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>>> Item number 253, dated 96/05/15 19:18:43 -- ALL
Date: Wed, 15 May 1996 19:18:43 EST
Subject: Review: Szarka, _Szlovak nemzeti fejlodes -- magyar nemzetisegi
politika 1867-1918_
HABSBURG Reviews 1996/17 May 15, 1996
Slovaks in Hungary during the Dualist Era
Reviewed by Irina Popova, Central European University, for HABSBURG <popova@sirius.ceu.hu>
Laszlo Szarka. _Szlovak nemzeti fejlodes -- magyar nemzetisegi politika 1867-1918_. Pozsony: Kalligram Konyvkiado, 1995. 340 pp. Notes, tables, maps, bibliography. HUF 400, Sk 80 (hardbound), ISBN 80-7149-087-3.
Laszlo Szarka is a researcher at the Hungarian Academy's Institute of History, and responsible editor of a journal on nationality affairs entitled _Regio_. His book _Slovak National Development -- Hungarian Nationality Policy 1867-1918_ presents a segment of the Slovaks' history, for which he provided a general account in a previous work, _A szlovakok tortenete_ (Note 1). Unlike others who have written on the subject, Szarka contextualizes the dualist era in Slovak history through the perspective of the nationalities issue in Hungary, state and local policy toward the nationalities, the process of the formation of the Czechoslovak state, and the Trianon peace settlement.
Generally speaking, the writings on the national histories and the comparative approach (Note 2) to the national movements emphasize the particularities of each national group in the multinational regions (which is logical) but almost put aside the problems of national integration and assimilation. In the Hungarian-Slovak case, the history of both nations has been mainly presented as the history of discrete entities developing within themselves (Note 3). The enormous literature on Hungarian-Slovak economical, political, and cultural relations can hardly compensate for the lack of attention to inter-ethnic processes. Szarka solves the problem of moving the Hungarian context closer to the Slovak national movement by paying much attention to local policy, which simultaneously enables him to bring new content to the notion "Hungarian national policy," which has been treated by both Slovak and Hungarian scholars mainly as the central government's policy. Szarka's book is important if one takes into consideration the fact that works on the Slovak issue as the subject of Hungarian policies are not very numerous.
Without an over indulgence in theory but with allusions to Miroslav Hroch and Oszkar Jaszi, Szarka views the contest of middle class-based nationalisms as one of the center and the periphery, which took place in the periphery; his analysis presents a picture of the active interaction of the two national movements on the local level. Examining the emerging Slovak economic and political structures within the rigid Hungarian framework, Szarka argues that its impact on the Slovaks was far more complex than simple linguistic Magyarization. The book could also be considered a history of Slovak-Hungarian mutual perceptions, and the author shows the remarkable consistency of the arguments in Hungarian -Slovak debates, the vitality of myths, and the distorted Hungarian image of the Slovak national movement during the Dualist era. Szarka bases his findings on wide research in published and unpublished documents from an impressive list of Hungarian and Slovakian archives, and buttresses his conclusions with maps and tables illustrating the nationalities' assimilation, migration, and plans for the solution of the Slovak national question.
The book contains chapters discussing the ideological basis of Hungarian national policy and of the nationalities' counter-arguments, the development and political organisation of Slovak society, the Hungarian treatment of the Slovak question, the motives of Slovak separatism, and the Paris peace conference's solution of the Slovak question.
Hungarian politicians based their arguments concerning the nationalities on the traditional concept of an indivisible Hungarian political nation, which implied the linguistic unity of the country. This concept restricted a possible solution of the national problem through concessions in the use of local languages, for it made no allowance for the autonomy demanded by the nationalities and that Lajos Kossuth considered crucial for the country's survival. Certain rights to use the national languages were granted by the liberal Nationality Law of 1868, but its effect was substantially restricted by the laws 1879:XXVIII, 1883:XXX, 1891:XI, and especially by the Apponyi Law 1907:XXVII which displayed "the contradictions of the distributive character of Hungarian legal norms and the discriminative character of political practices" (p. 49). In general, the author states that "the concept of the political nation, elevated to the ideal of the Hungarian national state, together with the real and imagined results of political and linguistic assimilation, did not jeopardize the existence of the nationalities during the decades of dualism, but proved to be a regressive force in the democratization of the country's political life." (p. 43)
The elites of the ethnic minorities in the Hungarian kingdom emphasized the Hungarian but not the Magyar character of the state, and tried to prove they had contributed equally to Hungarian statebuilding. Therefore they believed the state should consist of equal national constituencies, especially since the Compromise had established a model for the redistribution of power. The Hungarian practice of centralization made ethnic elites receptive to ideas of autonomy and to the forms of local autonomy practised in Switzerland and England. Centralization also conditioned the route the nationalities would eventually choose for their emancipation: they finally turned to the radical alternative of creating small national states rather than to the federalization of the larger state unit. As for Slovaks, the validity of their arguments and their ability to present the national program at the state level were weakened from the start by the fact that Upper Hungary (_Felvidek_, _Slovensko_) did not have a special administrative status in the Hungarian kingdom, so that the Slovak national issue proved to be primarily a matter for the local authorities. Consequently, Slovak national ideology was an amalgam of regionalism, loyalty to the Hungarian state, the idea of Czech-Slovak unity, and Pan-Slavic Russophilia. Slovaks' desire for autonomy did not contradict the integrity of the Hungarian state; nonetheless, Szarka argues it was a coincidence of two processes -- state integration paralleled and attended by linguistic assimilation and ethno-regional integration -- that was the main source of national conflict in Hungary.
According to Szarka, assimilation displays the level of the nationalities' integration into the state and reflects the positive social and economic processes connected with it. The author indicates several patterns of assimilation that depended upon the social structure of an ethnic group. Among the Hungarian nationalities, the Germans had the highest rate of assimilation (21% of the population was assimilated between 1880-1910); and Ruthenians and Romanians, losing 2.8% and 1.4% of their population respectively as a result of assimilation, had the lowest rate (p. 254, table 7). Szarka estimates the number of assimilated Slovaks at 300,000-400,000 during 1880-1910, or 14.8% of the Slovak population of two million (pp. 65, 254, table 7). The erosion of the middle landowners' stratum and the growth in the number of petty landowners (both predominantly Slovak), industrialization, urbanization, the construction of the railroad system, and the Hungarian education system greatly promoted Slovaks' assimilation and the assimilation of their national elite. Thus, in 1910 there were only 3304 intellectuals whose native language was Slovak (p. 187-188).
The degree of success of state integration and Magyarization has been the subject of much discussion in the recent literature. Szarka argues that Slovaks demonstrated a rather low level of state integration among all compactly-living nationalities. One of the reasons for this is the ambiguous effect of the factors of assimilation mentioned above: they also nurtured the Slovak regional integration tendencies. The other obstacle to assimilation and integration can be seen in cultural mechanisms, since the national cultures were rather self-confined, and the national elites tried to reject Hungarian cultural supremacy by all means. Yet the Hungarian cultural pattern seems to have been attractive to the elites, especially if one considers the high rate of their assimilation.
The book, however, leaves open the question of the process of regional integration in Northern Hungary. It would appear to the reviewer that the weak institutionalization of the Slovak national movement and insufficient regional integration were responsible for the low level of the Slovaks' integration into the Hungarian state. Slovaks themselves presented a splintered object for the application of the state's policy, especially as the true character of the movement was distorted by the frightening veil of Pan-Slavism.
Discussing the political organization of Slovak society, Szarka identifies as its key problems the representation of specific ethnic interests and the participation in the political life of the Hungarian kingdom. This tendency was expressed first by cultural institutions, for instance the _Matica slovenska_, although its program did not contain a word about a Slovak political party. The national party, Slovak National Party (SNP), emerged in 1871 but its political debut in the parliamentary elections of 1875 failed and was followed by almost twenty years of passivity. Szarka examines two forms of SNP's integration into the Hungarian political system: the cooperation with the non-Hungarian national parties, and the support for the Hungarian parties that could have represented Slovak interests. As a result, the elements of the Hungarian political structure were developed within the SNP's party structure, which embraced too many heterogeneous elements (including geographic groupings and the traditional Catholic-Protestant division) to be a cohesive structure and to provide for the national political representation, integration, and mobilization of the Slovak elite. In this respect, the collaboration with the Czechs appears to be a compensation for the weakness of Slovak political institutions.
The Czechs were the most active party in this process of rapprochement, establishing financial institutions, providing educational possibilities, and raising Slovak issues in the _Reichsrat_. Yet Czech-Slovak contacts could not smooth over the economic and political contradictions between the two national movements. Therefore a solution to the Slovak problem by means of the Czech connection, and especially by a common Czech-Slovak state, was illusory, although the SNP gravitated to this option during World War I. The Slovaks' uncertainty about the Czech scenario is thus one of the explanations for the lack of Slovak initiative and for their hesitation in 1918.
Szarka distinguishes several persistent elements in Hungarian nationality policy. The first of these is the problem of linguistic unification. The state's means to this end was the unification of the heterogeneous school system, placing it under state control, since it was the church that dominated the educational structure. In order to achieve this goal, an ambitious program of establishing one thousand new public schools to commemorate the Millennium was initiated by Banffy's government. The number of non-Hungarian national schools fell dramatically, especially while the Apponyi Law of 1907 was in effect. Thus, 148 Slovak schools closed between 1907 and 1912 (p. 172).
The state sought to influence policy in the counties by sponsoring the creation of the Upper Hungarian Cultural Association, FEMKE (1882), which used the Hungarian language, and the Hungarian Slovak Cultural Association (1885), which used Slovak. Both sought to spread the Hungarian value system, culture, literature, and certain forms of social and economic life. The effect of these organizations was minimal, since they did not enjoy broad support from either the Hungarian or the Slovak side. FEMKE's leadership saw the inauspicious economic situation in Northern Hungary as a stimulus for Slovak nationalism, and formulated a complex program of action in 1913; the plan never materialized, for the Magyarizing trend remained intact.
The Szapary government made some effort to coordinate the counties' policies. It initiated a discussion of Slovak problems with the heads of the county administration in 1890 in preparation for a conference on the Slovak problem. The discussion showed that local authorities adhered very much to the myth of Pan-Slavism, fed to a certain extent by the growing Czech-Slovak cooperation. A special institution to deal with the nationality problem was created by Banffy's government, the Nationalities and Socialist Affairs Department, which employed representatives of the ethnic elites, but did not influence seriously the governmental decision-making. The government attempted to create an information network in the northern counties, requiring data on the character of the national movement, on the social strata involved, and on the Slovak national leaders' activityies. The reports from the counties were not very informative, however, because the local authorities' vision of the problem was obscured by the myth of a Pan-Slav conspiracy.
Beginning in the 1880s, Hungarian governments had to face the problem of mass emigration. Overall it amounted to two million, of which there were 482,613 persons from Upper Hungary (Note 4), and the government tried to solve the problem by social relief for the most "dangerous" regions and for returning former emigrants (e.g., the relief measures initiated by the Coalition Government in 1907-1908), and by initiatives abroad. An example of the latter is the attempt of Kalman Szell to influence Slovaks in America, and their parishes, through priests and newspapers. Szell shared the strong belief that it was the emigrants and returning former emigrants who presented an important source of funding for the Slovak national movement, so he sought to counterbalance Slovak financial institutions, first of all the Tatra Bank that was closely connected with the SNP, with Hungarian banks.
Hungarian policy toward the Slovaks, especially in the counties, actually a policy based on a position of strength, and a struggle against the more imagined than real peril of Pan-Slavism, was aimed at the highest possible level of control over the Slovak national movement. Yet the Hungarian political elite felt constrained to work for positive achievements in this area. The clearest expression of this occurred in the period of the Coalition government of 1906-1910, and of the limited compromise that Istvan Tisza reached with the nationalities through personal contacts. Both were a deviation from the policy of Magyarization and repression that was dominant in the 1890s and earlier. Jaszi and the program of his party could have signified a new dimension in the settlement of the nationality question and a new alternative for the Slovaks: he thought that they should be granted the right to use their national language and be educated in it. But he did not recognize the Slovaks' demand for autonomy and did not take the Czecho-Slovak movement seriously.
Discussing the solution of the Slovak problem in the autumn of 1918, Szarka concentrates mainly on the Prague-Budapest-Turocszentmarton (Slovak: Turcansky Svaty Martin) "triangle," putting aside the efforts of the American Slovaks. It seems that the Slovaks' disorganization, their general attitude of waiting until the peace conference for a settlement, and unreliable information, were the three most significant factors in this period. Slovak self-determination could be achieved either with the assistance of the great powers, or through negotiations with the neighboring states. The choices within these two opportunities were rather broad, beginning with Slovak autonomy in Hungary, Slovak autonomy in a Czechoslovak state, a united Czechoslovakia under Czech hegemony, and an independent Slovak state. The second of these was the most attractive, but hardly attainable given the Czechs' plans, including a military occupation of Slovakia. The solution to the Slovak problem was achieved in three stages, and came as a result of the energetic maneuvers of the Czechs, the failure of Hungarian autonomy proposals despite the fact that they were fixed by the Law XXX:1919, and Slovak oscillations between Prague and Budapest. The idea of Slovak autonomy, championed by Andrej Hlinka, seems to be the only remnant of Slovaks' Hungarian past. Slovaks vigorously rejected it and substituted the Czechoslovak version of their history at the Paris peace conference.
One may disagree with some of Szarka's conclusions, and one may be puzzled by the intricacy of his style. But his book is a meticulous scholarly work that raises new research perspectives and encourages discussion among scholars in the field.
NOTES:
Irina Popova, Central European University <popova@sirius.ceu.hu>
Copyright (c) 1996 by H-Net, all rights reserved. This work may
be copied for non-profit educational use if proper credit is
given to the reviewer and to HABSBURG. For other permission,
please contact <reviews@h-net.msu.edu> and
<lijpn@pegasus.acs.ttu.edu>.
>>> Item number 254, dated 96/05/16 12:05:29 -- ALL
Date: Thu, 16 May 1996 12:05:29 EST Subject: Re: Szarka, _Szlovak nemzeti fejlodes_
Submitted by: John-Paul Himka <john-paul.himka@UAlberta.CA>
SLOVAKS AND HUNGARIANS, RURITANIANS AND MEGALOMANIANS
Slovak-Hungarian relations do not in themselves constitute a central problem of modern East Central European history, but when a good study of the subject appears, it can count on the attention of a rather wide audience. It interests those who study Czech-German relations in Bohemia, Ukrainian-Polish relations in Galicia and Romanian-Hungarian relations in Transylvania, to name but a few. While the specific conjuncture "Slovaks-Hungarians" is not a crucial historical episode for the region as a whole, the problematic of which it is one manifestation most definitely is. Here we have an instance of the larger problem of the relations between what has been variously called a "nonhistorical," "plebeian," "submerged," "small" nation with one that is "historical," "state," "dominant" and "great." It is the Ruritanian-Megalomanian nexus that Ernest Gellner has written about in _Nations and Nationalism_ (Note 1). For all the pervasiveness of this type of relationship in East Central Europe, particularly in the nineteenth century, it has never been the subject of a thorough comparative analysis.
Comparative work has been done on one side of the relationship, the Ruritarian side, notably by Miroslav Hroch (Note 2). But Hroch's extremely valuable study of the national movements of many "small" European nations fell nonetheless within the paradigm that Irina Popova calls "the history of discrete entities developing within themselves" and abstracted from inter-ethnic processes.
It is not premature to begin imagining a comparative, interpretive study of the Ruritanian-Megalomanian nexus in East Central Europe, but it is certainly too early in the game to begin actually working on one. There simply are not enough studies of the individual relationships to undertake a comparison. This is one reason why area scholars should welcome Laszlo Szarka's book, which squarely focuses on the problem of interaction and shuns the discrete-entity approach.
Since at least the 1980s many students of nationality have been working with the idea of nationality as a socio-cultural construction. The work done within this conceptual framework has been very fruitful, but it has focussed attention on artificers (the national intelligentsia) and artifacts (codified language, history, other national characteristics) within the nationality under investigation, reinforcing the discrete-entities approach. As Szarka exemplifies, however, the construction of nationality often (always?) has an important element of negotiation with another nationality or even (as in the Ukrainian, Jewish or, for that matter, Slovak cases) with more than one nationality. The negotiation produces reciprocal influences, often in the form of defining constitutive limits to a given nationality. As Szarka/Popova indicate, Slovaks and Hungarians were concerned about problems of self-definition-through-the-perhaps-other. What is a Hungarian? Only a Magyar? A linguistically Magyarone person of Slovak ethnic heritage? An individual with a bilingual, bicultural formation? A similarly bicultural individual who also seeks political autonomy for northern Hungary? These were among the items on the agenda of negotiations, and how they were ultimately settled determined in part what a Hungarian was and what a Slovak was. Thus any attempt to study the formation of a nationality without a conscientious examination of the important relationships will be incomplete and, on some points, tautological (starting conceptually with the definition that in historical reality was only worked out at the end of the process). That this process of negotiated self-definition was a matter of some consequence is perhaps more clearly demonstrated by a case outside of, but related to, the Ruritanian-Megalomanian typology, namely the Jewish-Megalomanian relationship. There were certainly historical moments when the possibility of Jewish inclusion into the German or Polish nation seemed likely; but in both cases the negotiations failed, and the failure was part and parcel of the emergence of a new, more agressive national self-conceptualization on the part of the respective Megalomanians.
The relationship with the Megalomanians played an especially important part in the early stages of the Ruritanian national formations. For decades before the articulation of a relatively complete national high culture of their own, Ruritanians who were capable of it made use of the Megalomanian high culture. This was, as it were, a larval stage of national formation. During it, the nascent Ruritanian intelligentsia developed the overall blueprint of what it would construct as its own full-fledged national culture. It is difficult to imagine that some underlying patterns of the Ruritanian high culture would not have exhibited a decidedly Megalomanian inspiration. But questions such as this still await their investigator.
Finally, the value of understanding the R-M relationship as a relationship, and not just as two discrete entities, is that it forms a neglected component of a large question that transcends by far the regional confines of East Central Europe: for concretized in the form of the encounter between the Ruritanians and the Megalomanians is the encounter between traditional society and the project of modernity. The relationship begs for interpretation in these terms and stands to advance our thinking about the larger problem.
Of course, to draw up an intellectual wish list, such as I have done here, is a relatively easy task. But to perform the arduous intellectual labor leading to its fulfillment is quite another thing, far beyond the powers of any individual. Guided by a collective instinct and at times by the consensual selection of particular problems, historians eventually, as a profession, do press their way forward to the elucidation of the great issues. Solidly researched, imaginatively conceptualized monographs lay the paving stones for this journey. Szarka's book seems to be doing precisely that.
>>> Item number 255, dated 96/05/17 19:55:38 -- ALL
Date: Fri, 17 May 1996 19:55:38 EST Subject: Re: Szarka, _Szlovak nemzeti fejlodes_
From: Hugh L. Agnew, The George Washington University <agnew@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu>
CONFLICTUAL ASSOCIATION
Comments on Popova's Review, _Slovaks in Hungary during the Dualist Era_
I read with interest Irina Popova's review of Laszlo Szarka's _Szlovak nemzeti fejlodes_ (_Slovak National Development_), and John-Paul Himka's comments on it. Like Himka, I am glad to see a study of the Slovaks and Hungarians during the dualist era that moves away from the exclusive focus on one or the other aspect of the relationship, but attempts to place that relationship itself in the center of focus. I can think of one other study that attempts something similar on the Czech-German relationship, Jan Kren's _Konfliktni spolecenstvi: Cesi a Nemci, 1780-1918_ (_Conflictual Association: Czechs and Germans, 1780-1918_; Note 1). The point that Himka develops in his central paragraph seems to be one of the central issues of this relationship as a relationship, as a give and take between (or among) parties -- that there is a mutual process of self-definition going on, on each side of this relationship. It may by exemplified only by the sour old jokes about Czechs being "Germanized Slavs" or how there is no such thing as three Hungarians, "since one is a Slovak and one a Jew." But since the Megalomanian identity was also only in the process of constructing itself (see for example the work of Tamas Hofer or other historically-minded anthropologists), _each_ side influenced the other.
What Himka calls "the encounter between traditional society and the project of modernity" seems to lie at the root of the emergence of many modern nationalisms the world over (see Anthony Smith's _The Ethnic Origins of Nations_ or John Breuilly's _Nationalism and the State_; Note 2), but I was intrigued by the suggestion that Szarka applies a kind of Wallersteinian analysis (Note 3) using center-periphery relationships to discuss the relationships between Hungarians and Slovaks in the dualist era. I wonder if any other readers, or perhaps Popova herself, would like to comment on the utility of applying these world-system approaches to such smaller scale relationships? Or is it a more common-sense redefining of the terminology? A further point that seems worth raising to me, again focusing on the R-M axis as a _relationship_ is that it would be too simple to see the relationship in terms of R = tradition / M = modern(izing) in the case of the Slovaks and Hungarians. Though to some extent it was true, the Hungarians themselves were acutely conscious at least since the days of Szechenyi's _Hitel_ that they were (as the greatest Magyar put it) "backward in everything." The Hungarians, too, were facing the "project of modernity."
Two other things about Popova's review seemed suggestive to me. She wrote that Szarka shows "the remarkable consistency of the arguments of the Hungarian-Slovak debates." I would suggest that in this case (is this true of other examples? I, too, would welcome Himka's vision of a comparative interpretive study of the R-M nexus), there is a sort of transitive law in effect. Not only are the arguments remarkably consistent and tenacious, but, in an illustration of the _mutual_ influencing that went on in the process of self-definition, there is a remarkable similarity between the arguments of the Hungarians vis-a-vis the Slovak (and other) demands for autonomy then, and the Slovak (and other) arguments against demands for autonomy from their Magyar minorities now. In another forum once (HUNGARY@GWUVM.BITNET) I posted the parallel texts of the Nationality Law of 1868 and the Slovak Republic's Nationality Law, as well as protests by representatives of nineteenth century Slovaks in Hungary and twentieth century Magyars in Slovakia. The similarities were striking.
The passage Popova quotes from Szarka, p. 43: "the concept of the political nation, elevated to the ideal of the Hungarian national state, together with the real and imagined results of political and linguistic assimilation, did not jeopardize the existence of the nationalists during the decades of dualism, but proved to be a regressive force in the democratization of the country's political life," points out two questions that I think have relevance to today, as well as fascination as subjects of historical study. In relative terms, it seems the Hungarian project of assimilation _failed_. In spite of state policies in the educational and cultural fields, other forces equally supported by the state and part of the "project of modernization" seem to have worked at least in part to stimulate the growth of modern Slovak national identity in Upper Hungary. So a subject for comparative investigation might be the conditions under which ethnies do not become modern nations under the forces that Szarka and others have studied. The other question concerns the compatibility of nationalist politics and liberal democracy. Can the state be both a "nation-state" and liberal and democratic, if it is not ethnically homogeneous? The collapse of the "common Hungarian homeland" and the fortunes of the minorities (and liberal democracy) in its successors suggest a pessimistic answer.
NOTES
>>> Item number 259, dated 96/05/19 19:28:18 -- ALL
Date: Sun, 19 May 1996 19:28:18 EST From: Victor Hugo Lane Iv <hugolane@umich.edu> Subject: Megalomanians and RuritaniansThe recent correspondence concerning Professor Popova's review of Professor Szarka's book has been very stimulating. It is most gratifying to see the theoretical framework for the eventual, synthetic study of Megalmanian/Ruritanian relations envisioned by Professor Himka being discussed, even if the full range of scholarship necessary for such a project has not been completed. In an effort to carry this discussion further I have several thoughts I would like raise. In the spirt of the comparative exercise I will try to keep my comments within the framework of Megalomania/Ruritania, but will make periodic references to my own speciality of Polish-Ukrainian relations in Galicia to elaborate points.
First, I would like to agree with Professor Agnew's point that modernization may have been an equal concern for Megalomanian and Ruritanian elites. Yet, here we run into a question about what modernity meant to members of these groups. In the case of Galicia, neither the Polish, nor the Ukrainian elites associated modernity with industrialization as we are likely to do today, even in our discussion of nationalism. Rather, they tended to focus on the prowess and nature of their respective cultures as mediators of what Gellner called "universal high culture." Not that Polish and Ukrainian ideas about what was central to "universal high culture" was the same--a matter that itself is worthy of research. Can the same be said for Slovak and Hungarian ideas about culture and modernity?
Second, as Professor Himka points out this is not just a matter of treating the emergence of modern nationalities in relationship to each other, but requires us to inquire into the meaning of a particualr identity and follow changes in the way that identity is understood. It seems to me that a Slovak acculturating to Hungarian culture circa 1860, may be making a different calculation from a Slovak doing the same in 1910, even if the results appear to be the same.
As such, the value of national self-identification itself needs to be questioned again and again. To do this I would like to suggest that we focus more on the meaning of assimilation or acculturation to Meglamanians and Ruritanians at different times, as measured not just by their identification, but by their activities. For example, Izydor Sharanevych, the professor of Austrian history at Lemberg University from the 1870s until roughly 1900, does not appear to have ever considered lecturing in Polish, which he was not compelled to do, to be inconsistent with his strong personal identification as a Ruthenian with Russophile leanings. The same could not be said of the Ukrainian professors who joined the university faculty after the arrival of Hrushevsky in 1894.
This metaphoric description of the period when Meglamanian and Ruritanian identity do not appear to have been viewed as mutually exclusive as a "larval stage" is a striking one. In particular, it provides an effective image for explaining the transformation into an antagonistic relationship in what we infer is the "butterfly stage." Yet, for all its attractiveness, I fear it too perpetuates the old national paradigm in which nations are treated almost as existing for and of themselves. After all, during this stage it is not just the Ruritanian attitude towards Meglamanian identity that is different, but also Meglamanian ideas about Ruritanian identity. During this stage, Meglamanians paradoxically treat Ruritanian identity as both distinct and yet dependent on Meglamanian culture. I suspect that a more comprehensive consideration of this stage in the relatinship will also help provide an even more satisfactory appreciation for the reasons for the eventual antagonism that develops between the two groups.
Finally, as to the query about the applicability of core-periphery analysis, I have these thoughts. As Hugh Agnew pointed out Hungarians were themselves aware that they were not at the center, otherwise, they would not have been concerned about their own backwardness as the Szechenyi quote suggests. Thus, even if there is some validity to the core-periphery analysis between central and northwestern Hungary, it does not stop there, since beyond lay Vienna andd Germany, France, and England all of whichwere even more central core than central Hungary. Reference to these gradations between core and periphery would I believe provide further insights, but I wonder if avoiding that complicating factor may weaken the effectiveness of the core-periphery analysis.
Consider the problems posed by Galicia, which offer some interesting permutations that need to be considered. We are no used to assuming that the nationalities problems in Galicia must be focused on Polish and Ukrainian relations, that we tend to forget that in the core periphery model, a single Galician identity sholud nave been as likely a development in reaction to the Austrian core. What are we to make of Lemberg? A Polish capital--at least after 1867, but one that was in many respects peripheral to Cracow, while being smack in the middle of what might be called the Ukrainian center in Galicia. How does that compare with the situation in Hungary and more specifically Bratislava/Poszony?
In closing, given the interest sparked by this book I would like to voice my hope that the response may precipitate work on a translation for those of us, who have engaged our linguistic talents learning other languages.
Sincerely yours,
Hugo Lane, University of Michigan
>>> Item number 261, dated 96/05/21 10:07:01 -- ALL
Date: Tue, 21 May 1996 10:07:01 EST Subject: Re: Megalomanians and Ruritanians
From: Irina Popova, Central European University <popova@sirius.ceu.hu>
The interpretations of Laszlo Szarka's book (Note 1) and the following, encouraging discussion of potentially new prospects for comparative research have elucidated some problems that I'd like to suggest for further discussion.
Although the arguments are presented mainly in terms of the Megalomania-Ruritania relationship, I'll start with the concept of negotiated national identity considered by John-Paul Himka. If national identity is viewed as polydimensional (Note 2), a further topic for discussion would probably be the element(s) of national identity that is/are being negotiated; this, in turn, enables us to isolate the patterns of negotiation (at least two of them are observable in Hungary -- Hungarian-Croatian and Hungarian-Slovak). I would agree with Himka's argument that the negotiation of identity "produces reciprocal influences, often in the form of defining constitutive limits to a given nationality"; my own research into the Slovak-Hungarian relationship during the 1st half of the 19th century makes it possible to suggest one more form of mutual influence, the construction of Pan-Slavist image to which both Hungarians and Slovaks contributed. The problem is, however, the extent to which each side influenced the self-definition of the other. Szarka's book and numerous studies of the Hungarian domestic policy have shown that the Slovak question was on the periphery of Hungarian politics. It was Austrian-Hungarian and to a lesser extent Hungarian-Croatian negotiations that were of crucial importance for Hungarian identity; likewise, the Galician identity was "a development in reaction to the Austrian core," if I understood Hugo Lane correctly. So the practice of negotiations and mutual influences seems to me more complex than presented during this discussion.
Discussing the Ruritania-Megalomania relationship, I would agree with Hugh Agnew's assertion "that it would be too simple to see the relationship in terms of R = tradition / M = modern(izing) in the case of Slovaks and Hungarians," although the definition of Slovaks as Ruritanians and Magyars as Megalomanians seems to me problematic (is it possible to apply the same categories to the Hungarian-Croatian relationship, for instance?), not only because the Hungarian Megalomanian identity was unstable and Hungary herself was facing a "project of modernity". The "Ruritania(s)" of the Hungarian kingdom demonstrated a higher pace of economic growth in comparison with the Hungarian "Megalomania," Northern Hungary developed into the second most important industrial zone of the country after Budapest, and the social changes in Slovak society indicated a noticeable tendency towards the modernization, although the transformation of the rural population in the Northern Hungary lagged behind. (Note 3). Likewise, it's difficult to draw the line between the "M" and "R" identities if one takes into account the ambiguity of M/R relationship in the Habsburg monarchy and a certain hierarchy of "M(s)" and "R(s)": for instance, "M"-Hungarians versus "R"- Slovaks, and "M"-"Austrians" versus "R"-Hungarians.
If "M" identity is connected with the "high culture" and its language, this makes it difficult to say how the "R" and "M" elements combined within the self-definition of individual people, given the fact of multiplicity of high cultures (German, Hungarian and Latin before 1844). One of the probable solutions to the problem is given by Rudolf Chmel's study of Hungarian-Slovak literary bilingualism (Note 4); the work of Anna Gyivicsan shows numerous patterns of the distribution of each (Hungarian and Slovak) language sphere of influence in particular Slovak "language islands" (Note 5), and both works make apparent that despite "eventual antagonism" between the national groups, the "M" and "R" identities did not exclude each other.
I think the suggested R/M approach itself contains a very strong implication of the validity of the center(s)- periphery(ies)-analysis, since as Gellner puts it, the modernization of "Megalomania" (center) involves the population of the Ruritanian areas (Note 6); Szarka's approach seems to be close to the above since he discusses the integration of the national peripheries (in fact, but not necessarily, this means geographical, economical, and political peripheries) and the Hungarian "center". However, this kind of analysis should have certain limits, otherwise it could make it necessary to add more and more elements to the long chain of centers and peripheries leading to some global association, where the smaller case like that of Hungarians and Slovaks is simply lost.
I'm afraid the whole character of my comments may sound very skeptical (which it is not), but I think future research in the field would face some of the problems that have been raised.
And lastly (I should've probably started with this), I must apologize and note that I'm not a professor, although I was teaching at a teachers' training university for two years. I recently finished the writing of my Ph.D dissertation.
NOTES
Irina Popova, Central European University <popova@sirius.ceu.hu>
Copyright (c) 1996 by H-Net, all rights reserved. This work may be
copied for non-profit educational use if proper credit is given to
the reviewer and to HABSBURG. For other permission, please contact
<reviews@h-net.msu.edu> and <lijpn@pegasus.acs.ttu.edu>.
>>> Item number 262, dated 96/05/22 18:25:29 -- ALL
Date: Wed, 22 May 1996 18:25:29 EST
Subject: Review: Glatz, Ed.,
_Hungarians and their Neighbors in Modern Times_
HABSBURG Reviews 1996/18 May 22, 1996
An Unhappy Neighborhood
Review by T. Mills Kelly, University of New Hampshire, for HABSBURG <tkelly@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu>
Ferenc Glatz, Ed. _Hungarians and their Neighbors in Modern Times, 1867-1950_. Boulder, Colo.: Social Science Monographs; Highland Lakes, N.J.: Atlantic Research and Publications; New York: Distributed by Columbia University Press, 1995. Atlantic Studies on Society in Change, No. 81; East European Monographs, No. 419. xx + 347 pp. Map, Chronology, index. $42 (cloth), ISBN 0-8803-3316-2.
There could scarcely be a better moment than now for the editors of the series "Atlantic Studies on Society and Change" at Social Science Monographs to publish a work on the relationship between the Hungarians and their neighbors in modern times. Questions of the past and present treatment of Hungarian minorities in Slovakia, Romania, and the former Yugoslavia (and of Slovak, Romanian, Serb, and Croat minorities in Hungary) continue to bedevil relations between Hungary and its neighbors. A careful investigation of the history of Hungarian/non-Hungarian relations, especially one edited by the distinguished Hungarian historian Professor Ferenc Glatz, is a welcome addition to the literature on this subject.
Professor Glatz, Director of the Institute of History at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, is to be commended for compiling an impressive array of essays, 30 in all, from 20 scholars in Hungary and the United States. The contributors to this volume include 10 current or former members or fellows of the Institute of History of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences as well as professors of history from the major educational institutions in Hungary, Senior Research Fellows from the Institute of Political History of the Hungarian Socialist party, and Professor Istvan Deak of Columbia University. Their contributions run the gamut from demographic studies heavy on hard numbers, to conventional diplomatic and political history, to more interpretive essays. Many of the articles included in this anthology are quite good, especially those by Magda Adam, Istvan Deak, Janos Kende and the late Gyorgy Ranki. For the reader unfamiliar with the details of Hungarian/non-Hungarian relations, Glatz's book provides a useful survey of events in which each topic is dealt with in a discreet and generally clear fashion.
Unfortunately, little is presented here that will not be familiar to specialists in the field and so not much is added to the debate among scholars. In contrast to the work of a new generation of scholars such as Laszlo Szarka's _Szlovak nemzeti fejlodes -- magyar nemzetisegi politika 1867-1918_ (reviewed on HABSBURG May 15), much of the work presented here does not take into account new trends in historical analysis. Instead, Glatz's book (published originally in 1988 as _Magyarok a KarpatMedenceben _, ie. _Hungarians in the Carpathian Basin_, Note 1) is an anthology of work by the generation that developed as historians during the Communist era. Despite the editor's desire to break new methodological ground, this work is more conventional in its approach to its subject matter.
Glatz's book offers an excellent opportunity to examine the complexities of the history of Hungarian/non-Hungarian relations, albeit from a Hungarian perspective, in one brief volume. The essays provide relatively complete coverage of the period 1867-1950 (with exceptions noted below) and highlight some of the differences within the Hungarian historical profession over issues that remain important to both Hungarian and "neighbor" nationalists. For example, Glatz describes Hungarian nationalism in the last decades of the Habsburg Monarchy as "relatively tolerant" (p. xvi) when compared to nationalism in France, Germany, or Russia. This view might be popular with an audience that laments the dissolution of the Hungarian Kingdom, but hardly squares with the historical record. Zoltan Szasz's essay "Government Policy and the Nationalities" offers specific evidence, especially on the Lex Apponyi of 1907 (p. 30-31), that contradicts Glatz's rosier version of events and helps to explain why majorities in the non-Hungarian nations were happy to leave the Kingdom in 1918.
If the current volume were typical of the genre, namely a collection of essays loosely grouped around a general topic, the inclusion of several fine articles and a bit of controversy between authors would be enough to pronounce the work a success. In this case, however, the editor attempts to achieve a higher goal and in reaching higher, ultimately fails to live up to the intentions expressed in his introductory essay. Glatz proposes that this volume should "provide the Hungarian public with a guide to a positive solution [to the problems posed by nationalist interpretations of the past] by means of a synthesis of the history of the coexistence of various ethnic groups within the Carpathian basin..." (p. xiii). His book fails to achieve this goal for several reasons.
First, Glatz argues that a different approach to the history of the Carpathian basin is necessary if the reader is to gain a clearer understanding of the issues involved. "It is imperative," he writes, "that we rid ourselves of the national bias in the historiography of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries" (p. xiv). If this is so, then why are there no contributions in this volume from historians from the neighboring states? Anyone who has lived in East Central Europe or who works in this field knows just how difficult it is to raise the level of the historical debate above "national bias" and Glatz must surely know that many non-Hungarian readers in Slovakia, Romania, or the former Yugoslavia will be likely to dismiss this work right away as it includes contributions only from Hungarian (or expatriate Hungarian) scholars.
Second, if Glatz wished for this volume to increase the Hungarian public's understanding of the contentious aspects of the history of Hungary's relationship with its neighbors, why would one of the most contentious aspects of all -- the Hungarian state's treatment of its national minorities in the territories reacquired after 1939 -- be mentioned only briefly in one essay (pp. 166-68)? Many Slovaks and Romanians still harbor grievances, real or imagined, against Hungary (and the Hungarian minorities in Slovakia and Romania) that hark back to the period 1939-1945. While these grievances may be no more nor less justified than those of Hungarians who were expelled from their homes following the Second World War, any volume attempting to promote positive discussion of the larger question of Hungary's relations with its neighbors should deal with both topics in detail. One example of how this issue needs careful attention by scholars is a recently published book on the Slovak-Hungarian relationship that is on display (in its Slovak language version) in book store windows across Slovakia at the moment. In this book Hungarian actions in South Slovakia during the war are described in a lurid fashion not calculated to elevate the terms of the debate on this period in Slovak-Hungarian relations. (Note 2)
One other area where Glatz's book fails to live up to the editor's stated goals is in its methodological approach. Glatz expresses a desire to dispense with the national approach to history, emphasizing instead the history of the Carpathian basin as a history of "labor markets and organizations common to the various social and ethnic elements." (p. xiv) As we have seen in last week's review of Szarka's book and the subsequent discussion on HABSBURG, there are a number of attempts underway to examine the history of this region in new ways. In this volume only a handful of the contributions concern themselves with transnational matters. These include Deak's "Homeless Defenders of the Homeland: The Officers of the Habsburg Monarchy" and Glatz's "Bourgeois Transformation, Assimilation, and Nationalism." The entire second half of the book "Independent Hungary Independent Small States", with one or two exceptions, is entirely devoted to traditional diplomatic history without any pretense to new methodological approaches. Notable by its absence is consideration of organizations common to all the national groups of the region (other than political parties and the Habsburg officer corps) that brought the various social and ethnic elements together -- religious groups or international voluntary organizations, for example. Finally, most of the essays in this volume take too simplistic an approach to the political realities of the nations in question, preferring instead to discuss relations between "Hungarians" and "Slovaks" or "Romanians," thereby minimizing the complications posed by the often deep differences between and among the members of the nations of the Carpathian basin.
Despite these weaknesses, students and scholars of East Central Europe can find much of value in this book, especially those contributions dealing with diplomatic aspects of Hungary's relationship with its neighbors. Taken together, Adam's several essays (especially "Complete Encirclement: The Establishment of the Little Entente") and Ranki's essay on Hitler's manipulation of the Hungarian-Romanian relationship ("Divide and Rule!") comprise a relatively complete introduction to the diplomatic history of Hungary's relations with its neighbors from 1918-1945. In particular, these articles demonstrate how frustrating it was for Hungarian diplomats to pursue the interests of their state in the face of national animosities on both sides of the border and the interference of the larger European powers. Even Sandor Balogh's defensive discussion of Hungary's treatment by the victorious powers in 1945 ("The Paris Peace Conference") is useful in that it provides the reader with a good introduction to the school of thought that attempts to make Hungary seem a victim at the end of the Second World War despite its willing participation in the Axis war effort. Balogh is especially critical of the way that the transfer of Hungarian populations after 1945 was handled, making it seem as though Hungarians suffered to a greater degree than others in the region (pp. 212-218). (Note 3)
I would add three final comments, two positive and one negative. The translation of this book from the original Hungarian is excellent, and the editors of the series are to be commended for taking the time to bring such a readable manuscript to their English-speaking audience. Second, the chronology at the end of the book is a boon to all, especially students unfamiliar with the specific details of modern Hungarian history. On the negative side, the absence of either footnotes or bibliography makes it all but impossible for the reader to either validate or expand upon any of the research or conclusions offered here without starting from scratch. It is obvious that the essays in this volume are the result of significant and careful research by their authors. However, without any footnotes or bibliography, the reader is asked to accept on faith the authors' conclusions, something that Western scholars or students will be unlikely to do, especially when many of the events discussed in this volume are subject to often wildly different interpretations. Too often scholars err in the opposite direction, freighting their work with mountains of footnotes, but a reasonable middle ground is available and should have been insisted upon for this work.
It is always difficult to encapsulate all the good and bad points of a collection of essays in one brief review. From the aspects of this book touched on here one can see that Glatz's book was quite an undertaking and the editor is to be commended for exposing us to so many members of the historical profession in Hungary and for bringing us a number of thoughtprovoking essays. Although I found much to argue with in this work, I am also pleased to have it to argue about. Now we must look forward to future works that will fill the gaps left by this book.
CONTRIBUTORS (in the order of their articles' appearance in the book):
Ferenc Glatz Emil Niederhauser Laszlo Katus Zoltan Szasz Istvan Deak Janos Kende Julianna Puskas Geza Jeszenszky Magda Adam Tibor Hajdu Zsuzsa L. Nagy Laszlo Kovago Zoltan Szasz Gyorgy Ranki Bela Beller Lorant Tilkovszky Istvan Pinter Gyula Juhasz Sandor Balogh Istvan Vida
NOTES
Review by T. Mills Kelly, University of New Hampshire, <tkelly@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu>
Copyright (c) 1996 by H-Net, all rights reserved. This work may be
copied for non-profit educational use if proper credit is given to
the reviewer and to HABSBURG. For other permission, please contact
<reviews@h-net.msu.edu> and <lijpn@pegasus.acs.ttu.edu>.
>>> Item number 263, dated 96/05/22 19:46:27 -- ALL
Date: Wed, 22 May 1996 19:46:27 EST
Reply-To: "HABSBURG (lands & peoples),
an H-Net list ed. by C. Ingrao & J. Niessen"
<HABSBURG@VM.CC.PURDUE.EDU>
Sender: "HABSBURG (lands & peoples),
an H-Net list ed. by C. Ingrao & J. Niessen"
<HABSBURG@VM.CC.PURDUE.EDU>
From: lijpn@pegasus.acs.ttu.edu
Subject: Re: Megalomanians and Ruritanians (xHUNGARY)
H-Net granted permission for the cross-posting of Irina Popova's review to the non-H-Net list HUNGARY along with the responses, and here is a first response that appeared on that list. It is interesting news that, in addition to a mythical Pan-Slavism, there is also a mythical HABSBURG.--Ed.
From: Gabor Fencsik <gabor@SBEI.COM>
To: Multiple recipients of list HUNGARY <HUNGARY@gwuvm.gwu.edu>
This is from an article by John-Paul Himka, forwarded by Hugh Agnew from the mythical Habsburg list, where experts on the Empire of Megalomania congregate:
> Slovaks and Hungarians were concerned about problems of > self-definition-through-the-perhaps-other. What is a Hungarian? Only a > Magyar? A linguistically Magyarone person of Slovak ethnic heritage? An > individual with a bilingual, bicultural formation? A similarly bicultural > individual who also seeks political autonomy for northern Hungary? These > were among the items on the agenda of negotiations, and how they were > ultimately settled determined in part what a Hungarian was and what a > Slovak was. [...] There were certainly historical moments when the > possibility of Jewish inclusion into the German or Polish nation seemed > likely; but in both cases the negotiations failed, and the failure was > part and parcel of the emergence of a new, more agressive national > self-conceptualization on the part of the respective Megalomanians.
One must be careful with the terminology here. Gellner's brilliant little essay about Megalomania and the process of Ruritanian national awakening is an allegory. Allegories do get taken a bit too literally sometimes. There are two concepts in the paragraph above: one is the "self-definition-through-the-perhaps-other", the other is "negotiation". The first of these is fine, although for the Ruritanian case it should perhaps be called "self-definition-through-the-projected-image-of-the-perhaps-other". The megalomanians' notions of Pan-Slavic threats (or fears of Germanic hegemony, or every megalomanian scumbag's favorite, the threat from you-know-who -- hint, hint!) has very little to do with who the Slavs or Germans are, what are their thoughts and aspirations, whether they are busy assimilating, or preserving their separateness, or doing both, or neither. The essential thing is that a threat must exist. Without a threat, nationalism is dead meat. People will start giggling. So you need to find someone to fill the slot. It almost does not matter who it is going to be.
On the other hand, the term "negotiation" does not describe very well what was (and is) happening in these situations. Even in an allegorical context, the word "negotiation" suggests a conscious process in which both parties envisage some kind of mutually acceptable end result. Negotiation assumes a dialogue of some sort, where ideas and formulations are exchanged, listened to, chewed over, considered, rejected, or accepted. The "who is a Hungarian" question did matter in the 19th century. It was talked about -- or better, shouted about -- but what was taking place cannot be called a negotiation, or a dialog. "Parallel monologues" is a better description.
From Hugh Agnew's rejoinder to the same article:
> ... The other question concerns the compatibility of nationalist politics > and liberal democracy. Can the state be both a "nation-state" and liberal > and democratic, if it is not ethnically homogeneous? The collapse of the > "common Hungarian homeland" and the fortunes of the minorities (and liberal > democracy) in its successors suggest a pessimistic answer.
A negative answer, yes, but not necessary a pessimistic one. Since the "ethnically homogeneous" part can only be fixed by ethnic cleansing, we are reduced to choosing between dropping democracy, or dropping the nation-state. So there is a pessimistic answer, and also an optimistic one.
Gabor Fencsik
gabor@sbei.com
>>> Item number 266, dated 96/05/23 09:11:56 -- ALL
Date: Thu, 23 May 1996 09:11:56 EST From: Helen Liebel-Weckowicz c/o <INGRAO@vm.cc.purdue.edu> Subject: Szarka, _Szlovak nemzeti fejlodes_
TWO notes from Helen:
(1)
The problem of defining nation-states of the sort the 19th century
nationalist movements hoped to realize, in terms of an exclusive
homogeneity was dealt with even by old Ranke. In his view it was
well nigh impossible to achieve a completely perfect ethnic state.
There were always minorities of another group. This has turned out to be
true for almost all modern national states. And I might add, that even if
there are policies aimed at creating a "pure" state, something always
happens to create an influx of other people (refugees) to disrupt
that policy. H.Liebel-Weckowicz
(2)
Re: Irina Popova, Central European University <popova@sirius.ceu.hu>
> The interpretations of Laszlo Szarka's book (Note 1) and the > following, encouraging discussion of potentially new prospects for > comparative research have elucidated some problems that I'd like to > suggest for further discussion.
> Although the arguments are presented mainly in terms of the > Megalomania-Ruritania relationship, I'll start with the concept of > negotiated national identity considered by John-Paul Himka. If > national identity is viewed as polydimensional (Note 2), a further > topic for discussion would probably be the element(s) of national > identity that is/are being negotiated; this, in I really think that > national groups get their identity from the language and its related > culture. Even in cases of intermarriage, the outsiders are not always > accepted. As Hungarian belongs to the Finno-Ugrian group and > is not Indo-European, there is an additional factor to be considered.
...turn, enables us to isolate the patterns of negotiation (at > least two of them are observable in Hungary -- Hungarian-Croatian and > Hungarian-Slovak). I would agree with Himka's argument that the > negotiation of identity "produces reciprocal influences, often in the > form of defining constitutive limits to a given nationality"; my own > research into the Slovak-Hungarian relationship during the 1st half > of the 19th century makes it possible to suggest one more form of > mutual influence, the construction of Pan-Slavist image to which both > Hungarians and Slovaks contributed. The problem is, however, the > extent to which each side influenced the self-definition of the > other. Szarka's book and numerous studies of the Hungarian domestic > policy have shown that the Slovak question was on the periphery of > Hungarian politics. It was Austrian-Hungarian and to a lesser > extent Hungarian-Croatian negotiations that were of crucial > importance for Hungarian identity; likewise, the Galician identity > was "a development in reaction to the Austrian core," if I understood > Hugo Lane correctly. So the practice of negotiations and mutual > influences seems to me more complex than presented during this > discussion.
You are probably right in your conclusion. But is it identity which is in question when you discuss Hungarian relations ? Political hegemony and status would seem to be more important. The nationalism backs the status plays. Hungarians believed themselves to be more than equal in the Dual Monarchy. They believed that Croatia was their sphere of influence, the space into which their banking, etc. could move. That has little to do with identity.
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