruits into veterans whom his country regarded with pride and his country’s enemies with respect. Unfortunately his success caused some jealousy in official quarters, and when, in the middle of February 1849, a commander-in-chief was appointed to carry out Kossuth’s plan of campaign, that vital appointment was given, not to the man who had made the army what it was, but to a foreigner, a Polish refugee, Battle of Kápolna. Count Henrik Dembinski, who, after fighting the bloody and indecisive battle of Kápolna (Feb. 26-27), was forced to retreat. Görgei was immediately appointed his successor, and the new generalissimo led the Honvéds from victory to victory. Ably supported by Klapka and Damjanich he pressed forward irresistibly. Szólnok (March 5), Isaszeg (April 6), Vácz (April 10), and Nagysarló (April 19) were so many milestones in his triumphal progress. On the 25th of May the Hungarian capital was once more in the hands of the Hungarians.

Meanwhile, the earlier events of the war had so altered the political situation that any idea which the diet at Debreczen had cherished of a compromise with Austria was destroyed. The capture of Pest had confirmed the Austrian court in its policy Proclamation of a united empire. of unification, which after the victory of Kápolna they thought it safe to proclaim. On the 7th of March the diet of Kremsier was dissolved, and immediately afterwards a proclamation was issued in the name of the emperor Francis Joseph establishing a united constitution for the whole empire, of which Hungary, cut up into half a dozen administrative districts, was henceforth to be little more than the largest of several subject provinces. The news of this manifesto, arriving as it did simultaneously with that of Görgei’s successes, destroyed the last vestiges of a desire of the Hungarian revolutionists to compromise, and on the 14th of April, on the motion of Kossuth, the diet proclaimed the independence of Hungary, declared the house of Habsburg as false and perjured, for ever excluded from the throne, and elected Kossuth president of the Hungarian Republic. This was an execrable blunder in the circumstances, and the results were fatal to the national cause. Neither the government nor the army could accommodate itself to the new situation. From henceforth the military and civil authorities, as represented by Kossuth and Görgei, were hopelessly out of sympathy with each other, and the breach widened till all effective co-operation became impossible.

Meanwhile the humiliating defeats of the imperial army and the course of events in Hungary had compelled the court of Vienna to accept the assistance which the emperor Nicholas I. of Russia had proffered in the loftiest Intervention of Russia. spirit of the Holy Alliance. The Austro-Russian alliance was announced at the beginning of May, and before the end of the month the common plan of campaign had been arranged. The Austrian commander-in-chief, Count Haynau, was to attack Hungary from the west, the Russian, Prince Paskevich, from the north, gradually environing the kingdom, and then advancing to end the business by one decisive blow in the mid-Theissian counties. They had at their disposal 375,000 men, to which the Magyars could only oppose 160,000. The Magyars, too, were now more than ever divided among themselves, no plan of campaign had yet been drawn up, no commander-in-chief appointed to replace Görgei, whom Kossuth had deposed. Haynau’s first victories (June 20-28) put an end to their indecisions. On the 2nd of July the Hungarian government abandoned Pest and transferred its capital first to Szeged and finally to Arad. The Russians were by this time well on their way to the Theiss, and the terrible girdle which was to throttle the liberties of Hungary was all but completed. Kossuth again appointed as commander-in-chief the brave but inefficient Dembinski, who was utterly routed at Temesvár (Aug. 9) by Haynau. This was the last great battle of the War of Independence. The final catastrophe was now unavoidable. On the 13th of August Görgei, who had been appointed dictator by the panic-stricken government two days before, surrendered the remnant of his hardly pressed army to the Russian General Rüdiger at Világos. The other army corps and all the fortresses followed his example, Komárom, heroically defended by Klapka, being the last to capitulate (Sept. 27). Kossuth and his associates, who had quitted Arad on the 10th of August, took refuge in Turkish territory. By the end of the month Paskevich could write to the Emperor Nicholas: “Hungary lies at the feet of your Imperial Majesty.”

From October 1849 to July 1850 Hungary was governed by martial law administered by “the butcher” Haynau. This was a period of military tribunals, dragooning, wholesale confiscation and all manner of brutalities.40 From The “Bach System.” 1851 to 1860 pure terrorism was succeeded by the “Bach System,” which derives its name from the imperial minister of the interior, Baron Alexander von Bach. The Bach System did not recognize historical Hungary. It postulated the existence of one common indivisible state of which mutilated Hungary41 formed an important section. The supreme government was entrusted to an imperial council responsible to the emperor alone. The counties were administered by imperial officials, Germans, Czechs and Galicians, who did not understand the Magyar tongue. German was the official language. But though reaction was the motive power of this new machinery of government, it could not do away with many of the practical and obvious improvements of 1848, and it was not blind to some of the indispensable requirements of a modern state. The material welfare of the nation was certainly promoted by it. Modern roads were made, the first railways were laid down, the regulation of the river Theiss was taken in hand, a new and better scheme of finance was inaugurated. But the whole system, so to speak, hung in the air. It took no root in the soil. The Magyar nation stood aloof from it. It was plain that at the first revolutionary blast from without, or the first insurrectionary outburst from within, the “Bach System” would vanish like a mirage.

Meanwhile the new Austrian empire had failed to stand the test of international complications. The Crimean War had isolated it in Europe. The Italian war of 1859 had revealed its essential instability. It was felt at court The October Diploma, 1860. that some concessions were now due to the subject nationalities. Hence the October Diploma (Oct. 20, 1860) which proposed to prop up the crazy common state with the shadow of a constitution and to grant some measure of local autonomy to Hungary, subject always to the supervision of the imperial council (Reichsrath).42 This project was favoured by the Magyar conservative magnates who had never broken with the court, but was steadily opposed by the Liberal leader Ferencz Deák whose upright and tenacious character made him at this crisis the oracle and the buttress of the national cause. Deák’s standpoint was as simple as it was unchangeable. He demanded the re-establishment of the constitution of 1848 in its entirety, the whole constitution and nothing but the constitution.

The October Diploma was followed by the February Patent (Feb. 26, 1861), which proposed to convert the Reichsrath into a constitutional representative assembly, with two chambers, to which all the provinces of the empire The February Patent, 1861. were to send deputies. The project, elaborated by Anton von Schmerling, was submitted to a Hungarian diet which assembled at Pest on the 2nd of April 1861. After long and violent debates, the diet, on the 8th of August, unanimously adopted an address to the crown, drawn up by Deák, praying for the restoration of the political and territorial integrity of Hungary, for the public coronation of the king with all its accompaniments, and the full restitution of the fundamental laws. The executive retorted by dissolving the diet on the 21st of August and levying the taxes by military execution. The so-called Provisorium had begun.

But the politicians of Vienna had neither the power nor the time to realize their intentions. The question of Italian unity had no sooner been settled than the question of German unity arose, and fresh international difficulties The Austro-Prussian War of 1866. once more inclined the Austrian government towards moderation and concession. In the beginning of June 1865, Francis Joseph came to Buda; on the 26th a provisional Hungarian government was formed, on the 20th of September the February constitution was suspended, and on the 14th of December a diet was summoned to Buda-Pest. The great majority of the nation naturally desired a composition with its ruler and with Austria, and this general desire was unerringly interpreted and directed by Deák, who carried two-thirds of the deputies along with him. The session was interrupted by the outbreak of the Austro-Prussian War, but not before a committee had been formed to draft the new constitution. The peace of Prague (Aug. 20, 1866), excluding Austria from Italy and Germany, made the fate of the Habsburg monarchy absolutely dependent upon a compromise with the Magyars. (For the Compromise or Ausgleich, see Austria-Hungary: History.) On the 7th of November 1866, the diet reassembled. The Compromise of 1867. On the 17th of February 1867 a responsible independent ministry was formed under Count Gyula Andrássy. On the 29th of May the new constitution was adopted by 209 votes to 89. Practically it was an amplification of the March Laws of 1848. The coronation took place on the 8th of June, on which occasion the king solemnly declared that he wished “a veil to be drawn over the past.” The usual coronation gifts he devoted to the benefit of the Honvéd invalids who had fought in the War of Independence. The reconciliation between monarch and people was assured.

Hungary was now a free and independent modern state; but the very completeness and suddenness of her constitutional victory made it impossible for the strongly flowing current of political life to keep within due bounds. Parties in Independent Hungary. The circumstance that the formation of political parties had not come about naturally, was an additional difficulty. Broadly speaking, there have been in Hungary since 1867 two parties: those who accept the compromise with Austria, and affirm that under it Hungary, so far from having surrendered any of her rights, has acquired an influence which she previously did not actually possess, and secondly, those who see in the compromise an abandonment of the essentials of independence and aim at the restoration of the conditions established in 1848. Within this broad division, however, have appeared from time to time political groups in bewildering variety, each adopting a party designation according to the exigencies of the moment, but each basing its programme on one or other of the theoretical foundations above mentioned. Thus, at the outset, the most heterogeneous elements were to be found both on the Left and Right. The Extreme Left was infected by the fanaticism of Kossuth, who condemned the compromise and refused to take the benefit of the amnesty, while the prelates and magnates who had originally opposed the compromise were now to be found by the side of Deák and Andrássy. The Deák party preserved its majority at the elections of 1869, but the Left Centre and Extreme Left returned to the diet considerably reinforced. The outbreak of the Franco-German War of 1870 turned the attention of the Magyars to Andrássy. foreign affairs. Andrássy never rendered a greater service to his country than when he prevented the imperial chancellor and joint foreign minister, Count Beust,43 from intervening in favour of France. On the retirement of Beust in 1871, Andrássy was appointed his successor, the first instance, since Hungary came beneath the dominion of the Habsburgs, of an Hungarian statesman being entrusted with the conduct of foreign affairs. But, however gratifying such an elevation might be, it was distinctly prejudicial, at first, to Hungary’s domestic affairs, for no one else at this time, in Hungary, possessed either the prestige or the popularity of Andrássy. Within the next five years ministry followed ministry in rapid succession. A hopeless political confusion ensued. Few measures could be passed. The finances fell into disorder. The national credit was so seriously impaired abroad that foreign loans could only be obtained at ruinous rates of interest. During this period Deák had almost entirely withdrawn from public life. His last great speech was delivered on the 28th of June 1873, and he died on the 29th of January 1876. Fortunately, Kálmán Tisza. in Kálmán Tisza, the leader of the Liberal (Szabadelmü, i.e. “Free Principle”) party, he left behind him a statesman of the first rank, who for the next eighteen years was to rule Hungary uninterruptedly. From the first, Tisza was exposed to the violent attacks of the opposition, which embraced, not only the party of Independence, champions of the principles of 1848, but the so-called National party, led by the brilliant orator Count Albert Apponyi, which aimed at much the same ends but looked upon the Compromise of 1867 as a convenient substructure on which to build up the Magyar state. Neither could forgive Tisza for repudiating his earlier Radical policy, the so-called Bihar Programme (March 6, 1868), which went far beyond the Compromise in the direction of independence, and both attacked him with a violence which his unyielding temper, and the ruthless methods by which he always knew how to secure victory, tended ever to fan into fury. Yet Tisza’s aim also was to convert the old polyglot Hungarian kingdom into a homogeneous Magyar state, and the methods which he employed—notably the enforced magyarization of the subject races, which formed part of the reformed educational system introduced by him—certainly did not err on the side of moderation.44 Whatever view may be held of Tisza’s policy in this respect, or of the corrupt methods by which he maintained his party in power,45 there can be no doubt that during his long tenure of office—which practically amounted to a dictatorship—he did much to promote the astonishing progress of his country, which ran a risk of being stifled in the strife of factions. Himself a Calvinist, he succeeded in putting an end to the old quarrel of Catholic and Protestant and uniting them in a common enthusiasm for a race ideal; nominally a Liberal, he trampled on every Liberal principle in order to secure the means for governing with a firm hand; and if the political corruption of modern Hungary is largely his work,46 to him also belongs the credit for the measures which have placed the country on a sound economic basis and the statesmanlike temper which made Hungary a power in the affairs of Europe. In this latter respect Tisza rendered substantial aid to the joint minister for foreign affairs by repressing the anti-Russian ardour of the Magyars on the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78, and by supporting Andrássy’s execution of the mandate from the Berlin Congress to Austria-Hungary for the occupation of Bosnia, against which the Hungarian opposition agitated for reasons ostensibly financial. Tisza’s policy on both these occasions increased his unpopularity in Hungary, but in the highest circles at Vienna he was now regarded as indispensable.

The following nine years mark the financial and commercial rehabilitation of Hungary, the establishment of a vast and original railway system which won the admiration of Europe, the liberation and expansion of her over-sea Material progress. trade, the conversion of her national debt under the most favourable conditions and the consequent equilibrium of her finances. These benefits the nation owed for the most part to Gábor Baross, Hungary’s greatest finance minister, who entered the cabinet in 1886 and greatly strengthened it. But the opposition, while unable to deny the recuperation of Hungary, shut their eyes to everything but Tisza’s “tyranny,” and their attacks were never so savage and unscrupulous as during the session of 1889, when threats of a revolution were uttered by the opposition leaders and the premier could only enter or leave the House under police protection. The tragic death of the crown prince Rudolph hushed for a time the strife of tongues, and in the meantime Tisza brought into the ministry Dezsö Szilágyi, the most powerful debater in the House, and Sándor Wekerle, whose solid talents had hitherto been hidden beneath the bushel of an under-secretaryship. But in 1890, during the debates on the Kossuth Repatriation Bill, the attacks on the premier were renewed, and on the 13th of March he placed his resignation in the king’s hands.

The withdrawal of Tisza scarcely changed the situation, but the period of brief ministries now began. Tisza’s successor, Count Gyula Szápáry, formerly minister of agriculture, held office for eighteen months, and was succeeded (Nov. 21, 1892) by First Wekerle Ministry, 1892. The religious question. Wekerle. Wekerle, essentially a business man, had taken office for the express purpose of equilibrating the finances, but the religious question aroused by the encroachments of the Catholic clergy, and notably their insistence on the baptism of the children of mixed marriages, had by this time (1893-1894) excluded all others, and the government were forced to postpone their financial programme to its consideration. The Obligatory Civil Marriage Bill, the State Registries Bill and the Religion of Children of Mixed Marriages Bill, were finally adopted on the 21st of June 1894, after fierce debates and a ministerial interregnum of ten days (June 10-20); but on the 25th of December, Wekerle, who no longer possessed the king’s confidence,47 resigned a second time, and was succeeded by Baron Dezsö (Desiderius) Bánffy. The various parties meanwhile had split up into some half a Bánffy Ministry, 1894. dozen sub-sections; but the expected fusion of the party of independence and the government fell through, and the barren struggle continued till the celebration of the millennium of the foundation of the monarchy produced for some months a lull in politics. Subsequently, Bánffy still further exasperated the opposition by exercising undue influence during the elections of 1896. The majority he obtained on this occasion enabled him, however, to carry through the Army Education Bill, which tended to magyarize the Hungarian portion of the joint army; and another period of comparative calm ensued, during which Bánffy attempted to adjust various outstanding financial and economical differences with Austria. But in November 1898, on the occasion of the renewal of the commercial convention with Austria, the attack on the ministry was renewed with unprecedented virulence, obstruction being systematically practised with the object of goading the government into committing illegalities, till Bánffy, finding the situation impossible, resigned on the 17th of February 1899. His successor, Széll Ministry, 1899. Kálmán Széll, obtained an immense but artificial majority by a fresh fusion of parties, and the minority pledged itself to grant an indemnity for the extra-parliamentary financial decrees rendered necessary by Hungary’s understanding with Austria, as well as to cease from obstruction. As a result of this compromise the budget of 1899 was passed in little more than a month, and the commercial and tariff treaty with Austria were renewed till 1903.48 But the government had to pay for this complacency with a so-called “pactum,” which bound its hands in several directions, much to the profit of the opposition during the “pure” elections of 1901. The army language question. On the reassembling of the diet, Count Albert Apponyi was elected speaker, and the minority seemed disposed to let the government try to govern. But the proposed raising of the contingent of recruits by 15,000 men (Oct. 1902) once more brought up the question of the common army, the parliament refusing to pass the bill, except in return for the introduction of the Hungarian national flag into the Hungarian regiments and the substitution of Magyar for German in the words of command. The king refusing to yield an inch of his rights under clause ii. of Law XII. of the Compromise of 1867, the opposition once more took to obstruction, and on the 1st of May 1903 Széll was forced to resign.

Every one now looked to the crown to extract the nation from an ex-lex, or extra-constitutional situation, but when the king, passing over the ordinary party-leaders, appointed as premier Count Károly Khuen-Hedérváry, who had First Khuen-Hedérváry Ministry, 1903. made himself impossible as ban of Croatia, there was general amazement and indignation. The fact was that the king, weary of the tactics of a minority which for years had terrorized every majority and prevented the government from exercising its proper constitutional functions, had resolved to show the Magyars that he was prepared to rule unconstitutionally rather than imperil the stability of the Dual Monarchy by allowing any tampering with the joint army. In an ordinance on the army word of command, promulgated on the 16th of September, he reaffirmed the inalienable character of the powers of the crown over the joint army and the necessity for maintaining German as the common military language. This was followed by the fall of Khuen-Hedérváry (September 29), and a quarrel à outrance between crown and parliament seemed unavoidable. The Liberal party, however, realized the abyss towards which they were hurrying the country, and united their efforts to come to a constitutional understanding with the king. The problem was to keep the army an Hungarian army without infringing on the prerogative of the king as commander-in-chief, for, unconstitutional as the new ordinance might be, it could not constitutionally be set aside without the royal assent. The king met them half way by inviting the majority to appoint a committee to settle the army question provisionally, and a committee was formed, which included Széll, Apponyi, Count István Tisza and other experienced statesmen.

A programme approved of by all the members of the committee was drawn up, and on the 3rd of November 1903, Count István Tisza was appointed minister president to carry it out. Thus, out of respect for the wishes of István Tisza Ministry, 1903. the nation, the king had voluntarily thrown open to public discussion the hitherto strictly closed and jealously guarded domain of the army. Tisza, a statesman of singular probity and tenacity, seemed to be the one person capable of carrying out the programme of the king and the majority. The irreconcilable minority, recognizing this, exhausted all the resources of “technical obstruction” in order to reduce the government to impotence, a task made easy by the absurd standing-rules of the House which enabled any single member to block a measure. These tactics soon rendered legislation impossible, and a modification of the rule of procedure became absolutely necessary if any business at all was to be done. Crisis of 1904-1906. The Modification of the Standing-orders Bill was accordingly introduced by the deputy Gábor Daniel (Nov. 18, 1904); but the opposition, to which the National party had attached itself, denounced it as “a gagging order” inspired at Vienna, and shouted it down so vehemently that no debate could be held; whereupon the president declared the bill carried and adjourned the House till the 13th of December 1904. This was at once followed by an anti-ministerial fusion of the extremists of all parties, The “Coalition.” including seceders from the government (known as the Constitutional party); and when the diet reassembled, the opposition broke into the House by force and wrecked all the furniture, so that a session was physically impossible (Jan. 5, 1905). Tisza now appealed to the country, but was utterly defeated. The opposition thereupon proceeded to annul the Lex Daniel (April 7) and stubbornly to clamour for the adoption of the Magyar word of command in the Hungarian part of the common army. To this demand the king as stubbornly refused to accede;49 and as the result of the consequent dead-lock, Tisza, who had courageously continued in office at the king’s request, after every other leading politician had refused to form a ministry, was finally dismissed on the 17th of June.

(R. N. B.; W. A. P.)

Long negotiations between the crown and the leaders of the Coalition having failed to give any promise of a modus vivendi, the king-emperor at last determined to appoint an extra-parliamentary ministry, and on the 21st of June Baron Fejérváry Government. Fejérváry, an officer in the royal bodyguard, was nominated minister president with a cabinet consisting of little-known permanent officials. Instead of presenting the usual programme, the new premier read to the parliament a royal autograph letter stating the reasons which had actuated the king in taking this course, and giving as the task of the new ministry the continuance of negotiations with the Coalition on the basis of the exclusion of the language question. The parliament was at the same time prorogued. A period followed of arbitrary government on the one hand and of stubborn passive resistance on the other. Three times the parliament was again prorogued—from the 15th of September to the 10th of October, from this date to the 19th of December, and from this yet again to the 1st of March 1906—in spite of the protests of both Houses. To the repressive measures of the government—press censorship, curtailment of the right of public meeting, dismissal of recalcitrant officials, and dragooning of disaffected county assemblies and municipalities—the Magyar nation opposed a sturdy refusal to pay taxes, to supply recruits or to carry on the machinery of administration.

Had this attitude represented the temper of the whole Hungarian people, it would have been impossible for the crown to have coped with it. But the Coalition represented, in fact, not the mass of the people, but only a small dominant minority,50 and for years past this minority had neglected the social and economic needs of the mass of the people in the eager pursuit of party advantage and the effort to impose, by coercion and corruption failing other means, the Magyar language and Magyar culture on the non-Magyar races. In this supreme crisis, then, it is not surprising that the masses listened with sullen indifference to the fiery eloquence of the Coalition leaders. Moreover, by refusing the royal terms, the Coalition had forced the crown into an alliance with the extreme democratic elements in the state. Universal suffrage had already been adopted in the Cis-leithan half of the monarchy; it was an obvious policy to propose it for Hungary also, and thus, by an appeal to the non-Magyar Kristóffy’s Universal Suffrage proposal. majority, to reduce the irreconcilable Magyar minority to reason. Universal suffrage, then, was the first and most important of the proposals put forward by Mr Joszef Kristóffy, the minister of the interior, in the programme issued by him on the 26th of November 1905. Other proposals were: the maintenance of the system of the joint army as established in 1867, but with the concession that all Hungarian recruits were to receive their education in Magyar; the maintenance till 1917 of the actual customs convention with Austria; a reform of the land laws, with a view to assisting the poorer proprietors; complete religious equality; universal and compulsory primary education.

The issue of a programme so liberal, and notably the inclusion in it of the idea of universal suffrage, entirely checkmated the opposition parties. Their official organs, indeed, continued to fulminate against the “unconstitutional” government, but the enthusiasm with which the programme had been received in the country showed the Coalition leaders the danger of their position, and henceforth, though they continued their denunciations of Austria, they entered into secret negotiations with the king-emperor, in order, by coming to terms with him, to ward off the fatal consequences of Kristóffy’s proposals.

On the 19th of February 1906 the parliament was dissolved, without writs being issued for a new election, a fact accepted by the country with an equanimity highly disconcerting to patriots. Meanwhile the negotiations continued, Coalition Ministry, 1906. so secretly that when, on the 9th of April, the appointment of a Coalition cabinet51 under Dr Sandór Wekerle was announced, the world was taken completely by surprise. The agreement with the crown which had made this course possible included the postponement of the military questions that had evoked the crisis, and the acceptance of the principle of Universal Suffrage by the Coalition leaders, who announced that their main tasks would be to repair the mischief wrought by the “unconstitutional” Fejérváry cabinet, and then to introduce a measure of franchise reform so wide that it would be possible to ascertain the will of the whole people on the questions at issue between themselves and the crown.52 In the general elections that followed the Liberal party was practically wiped out, its leader, Count István Tisza, retiring into private life.

For two years and a half the Coalition ministry continued in office without showing any signs that they intended to carry out the most important item of their programme. The old abuses continued: the muzzling of the press in the Andrássy’s Universal Suffrage Bill. interests of Magyar nationalism, the imprisonment of non-Magyar deputies for “incitement against Magyar nationality,” the persecution of Socialists and of the subordinate races. That this condition of things could not be allowed to continue was, indeed, recognized by all parties; the fundamental difference of opinion was as to the method by which it was to be ended. The dominant Magyar parties were committed to the principle of franchise reform; but they were determined that this reform should be of such a nature as not to imperil their own hegemony. What this would mean was pointed out by Mr Kristóffy in an address delivered at Budapest on the 14th of March 1907. “If the work of social reform,” he said, “is scamped by a measure calculated to falsify the essence of reform, the struggle will be continued in the Chamber until full electoral liberty is attained. Till then there can be no social peace in Hungary.”53 The postponement of the question was, indeed, already producing ugly symptoms of popular indignation. On the 10th of October 1907 there was a great and orderly demonstration at Budapest, organized by the socialists, in favour of reform. About 100,000 people assembled, and a deputation handed to Mr Justh, the president of the Chamber, a monster petition in favour of universal suffrage. The reception it met with was not calculated to encourage constitutional methods. The Socialist deputy, Mr Mezöffy, who wished to move an interpellation on the question, was howled down by the Independents with shouts of “Away with him! Down with him!”54 Four days later, in answer to a question by the same deputy, Count Andrássy said that the Franchise Bill would be introduced shortly, but that it would be of such a nature that “the Magyar State idea would remain intact and suffer no diminution.”55 Yet more than a year was to pass before the promised bill was introduced, and meanwhile the feeling in the country had grown more intense, culminating in serious riots at Budapest on the 13th of March 1908.

At last (November 11, 1908) Count Andrássy introduced the long-promised bill. How far it was from satisfying the demands of the Hungarian peoples was at once apparent. It granted manhood suffrage, it is true, but hedged with so many qualifying conditions and complicated with so elaborate a system of plural voting as to make its effect nugatory. Every male Hungarian citizen, able to read and write, was to receive the vote at the beginning of his twenty-fifth year, subject to a residential qualification of twelve months. Illiterate citizens were to choose one elector for every ten of their number. All electors not having the qualifications for the plural franchise were to have one vote. Electors who, e.g., had passed four standards of a secondary school, or paid 16s. 8d. in direct taxation, were to have two votes. Electors who had passed five standards, or who paid £4, 3s. 4d. in direct taxes, were to have three votes. Voting was to be public, as before, on the ground, according to the Preamble, that “the secret ballot protects electors in dependent positions only in so far as they break their promises under the veil of secrecy.”

It was at once seen that this elaborate scheme was intended to preserve “the Magyar State idea intact.” Its result, had it passed, would have been to strengthen the representation of the Magyar and German elements, to reduce that of the Slovaks, and almost to destroy that of the Rumans and other non-Magyar races whose educational status was low.56 On the other hand, according to the Neue Freie Presse, it would have increased the number of electors from some million odd to 2,600,000, and the number of votes to 4,000,000; incidentally it would have largely increased the working-class representation.

This proposal was at once recognized by public opinion—to use the language of the Journal des Débats (May 21, 1909)—as “an instrument of domination” rather than as an attempt to carry out the spirit of the compact under which the Coalition government had been summoned to power. It was not, indeed, simply a reactionary or undemocratic measure; it was, as The Times correspondent pointed out, “a measure sui generis, designed to defeat the objects of the universal suffrage movement that compelled the Coalition to take office in April 1906, and framed in accordance with Magyar needs as understood by one of the foremost Magyar noblemen.” Under this bill culture was to be the gate to a share in political power, and in Hungary culture must necessarily be Magyar.

Plainly, this bill was not destined to settle the Hungarian problem, and other questions soon arose which showed that the crisis, so far from being near a settlement, was destined to become more acute than ever. In December 1908 The crisis, 1909-1910. it was clear that the Coalition Ministry was falling to pieces. Those ministers who belonged to the constitutional and popular parties, i.e. the Liberals and Clericals, desired to maintain the compact with the crown; their colleagues of the Independence party were eager to advance the cause they have at heart by pressing on the question of a separate Hungarian bank. So early as March 1908 Mr Hallo had laid a formal proposal before the House that the charter of the Austro-Hungarian bank, which was to expire on the 31st of December 1910, should not be renewed; that negotiations should Demand for separate Hungarian Bank. be opened with the Austrian government with a view to a convention between the banks of Austria and Hungary; and that, in the event of these negotiations failing, an entirely separate Hungarian bank should be established. The Balkan crisis threw this question into the background during the winter; but, with the settlement of the international questions raised by the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, it once more came to the front. The ministry was divided on the issue, Count Andrássy opposing and Mr Ferencz Kossuth supporting the proposal for a separate bank. Finally, the prime minister, Dr Wekerle, mainly owing to the pressure put upon him by Mr Justh, the president of the Chamber, yielded to the importunity of the Independence party, and, in the name of the Hungarian government, laid the proposals for a separate bank before the king-emperor and the Austrian government.

The result was a foregone conclusion. The conference at Vienna revealed the irreconcilable difference within the ministry; but it revealed also something more—the determination of the emperor Francis Joseph, if pressed beyond the limits of his patience, to appeal again to the non-Magyar Hungarians against the Magyar chauvinists. He admitted that under the Compromise of 1867 Hungary might have a separate bank, while urging the expediency of such an arrangement from the point of view of the international position of the Dual Monarchy. But he pointed out also that the question of a separate bank did not actually figure in the act of 1867, and that it could not be introduced into it, more especially since the capital article of the ministerial programme, i.e. electoral reform, was not realized, nor near being realized. On the 27th of April, in consequence of this rebuff, Dr Wekerle tendered his resignation, but consented to hold office pending the completion of the difficult task of forming another government.

This task was destined to prove one of almost insuperable difficulty. Had the issues involved been purely Hungarian and constitutional, the natural course would have been for the king to have sent for Mr Kossuth, who commanded the strongest party in the parliament, and to have entrusted him with the formation of a government. But the issues involved affected the stability of the Dual Monarchy and its position in Europe; and neither the king-emperor nor his Austrian advisers, their position strengthened by the success of Baron Aehrenthal’s diplomatic victory in the Balkans, were prepared to make any substantial concessions to the party of Independence. In these circumstances the king sent for Dr László Lukacs, once finance minister in the Fejérváry cabinet, whose task was, acting as a homo regius apart from parties, to construct a government out of any elements that might be persuaded to co-operate with him. But Lukacs had no choice but to apply in the first instance to Mr Kossuth and his friends, and these, suspecting an intention of crushing their party by entrapping them into unpopular engagements, rejected his overtures. Nothing now remained but for the king to request Dr Wekerle to remain “for the present” in office with his colleagues, thus postponing the settlement of the crisis (July 4).

This procrastinating policy played into the hands of the extremists; for supplies had not been voted, and the question of the credits for the expenditure incurred in connexion with the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, increasingly urgent, placed a powerful weapon in the hands of the Magyars, and made it certain that in the autumn the crisis would assume an even more acute form. By the middle of September affairs had again reached an impasse. On the 14th Dr Wekerle, at the ministerial conference assembled at Vienna for the purpose of discussing the estimates to be laid before the delegations, announced that the dissensions among his colleagues made the continuance of the Coalition government impossible. The burning points of controversy were the magyarization of the Hungarian regiments and the question of the separate state bank. On the first of these Wekerle, Andrássy and Apponyi were prepared to accept moderate concessions; as to the second, they were opposed to the question being raised at all. Kossuth and Justh, on the other hand, competitors for the leadership of the Independence party, declared themselves not prepared to accept anything short of the full rights of the Magyars in those matters. The matter was urgent; for parliament was to meet on the 28th, and it was important that a new cabinet, acceptable to it, should be appointed before that date, or that the Houses should be prorogued pending such appointment; otherwise the delegations would be postponed and no credits would be voted for the cost of the new Austro-Hungarian “Dreadnoughts” and of the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina. In the event, neither of these courses proved possible, and on the 28th Dr Wekerle once more announced his resignation to the parliament.

The prime minister was not, however, as yet to be relieved of an impossible responsibility. After a period of wavering Mr Kossuth had consented to shelve for the time the question of the separate bank, and on the strength of this Dr Wekerle advised the crown to entrust to him the formation of a government. The position thus created raised a twofold question: Would the crown accept? In that event, would he be able to carry his party with him in support of his modified programme? The answer to the first question, in effect, depended on that given by events to the second; and this was not long in declaring itself. The plan, concerted by Kossuth and Apponyi, with the approval of Baron Aehrenthal, was to carry on a modified coalition government with the aid of the Andrássy Liberals, the National party, the Clerical People’s party57 and the Independence party, on a basis of suffrage reform with plural franchise, the prolongation of the charter of the joint bank, and certain concessions to Magyar demands in the matter of the army. It was soon clear, however, that in this Kossuth would not carry his party with him. A trial of strength took place between him and Mr de Justh, the champion of the extreme demands in the matter of Hungarian financial and economic autonomy; on the 7th of November rival banquets were held, one at Mako, Justh’s constituency, over which he presided, one at Budapest with Kossuth in the chair; the attendance at each foreshadowed the outcome of the general meeting of the party held at Budapest on the 11th, when Kossuth found himself in a minority of 46. The Independence party was now split into two groups: the “Independence and 1848 party,” and the “Independence, 1848 and Kossuth party.”

On the 12th Mr de Justh resigned the presidency of the Lower House and sought re-election, so as to test the relative strength of parties. He was defeated by a combination of the Kossuthists, Andrássy Liberals and Clerical People’s party, the 30 Croatian deputies, whose vote might have turned the election, abstaining on Dr Wekerle promising them to deliver Croatia from the oppressive rule of the ban, Baron Rauch. A majority was thus secured for the Kossuthist programme of compromise, but a majority so obviously precarious that the king-emperor, influenced also—it was rumoured—by the views of the heir-apparent, in an interview with Count Andrássy and Mr Kossuth on the 15th, refused to make any concessions to the Magyar national demands. Hereupon Kossuth publicly declared (Nov. 22) to a deputation of his constituents from Czegled that he himself was in favour of an independent bank, but that the king opposed it, and that in the event of no concessions being made he would join the opposition.

How desperate the situation had now become was shown by the fact that on the 27th the king sent for Count Tisza, on the recommendation of the very Coalition ministry which had been formed to overthrow him. This also proved abortive, and affairs rapidly tended to revert to the ex-lex situation. On the 23rd of December Dr Lukacs was again sent for. On the previous day the Hungarian parliament had adopted a proposal in favour of an address to the crown asking for a separate state bank. Against this Dr Wekerle had protested, as opposed to general Hungarian opinion and ruinous to the national credit, pointing out that whenever it was a question of raising a loan, the maintenance of the financial community between Hungary and Austria was always postulated as a preliminary condition. Point was given to this argument by the fact that the premier had just concluded the preliminaries for the negotiation of a loan of £20,000,000 in France, and that the money—which could not be raised in the Austrian market, already glutted with Hungarian securities—was urgently needed to pay for the Hungarian share in the expenses of the annexation policy, for public works (notably the new railway scheme), and for the redemption in 1910 of treasury bonds. It was hoped that, in the circumstances, Dr Lukacs, a financier of experience, might be able to come to terms with Mr de Justh, on the basis of dropping the bank question for the time, or, failing that, to patch together out of the rival parties some sort of a working majority.

On the 28th the Hungarian parliament adjourned sine die, pending the settlement of the crisis, without having voted the estimates for 1910, and without there being any prospect of a meeting of the delegations. On the two following days Dr Lukacs and Mr de Justh had audiences of the king, but without result; and on the 31st Hungary once more entered on a period of extra-constitutional government.

After much negotiation a new cabinet was finally constituted on the 17th of January 1910. At its head was Count Khuen Hedérváry, who in addition to the premiership, was minister of the interior, minister for Croatia, and Khuen Hedérváry Government. minister in waiting on the crown. Other ministers were Mr Károly de Hieronymi (commerce), Dr Lukacs (finance), Ferencz de Szekely (justice, education, public worship), Béla Serenyi (agriculture) and General Hazay (national defence). The two main items in the published programme of the new government were the introduction of universal suffrage and—even more revolutionary from the Magyar point of view—the substitution of state-appointed for elected officials in the counties. The real programme was to secure, by hook or by crook, a majority at the polls. Meanwhile, the immediate necessities of the government were provided for by the issue through Messrs Rothschild of £2,000,000 fresh treasury bills. These were to be redeemed in December 1910, together with the £9,000,000 worth issued in 1909, out of the £20,000,000 loan agreed on in principle with the French government; but in view of the opposition in Paris to the idea of advancing money to a member of the Triple Alliance, it was doubtful whether the loan would ever be floated.

The overwhelming victory of the government in June at the polls produced a lull in a crisis which at the beginning of the year had threatened the stability of the Dual Monarchy and the peace of Europe; but, in view of the methods by which the victory had been won, not the most sanguine could assert that the crisis was overpassed. Its deep underlying causes can only be understood in the light of the whole of Hungarian history. It is easy to denounce the dominant Magyar classes as a selfish oligarchy, and to criticize the methods by which they have sought to maintain their power. But a nation that for a thousand years had maintained its individuality in the midst of hostile and rival races could not be expected to allow itself without a struggle to be sacrificed to the force of mere numbers, and the less so if it were justified in its claim that it stood for a higher ideal of culture and civilization. The Magyars had certainly done much to justify their claim to a special measure of enlightenment. In their efforts to establish Hungarian independence on the firm basis of national efficiency they had succeeded in changing their country from one of very backward economic conditions into one which promised to be in a position to hold its own on equal terms with any in the world.

(W. A. P.)

Bibliography.—(a) Sources. The earliest important collection of sources of Hungarian history was Johann Georg Schrandtner’s Scriptores rerum Hungaricarum (4th ed., Vienna, 1766-1768). The Codex diplomaticus of György Fejér (40 vols., Buda, 1829-1844), though full of errors, remains an inexhaustible storehouse of materials. In 1849 Stephen Ladislaus Endlicher (1804-1849), better known as a botanist than as a historian, published a collection of documents, Rerum hungaricarum monumenta Arpadiana. This was followed by Gustav Wenzel’s Codex diplomaticus arpadianus continuens (12 vols., Pest, 1857) and A. Theiner’s Vet. monumenta hist. Hungariam sacram illustrantia (2 vols., Rome, 1859, &c.). Later collections are Documents of the Angevin Period, ed. by G. Wenzel and Imre Nagy (8 vols., ib. 1874-1876); Diplomatic Records of the Time of King Matthias (Mag. and Lat.), ed. by Ivan Nagy (ib. 1875-1878); National Documents (Mag. and Lat.), ed. by Fárkas Deák and others (Pest, 1878-1891); Monumenta Vaticana historiam regni Hungariae illustrantia (8 vols., Budapest, 1885-1891), a valuable collection of materials from the Vatican archives, edited under the auspices of the Hungarian bishops; Principal Sources for the Magyar Conquest (Mag.), by Gyula Pauler and Sándor Szilágyì (ib. 1900). Numerous documents have also been issued in the various publications of the Hungarian Academy and the Hungarian Historical Society. Of these the most important is the Monumenta Hungariae Historica, published by the Academy. This falls into three main groups: Diplomata (30 vols.); Scriptores (40 vols.); Monumenta Comitialia (records of the Hungarian and Transylvanian diets, 12 vols. and 21 vols.). With these are associated the Turkish-Hungarian Records (9 vols.), Turkish Historians (2 vols. pubd.), and the Archives of the Hungarian subordinate countries (2 vols. pubd.).

On the sources see Hendrik Marczali, Ungarns Geschichtsquellen im Zeitalter des Arpáden (Berlin, 1882); Kaindl, Studien zu den ungarischen Geschichtsquellen (Vienna, 1894-1902); and, for a general appreciation, Mangold, Pragmatic History of the Hungarians (in Mag., 5th ed., Budapest, 1907).

(b) Works: The modern literature of Hungary is very rich in historical monographs, of which a long list will be found in the Subject Index of the London Library. Here it is only possible to give some of the more important general histories, together with such special works as are most readily accessible to English readers. Of the earlier Hungarian historians two are still of some value: Katona, Hist. critica regum Hungariae (42 vols., Pest, 1779-1810), and Pray, Annales regum Hungariae (5 vols., Vienna, 1764-1770). Of modern histories written in Magyar the most imposing is the History of the Hungarian Nation (10 vols., Budapest, 1898), issued to commemorate the celebration of the millennium of the foundation of the monarchy, by Sándor Szilágyì and numerous collaborators. Of importance, too, is Ignacz Acsády’s History of the Magyar Empire (2 vols., Budapest, 1904), though its author is too often ultra-chauvinistic in tone.

To those who do not read Magyar the following books on the general history of Hungary may be recommended: Armín Vambéry, Hungary in Ancient and Modern Times (London, 1897); R. Chélard, La Hongrie millénaire (Paris, 1896); Mór Gelléri, Aus der Vergangenheit und Gegenwart des tausendjährigen Ungarn (Budapest, 1896); József Jekelfalussy, The Millennium of Hungary (Budapest, 1897); E. Sayous, Histoire générale des Hongrois (2 vols., Budapest, 1st ed., 1876, 2nd ed., ib. 1900); János Majláth, Geschichte der Magyaren (5 vols., 3rd ed., Regensburg, 1852-1853)—somewhat out of date (it first appeared in 1828), but useful for those who like a little more detail; Count Julius Andrássy, The Development of Hungarian Constitutional Liberty, translated by C. Arthur and Ilona Ginever (London, 1908), containing an interesting comparison with English constitutional development; C. M. Knatchbull-Hugessen, The Political Evolution of the Hungarian Nation (2 vols., London, 1908), strongly Magyar in sympathy; R. W. Seton-Watson (Scotus Viator), Racial Problems in Hungary (London, 1908), a strong criticism of the Magyar attitude towards the Slav subject races, especially the Slovaks, with documents and a full bibliography.

(c) Constitutional: Anton von Virozsil, Das Staatsrecht des Königreichs Ungarn (3 vols., Pest, 1865); S. Radó-Rothfeld, Die ungarische Verfassung (Berlin, 1898) and, based on this, A. de Bertha, La Constitution Hongroise (Paris, 1898), both supporting the policy of Magyarization; Ákos von Timon, Ungarische Verfassungs- und Rechisgeschichte (Berlin, 1904); Knatchbull-Hugessen, op. cit.

(d) Biographical: In Magyar, the great serial entitled Hungarian Historical Biographies (Budapest, 1884, &c.), edited by Sándor Szilágyi, is a collection of lives of famous Hungarian men and women from the earliest times by many scholars of note, finely illustrated.

For works on special periods see the separate articles on the sovereigns and other notabilities of Hungary. For works on the Compromise of 1867 and the relations of Austria and Hungary generally, see the bibliography to the article Austria-Hungary.

III. Language

The Magyar or Hungarian language belongs to the northern or Finno-Ugric (q.v.) division of the Ural-Altaic family, and forms, along with Ostiak and Vogul, the Ugric branch of that division. The affinity existing between the Magyar and the Finnic languages, first noticed by John Amos Comenius (Komensky) in the middle of the 17th century,58 and later by Olav Rudbeck,59 Leibnitz,60 Strahlenberg,61 Eccard, Sajnovics,62 and others, was proved “grammatically” by Samuel Gyarmathi in his work entitled Affinitas linguae Hungaricae cum linguis Finnicae originis grammatice demonstrata (Göttingen, 1799). The Uralian travels of Anthony Reguly (1843-1845), and the philological labours of Paul Hunfalvy and Joseph Budenz, may be said to have established it, and no doubt has been thrown on it by recent research, though most authorities regard the Magyars as of mixed origin physically and combining Turkish with Finno-Ugric elements.

Although for nearly a thousand years established in Europe and subjected to Aryan influences, the Magyar has yet retained its essential Ural-Altaic or Turanian features. The grammatical forms are expressed, as in Turkish, by means of affixes modulated according to the high or low vowel power of the root or chief syllables of the word to which they are appended—the former being represented by e, ö, ő, ü, ű, the latter by a, á, o, ó, u, ú; the sounds é, i, í are regarded as neutral. In some respects the value of the consonants varies from that usual in the Latin alphabet. S is pronounced as sh in English, the sound of simple s being represented by sz. C or cz is pronounced as English ts; cs as English ch; ds as English j; zs as French j; gy as dy. Among the striking peculiarities of the language are the definite and indefinite forms of the active verb, e.g. látom, “I see” (definite, viz. “him,” “her,” “the man,” &c.), látok, “I see” (indefinite); the insertion of the causative, frequentative, diminutive and potential syllables after the root of the verb, e.g. ver, “he beats”; veret, “he causes to beat”; vereget, “he beats repeatedly”; verint, “he beats a little”; verhet, “he can beat”; the mode of expressing possession by the tenses of the irregular verb lenni, “to be” (viz. van, “is”; vannak, “are”; volt, “was”; lesz, “will be,” &c.), with the object and its possessive affixes, e.g. nekem vannak könyveim, literally, “to me are books—my” = “I have books”; neki volt könyve, “to him was book—his” = “he had a book.” Other characteristic features are the use of the singular substantive after numerals, and adjectives of quantity, e.g. két ember, literally, “two man”; sok szó, “many word,” &c.; the position of the Christian name and title after the family name, e.g. Ólmosy Károly tanár ur, “Mr Professor Charles Ólmosy”; and the possessive forms of the nouns, which are varied according to the number and person of the possessor and the number of the object in the following way: tollam, “my pen”; tollaim, “my pens”; tollad, “thy pen”; tollaid, “thy pens”; tollunk, “our pen”; tollaink, “our pens,” &c. There is no gender, not even a distinction between “he,” “she,” and “it,” in the personal pronouns, and the declension is less developed than in Finnish. But there is a wealth of verbal derivatives, the vocabulary is copious, and the intonation harmonious. Logical in its derivatives and in its grammatical structure, the Magyar language is, moreover, copious in idiomatic expressions, rich in its store of words, and almost musical in its harmonious intonation. It is, therefore, admirably adapted for both literary and rhetorical purposes.

The first Hungarian grammar known is the Grammatica Hungaro-Latina of John Erdösi alias Sylvester Pannonius, printed at Sárvár-Ujsziget in 1539. Others are the posthumous treatises of Nicholas Révai (Pest, 1809); the Magyar nyelvmester of Samuel Gyarmathi, published at Klausenburg in 1794; and grammars by J. Farkas (9th ed., Vienna, 1816), Mailáth (2nd ed., Pest, 1832), Kis (Vienna, 1834), Márton (8th ed., Vienna, 1836), Maurice Ballagi or (in German) Bloch (5th ed., Pest, 1869), Töpler (Pest, 1854), Riedl (Vienna, 1858), Schuster (Pest, 1866), Charles Ballagi (Pest, 1868), Reméle (Pest and Vienna, 1869), Roder (Budapest, 1875), Führer (Budapest, 1878), Ney (20th ed., Budapest, 1879), C. E. de Ujfalvy (Paris, 1876), S. Wékey (London, 1852), J. Csink (London, 1853), Ballantik (Budapest, 1881); Singer (London, 1882).

The earliest lexicon is that of Gabriel (Mizsér) Pesti alias Pestinus Pannonius, Nomenclatura sex linguarum, Latinae, Italicae, Gallicae, Bohemicae, Ungaricae et Germanicae (Vienna, 1538), which was several times reprinted. The Vocabula Hungarica of Bernardino Baldi (1583), the original MS. of which is in the Biblioteca Nazionale at Naples, contains 2899 Hungarian words with renderings in Latin or Italian.63 In the Dictionarium undecim linguarum of Calepinus (Basel, 1590) are found also Polish, Hungarian and English words and phrases. This work continued to be reissued until 1682. The Lexicon Latina-Hungaricum of Albert Molnár first appeared at Nuremberg in 1604, and with the addition of Greek was reprinted till 1708. Of modern Hungarian dictionaries the best is that of the Academy of Sciences, containing 110,784 articles in 6 vols., by Czuczor and Fogarasi (Pest, 1862-1874). The next best native dictionary is that of Maurice Ballagi, A Magyar nyelv teljes szótára, (Pest, 1868-1873). In addition to the above may be mentioned the work of Kresznerics, where the words are arranged according to the roots (Buda, 1831-1832); the Etymologisches Wörterbuch ... aus chinesischen Wurzeln, of Podhorszky (Paris, 1877); Lexicon linguae Hungaricae aevi antiquioris, by Szarvas Gábor and Simonyi Zsigmond (1889); and “Magyar-Ugor összehasonlito szótar” Hungarian Ugrian Comparative Dictionary, by Bydenz (Budapest, 1872-1879). Other and more general dictionaries for German scholars are those of Márton, Lexicon trilingue Latino-Hungarico-Germanicum (Vienna, 1818-1823), A. F. Richter (Vienna, 1836), E. Farkas (Pest, 1848-1851), Fogarasi (4th ed., Pest, 1860), Loos (Pest, 1869) and M. Ballagi (Budapest, 3rd ed., 1872-1874). There are, moreover, Hungarian-French dictionaries by Kiss and Karády (Pest and Leipzig, 1844-1848) and Babos and Molé (Pest, 1865), and English-Hungarian dictionaries by Dallos (Pest, 1860) and Bizonfy (Budapest, 1886).

(C. El.)

IV. Literature

The Catholic ecclesiastics who settled in Hungary during the 11th century, and who found their way into the chief offices of the state, were mainly instrumental in establishing Latin as the predominant language of the court, the higher schools and public worship, and of eventually introducing it into the administration. Having thus become the tongue of the educated and privileged classes, Latin continued to monopolize the chief fields of literature until the revival of the native language at the close of the 18th century.

Amongst the earliest Latin works that claim attention are the “Chronicle” (Gesta Hungarorum), by the “anonymous notary” of King Béla, probably Béla II. (see Podhradczky,64 Béla király névtelen jegyzöje, Buda, 1861, p. 48), which describes the early ages of Early Latin chronicles. Hungarian history, and may be assigned to the middle of the 12th century; the Carmen Miserabile of Rogerius; the Liber Cronicorum of Simon Kézai, belonging to the end of the 13th century, the so-called “Chronicon Budense,” Cronica Hungarorum, printed at Buda in 1473 (Eichhorn, Geschichte der Litteratur, ii. 319); and the Chronicon Rerum Hungaricarum of John Thuróczi.65 An extraordinary stimulus was given to literary enterprise by King Matthias Corvinus, who attracted both foreign and native scholars to his court. Foremost amongst the Italians was Antonio Bonfini, whose work, Rerum Hungaricarum Decades IV., comprising Hungarian history from the earliest times to the death of King Matthias, was published with a continuation by Sambucus (Basel, 1568).66 Marzio Galeotti, the king’s chief librarian, wrote an historical account of his reign. The most distinguished of the native scholars was John Cesinge, alias Janus Pannonius, who composed Latin epigrams, panegyrics and epic poems. The best edition of his works was published by Count S. Teleki at Utrecht in 1784.

As there are no traces of literary productions in the native or Magyar dialect before the 12th century, the early condition of the language is concealed from the philologist. It is, however, known that the Hungarians had their own Magyar literature. Earliest relics. Arpadian period, 1000-1301. martial songs, and that their princes kept lyre and lute players who sang festal odes in praise of the national heroes. In the 11th century Christian teachers introduced the use of the Roman letters, but the employment of the Latin language was not formally decreed until 1114 (see Bowring, Poetry of the Magyars, Introd. xix.). It appears, moreover, that up to that date public business was transacted in Hungarian, for the decrees of King Coloman the Learned (1095-1114) were translated from that language into Latin. Among the literary relics of the 12th century are the “Latiatuc” or Halotti Beszéd funeral discourse and prayer in Hungarian, to which Döbrentei in his Régi Magyar Nyelvemlékek assigns as a probable date the year 1171 (others, however, 1182 or 1183). From the Margit-Legenda, or “Legend of St Margaret,” composed in the early part of the 14th century,67 it is evident that from time to time the native language continued to be employed as a means of religious edification. Under the kings of the house of Anjou-Sigismond period, 1301-1437. Anjou, the Magyar became the language of the court. That it was used also in official documents and ordinances is shown by copies of formularies of oaths, the import of which proves beyond a doubt that the originals belonged to the reigns of Louis I. and Sigismond; by a statute of the town of Sajó-St-Peter (1403) relating to the wine trade; by the testament of Kazzai-Karácson (1413); and by other relics of this period published by Döbrentei in vol. ii. of the R. M. Nyelvemlékek. To the early part of the 15th century may be assigned also the legends of “St Francis” and of “St Ursula,” and possibly the original of the Ének Pannónia megvételéröl, an historical “Song about the Conquest of Pannonia.” But not until the dawn of the Reformation did Magyar begin in any sense to replace Latin for literary purposes. The period placed by Hungarian authors between 1437 and 1530 marks the first development of Magyar literature.

About the year 1437 two Hussite monks named Tamás and Bálint (i.e. Thomas and Valentine) adapted from older sources a large portion of the Bible for the use of the Hungarian refugees in Moldavia. To these monks the first extant Jagelló-Matthias or pre-Reformation period (1437-1530). Magyar version of part of the Scriptures (the Vienna or Révai Codex68) is directly assigned by Döbrentei, but the exact date either of this copy or of the original translation cannot be ascertained. With approximate certainty may be ascribed also to Tamás and Bálint the original of the still extant transcript, by George Németi, of the Four Gospels, the Jászay or Munich Codex (finished at Tátros in Moldavia in 1466), Amongst other important codices are the Jordánszky Codex (1516-1519), an incomplete copy of the translation of the Bible made by Ladislaus Bátori, who died about 1456; and the Döbrentei or Gyulafehérvár Codex (1508), containing a version of the Psalter, Song of Solomon, and the liturgical epistles and gospels, copied by Bartholomew Halabori from an earlier translation (Környei, A Magyar nemzeti irodalomtörténet vázlata, 1861, p. 30). Other relics belonging to this period are the oath which John Hunyady took when elected governor of Hungary (1446); a few verses sung by the children of Pest at the coronation of his son Matthias (1458); the Siralomének Both János veszedelmén (Elegy upon John Both), written by a certain “Gregori,” as the initial letters of the verses show, and during the reign of the above-mentioned monarch; and the Emlékdal Mátyás király halálára (Memorial Song on the Death of King Matthias, 1490). To these may be added the rhapsody69 on the taking of “Szabács” (1476); the Katalin-Legenda, a metrical “Legend of St Catherine of Alexandria,” extending to over 4000 lines: and the Feddöének (Upbraiding Song), by Francis Apáthi.

In the next literary period (1530-1606) several translations of the Scriptures are recorded. Among these there are—versions of the Epistles of St Paul, by Benedict Komjáti (Cracow, 1533); of the Four Gospels, by Gabriel (Mizsér) Pesti Reformation period (1530-1606). (Vienna, 1536); of the New Testament, by John Erdösi (Ujsziget, 1541; 2nd ed., Vienna, 157470), and by Thomas Félegyházi (1586); and the translations of the Bible, by Caspar Heltai (Klausenburg, 1551-1565), and by Caspar Károli (Vizsoly, near Göncz, 1589-1590). The last, considered the best, was corrected and re-edited by Albert Molnár at Hanau in 1608.71 Heltai published also (1571) a translation, improved from that by Blasius Veres (1565), of the Tripartitum of Verböczy, and Chronika (1575) adapted from the Decades of Bonfini. Karádi in 1569 brought to light the earliest national drama, Balassi Menyhért. Among the native poets, mostly mere rhyming chroniclers of the 16th century, were Csanádi, Tinódi, Nagy-Báczai, Bogáti, Ilósvay, Istvánfi, Görgei, Temesvári and Valkai. Of these the best and most prolific writer was Tinódi. Székely wrote in prose, with verse introduction, a “Chronicle of the World” under the title of Cronica ez világnac yeles dolgairól (Cracow, 1559). Csáktornya and Kákony imitated the ancient classical poets, and Erdösi introduced the hexameter. Andrew Farkas and the homilist Peter Melius (Juhász) attempted didactic verse; and Batizi busied himself with sacred song and Biblical history. During the latter part of the 16th century and the beginning of the 17th two poets of a higher order appeared in Valentine Balassa, the earliest Magyar lyrical writer, and his contemporary John Rimay, whose poems are of a contemplative and pleasing character.

The melancholy state of the country consequent upon the persecutions of Rudolph I., Ferdinand II. and Leopold I., as also the continual encroachment of Germanizing influences under the Habsburgs, were unfavourable to the development of 17th century period (1606-1711). the national literature during the next literary period, dating from the Peace of Vienna (1606) to that of Szatmár (1711). A few names were, however, distinguished in theology, philology and poetry. In 1626 a Hungarian version of the Vulgate was published at Vienna by the Jesuit George Káldi,72 and another complete translation of the Scriptures, the so-called Komáromi Biblia (Komorn Bible) was made in 1685 by the Protestant George Csipkés, though it was not published till 1717 at Leiden, twenty-nine years after his death.73 On behalf of the Catholics the Jesuit Peter Pázmán, eventually primate, Nicholas Eszterházy, Sámbár, Balásfi and others were the authors of various works of a polemical nature. Especially famous was the Hodaegus, kalauz of Pázmán, which first appeared at Pozsony (Pressburg) in 1613. Among the Protestants who exerted themselves in theological and controversial writings were Németi, Alvinczy, Alexander Felvinczy, Mártonfalvi and Melotai, who was attached to the court of Bethlen Gábor. Telkibányai wrote on “English Puritanism” (1654). The Calvinist Albert Molnár, already mentioned, was more remarkable for his philological than for his theological labours. Párispápai compiled an Hungarian-Latin Dictionary, Dictionarium magyar és deák nyelven (Löcse, 1708), and Apáczai-Csere, a Magyar Encyclopaedia (Utrecht, 1653). John Szalárdi, Paul Lisznyai, Gregory Pethö, John Kemény and Benjamin Szilágyi, which last, however, wrote in Latin, were the authors of various historical works. In polite literature the heroic poem Zrinyiász (1651), descriptive of the fall of Sziget, by Nicholas Zrinyi, grandson of the defender of that fortress, marks a new era in Hungarian poetry. Of a far inferior character was the monotonous Mohácsi veszedelem (Disaster of Mohács), in 13 cantos, produced two years afterwards at Vienna by Baron Liszti. The lyric and epic poems of Stephen Gyöngyösi, who sang the deeds of Maria Széchy, the heroine of Murány, Murányi Venus (Kassa, 1664), are samples rather of a general improvement in the style than of the purity of the language. As a didactic and elegiac poet Stephen Kohári is much esteemed. More fluent but not less gloomy are the sacred lyrics of Nyéki-Veres first published in 1636 under the Latin title of Tintinnabulum Tripudiantium. The songs and proverbs of Peter Beniczky, who lived in the early part o£ the 17th century, are not without merit, and have been several times reprinted. From the appearance of the first extant printed Magyar work74 at Cracow in 1531 to the end of the period just treated, more than 1800 publications in the native language are known.75

The period comprised between the peace of Szatmár (1711) and the year 1772 is far more barren in literary results than even that which preceded it. The exhaustion of the nation from its protracted civil and foreign wars, the extinction of the Period of decline (1711-1772). court of the Transylvanian princes where the native language had been cherished, and the prevalent use of Latin in the schools, public transactions and county courts, all combined to bring about a complete neglect of the Magyar language and literature. Among the few prose writers of distinction were Andrew Spangár, whose “Hungarian Bookstore,” Magyar Könyvtár (Kassa, 1738), is said to be the earliest work of the kind in the Magyar dialect; George Bárányi, who translated the New Testament (Lauba, 1754); the historians Michael Cserei and Matthew Bél, which last, however, wrote chiefly in Latin; and Peter Bod, who besides his theological treatises compiled a history of Hungarian literature under the title Magyar Athénás (Szeben, 1766). But the most celebrated writer of this period was the Jesuit Francis Faludi, the translator, through the Italian, of William Darrell’s works. On account of the classic purity of his style in prose, Faludi was known as the “Magyar Cicero.” Not only as a philosophic and didactic writer, but also as a lyric and dramatic poet he surpassed all his contemporaries. Another pleasing lyric poet of this period was Ladislaus Amade, the naturalness and genuine sentiment of whose lightly running verses are suggestive of the love songs of Italian authors. Of considerable merit are also the sacred lyrical melodies of Paul Rádai in his Lelki hódolás (Spiritual Homage), published at Debreczen in 1715. Among the didactic poets may be mentioned Lewis Nagy, George Kálmár, John Illey and Paul Bertalanfi, especially noted for his rhymed “Life of St Stephen, first Hungarian king,” Dicsöséges Sz. István elsö magyar királynak élete (Vienna, 1751).

The next three literary periods stand in special relationship to one another, and are sometimes regarded as the same. The first two, marking respectively the progress of the “Regeneration of the Native Literature” (1772-1807) and the “Revival of the Language” (1807-1830), were introductory to and preparatory for the third or “Academy,” period, which began about 1830.

In consequence of the general neglect of the Magyar language during the reigns of Maria Theresa and her successor Joseph II., the more important prose productions of the latter part of the 18th century, as for instance the historical works of Regeneration of the literature (1772-1807). George Pray, Stephen Katona, John Engel and Ignatius Fessier, were written either in Latin or in German. The reaction in favour of the native literature manifested itself at first chiefly in the creation of various schools of poetry. Foremost among these stood the so-called “French” school, founded by George Bessenyei, the author of several dramatic pieces, and of an imitation of Pope’s “Essay on Man,” under the title of Az embernek próbája (Vienna, 1772). Bessenyei introduced the use of rhymed alexandrines in place of the monotonous Zrinian measure. Other writers of the same school were Laurence Orczy and Abraham Barcsay, whose works have a striking resemblance to each other, and were published together by Révai (1789). The songs and elegies of the short-lived Paul Ányos, edited by Bacsányi in 1798, show great depth of feeling. Versifiers and adapters from the French appeared also in Counts Adam and Joseph Teleki, Alexander Báróczi and Joseph Péczeli, known also as the translator of Young’s “Night Thoughts.” The chief representatives of the strictly “classical” school, which adopted the ancient Greek and Latin authors as its models, were David Baróti Szabó, Nicholas Révai, Joseph Rájnis and Benedict Virág. Among the most noteworthy works of Baróti are the Uj mértékre vett külömb versek (Kassa, 1777), comprising hexameter verses, Horatian odes, distichs, epistles and epigrams; the Paraszti Majorság (Kassa, 1779-1780), an hexameter version of Vanière’s Praedium rusticum; and an abridged version of “Paradise Lost,” contained in the Költeményes munkaji (Komárom, 1802). Baróti, moreover, published (1810-1813) a translation of Virgil’s Aeneid and Eclogues. Of Baróti’s purely linguistic works the best known are his Ortographia és Prosodia (Komárom, 1800); and the Kisded Szótár (Kassa, 1784 and 1792) or “Small Lexicon” of rare Hungarian words. As a philologist Baróti was far surpassed by Nicholas Révai, but as a poet he may be considered superior to Rájnis, translator of Virgil’s Bucolics and Georgics, and author of the Magyar Helikonra vezetö kalauz (Guide to the Magyar Helicon, 1781). The “classical” school reached its highest state of culture under Virág, whose poetical works, consisting chiefly of Horatian odes and epistles, on account of the perfection of their style, obtained for him the name of the “Magyar Horace.” The Poetai Munkai (Poetical Works) of Virág were published at Pest in 1799, and again in 1822. Of his prose works the most important is the Magyar Századok or “Pragmatic History of Hungary” (Buda, 1808 and 1816). Vályi-Nagy, the first Magyar translator of Homer, belongs rather to the “popular” than the “classical” school. His translation of the Iliad appeared at Sárospatak in 1821. The establishment of the “national” or “popular” school is attributable chiefly to Andrew Dugonics, though his earliest works, Troja veszedelme (1774) and Ulysses (1780), indicate a classical bias. His national romances, however, and especially Etelka (Pozsony, 1787) and Az arany pereczek (Pest and Pozsony, 1790), attracted public attention, and were soon adapted for the stage. The most valuable of his productions is his collection of “Hungarian Proverbs and Famous Sayings,” which appeared in 1820 at Szeged, under the title of Magyar példabeszédek és jeles mondások. The most noteworthy follower of Dugonics was Adam Horváth, author of the epic poems Hunniász (Györ, 1787) and Rudolphiász (Vienna, 1817), Joseph Gvadányi’s tripartite work Falusi notárius (Village Notary), published between 1790 and 1796, as also his Rontó Pál és gr. Benyowsky történeteik (Adventures of Paul Rontó and Count Benyowski), are humorous and readable, but careless in style. As writers of didactic poetry may be mentioned John Endrödy, Caspar Göböl, Joseph Takács and Barbara Molnár, the earliest distinguished Magyar poetess.

Of a more general character, and combining the merits of the above schools, are the works of the authors who constituted the so-called “Debreczen Class,” which boasts the names of the naturalist and philologist John Földi, compiler of a considerable part of the Debreczeni magyar grammatica; Michael Fazekas, author of Ludas Matyi (Vienna, 1817), an epic poem, in 4 cantos; and Joseph Kovács. Other precursors of the modern school were the poet and philologist Francis Verseghy, whose works extend to nearly forty volumes; the gifted didactic prose writer, Joseph Kármán; the metrical rhymster, Gideon Ráday; the lyric poets, Ssentjóbi Szabó, Janos Bacsányi (q.v.), and the short-lived Gabriel Dayka, whose posthumous “Verses” were published in 1813 by Kazinczy. Still more celebrated were Mihaly Csokonai (q.v.) and Alexander Kisfaludy (q.v.). The first volume of Alexander Kisfaludy’s Himfy, a series of short lyrics of a descriptive and reflective nature, appeared at Buda in 1801, under the title of Kesergö szerelem (Unhappy Love), and was received with great enthusiasm; nor was the success of the second volume Boldog szerelem (Happy Love), which appeared in 1807, inferior. The Regék, or “Tales of the Past,” were published at Buda from 1807 to 1808, and still further increased Kisfaludy’s fame; but in his dramatic works he was not equally successful. Journalistic literature in the native language begins with the Magyar Hírmondó (Harbinger) started by Matthias Ráth at Pozsony in 1780. Among the magazines the most important was the Magyar Muzeum, established at Kassa (Kaschau) in 1788 by Baróti, Kazinczy and Bacsányi. The Orpheus (1790) was the special work of Kazinczy, and the Urania (1794) of Kármán and of Pajor.

Closely connected with the preceding period is that of the “Revival of the Language” (1807-1830), with which the name of Francis Kazinczy (q.v.) is especially associated. To him it was left to perfect that work of restoration begun by Baróti Revival of the language (1807-1830). and amplified by Révai. Poetry and belles lettres still continued to occupy the chief place in the native literature, but under Kazinczy and his immediate followers Berzsenyi, Kölcsey, Fáy and others, a correctness of style and excellence of taste hitherto unknown soon became apparent. Kazinczy, in his efforts to accommodate the national language to the demands of an improved civilization, availed himself of the treasures of European literature, but thereby incurred the opposition of those who were prejudiced by a too biased feeling of nationality. The opinions of his enemies were ventilated in a lampoon styled Mondolat. Daniel Berzsenyi, whose odes are among the finest in the Hungarian language, was the correspondent of Kazinczy, and like him a victim of the attacks of the Mondolat. But the fervent patriotism, elevated style, and glowing diction of Berzsenyi soon caused him to be recognized as a truly national bard. A too frequent allusion to Greek mythological names is a defect sometimes observable in his writings. His collective works were published at Buda by Döbrentei in 1842. Those of John Kis, the friend of Berzsenyi, cover a wide range of subjects, and comprise, besides original poetry, many translations from the Greek, Latin, French, German and English, among which last may be mentioned renderings from Blair, Pope and Thomson, and notably his translation, published at Vienna in 1791, of Lowth’s “Choice of Hercules.” The style of Kis is unaffected and easy. As a sonnet writer none stands higher than Paul Szemere, known also for his rendering of Körner’s drama Zrinyi (1818), and his contributions to the Elet és Literatura (Life and Literature). The articles of Francis Kölcsey in the same periodical are among the finest specimens of Hungarian aesthetical criticism. The lyric poems of Kölcsey can hardly be surpassed, whilst his orations, and markedly the Emlék beszéd Kazinczy felett (Commemorative Speech on Kazinczy), exhibit not only his own powers, but the singular excellence of the Magyar language as an oratorical medium. Andrew Fáy, sometimes styled the “Hungarian Aesop,” is chiefly remembered for his Eredeti Mesék (Original Fables). The dramatic works of Charles Kisfaludy, brother of Alexander, won him enthusiastic recognition as a regenerator of the drama. His plays bear a distinctive national character, the subjects of most of them referring to the golden era of the country. His genuine simplicity as a lyrical writer is shown by the fact that several of his shorter pieces have passed into popular song. As the earliest Magyarizer of Servian folk-song, Michael Vitkovics did valuable service. Not without interest to Englishmen is the name of Gabriel Döbrentei (q.v.), the translator of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, represented at Pozsony in 1825. An historical poem of a somewhat philosophical nature was produced in 1814 by Andreas Horváth under the title of Zircz emlékezete (Reminiscence of Zircz); but his Árpád, in 12 books, finished in 1830, and published at Pest in the following year, is a great national epic. Among other poets of this period were Alois Szentmiklóssy, George Gaal, Emil Buczy, Joseph Szász, Ladislaus Tóth and Joseph Katona, author of the much-extolled historical drama Bánk Bán.76 Izidore Guzmics, the translator of Theocritus into Magyar hexameters, is chiefly noted for his prose writings on ecclesiastical and philosophical subjects. As authors of special works on philosophy, we find Samuel Köteles, John Imre, Joseph Ruszék, Daniel Ercsei and Paul Sárvári; as a theologian and Hebraist John Somossy; as an historian and philologist Stephen Horváth, who endeavoured to trace the Magyar descent from the earliest historic times; as writers on jurisprudence Alexander Kövy and Paul Szlemenics. For an account of the historian George Fejér, the laborious compiler of the Codex Diplomaticus, see Fejér.

The establishment of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences77 (17th November 1830) marks the commencement of a new period, in the first eighteen years of which gigantic exertions were made as regards the literary and intellectual life of the Academy period, 1830-1880. nation. The language, nursed by the academy, developed rapidly, and showed its capacity for giving expression to almost every form of scientific knowledge.78 By offering rewards for the best original dramatic productions, the academy provided that the national theatre should not suffer from a lack of classical dramas. During the earlier part of its existence the Hungarian academy devoted itself mainly to the scientific development of the language and philological research. Since its reorganization in 1869 the academy has, however, paid equal attention to the various departments of history, archaeology, national economy and the physical sciences. The encouragement of polite literature was more especially the object of the Kisfaludy Society, founded in 1836.79