The story of Hungary

by Ármin Vámbéry

Joseph subsequently laid down most humane rules regulating the relations between the bondmen and their landlords. But the country could not be appeased by any boon, especially as the high protective tariff, just then established for the benefit of the Austrian provinces, was seriously damaging the prosperity of the people. Joseph’s foreign policy tended to increase the domestic disaffection. In 1788 he declared war against Turkey, but the campaign turned out unsuccessful, and nearly terminated with the emperor’s capture. The nation, emboldened by his defeat, urged now more emphatically her demands, and requested the emperor to annul his illegal edicts, to submit to be crowned, and to restore the ancient constitution. Joseph continuing to resist her demands, most of the counties refused to contribute in aid of the war either money or produce. In addition to their recalcitrant attitude, they most energetically pressed the emperor to convoke the Diet at Buda, a few counties going even so far as to insist upon the Chief Justice’s convoking it, if the emperor failed to do so before May, 1790.

The courage of the nation rose still higher when the news of the revolution in France and the revolt in Belgium reached the country. The people refused to furnish recruits and military aid, and the emperor was compelled to use violence in order to obtain either. The counties remained firm and continued to remonstrate in addresses characterized by sharp and energetic language. Joseph yielded at last. He was prostrated by a grave illness, and feeling his end approaching he wished to die in peace with the exasperated nation he had so deeply wounded. On the 28th of January, 1790, he retracted all his illegal edicts, excepting those that had reference to religious toleration, the peasantry, and the clergy, and re-established the ancient constitution of the country. Soon after he sent back the crown to Buda, where its return was celebrated with great pomp, amidst the enthusiastic shouts of the people. Before he could yet convoke the Diet death terminated the emperor’s career on the 20th of February. The world lost in him a great and noble-minded man and a friend to humanity, who, however, had been unable to realize all his lofty intentions. The effect of his reign was to rouse Hungary from the apathy into which it had sunk, and at the time of Joseph’s death, the minds of the people were a prey to an excitement no less feverish than that which had seized revolutionary France at the same period.

But while in Paris democracy was victorious over royalty, the latter had to yield in Hungary to the privileged nobility. The restored constitution was a charter of political privileges for the nobles only, and as such was most jealously guarded by them. This class kept a strict watch over the liberal tendencies of the age, preventing the importation of democratic ideas from France from fear of harm to their exclusive immunities.

Joseph was succeeded by his brother, Leopold II., who until now had been Grand Duke of Tuscany. The new ruler was as enlightened as his predecessor, and had as much the welfare of the people at heart; but he respected, at the same time, the laws and the constitution. He immediately convoked the Diet in order to be crowned, and by this act he solemnly sealed the peace with the nation. The people hailed with joy this first step of their new king, and there was nothing in the way of their now obtaining lawfully from the good-will of the king the salutary legislation which Joseph had attempted to force arbitrarily upon them. But the fond hopes in this direction were doomed to disappointment. The national movement had not helped to power those who were in favor of progress, equality of rights, and democracy. No doubt there were people in the country who differed from the men in authority, who were sincerely attached to the doctrines of the French Revolution and eager to supplant the privileges of the nobles by the broader rights belonging to all humanity. The national literature was in the hands of men of this class. They combated the reactionary spirit of the nobility, and contended for the recognition of the civil and political rights of by far the largest portion of the people, the non-nobles. They boldly and with generous enthusiasm wielded the pen in defence of those noble ideas, and indoctrinated the people with them as much as the restraints placed upon the press allowed it at that period. They succeeded in obtaining recruits for their ideas from the very ranks of the privileged classes, and many an enlightened magnate admitted that the time had arrived for modernizing the constitution of Hungary by an extension of political rights. Their number was swelled also by the more intelligent portion of the inhabitants of the cities, and those educated patriotic people who, although no gentle blood flowed in their veins, had either obtained office under Joseph’s reign or had imbibed the political views of that monarch. But all of these men combined formed but an insignificant fraction of the people compared to the numerous nobility, who, after their enforced submission during ten years, were eager to turn to the advantage of their own class the victory they had achieved over Joseph. During the initial preparations for the elections to the Diet, and in the course of the elections, sentiments were publicly uttered and obtained a majority in the county assemblies, which caused a feverish commotion amongst the common people and the peasantry. The latter especially now eagerly clung to innovations introduced by the Emperor Joseph, so beneficial as regarded their own class, and were reluctant to submit to the restoration of the former arbitrary landlord system. Their remonstrances were answered by the counties to the effect that Providence had willed it so that some men should be kings, others nobles, and others again bondmen. Such cruel reasoning failed to satisfy the aggrieved peasantry. Symptoms of a dangerous revolutionary spirit showed themselves throughout a large portion of the country, and an outbreak could be prevented only by the timely assurance, on the part of the counties, that the matter would be submitted to the Diet about to assemble.

The Diet, which had not been convened for twenty-five years, opened in Buda in the beginning of June, 1790. The coronation soon took place. Fifty years had elapsed since the last similar pageant had been enacted in Hungary. After a lengthy and vehement contest extending over ten months, in the course of which the Diet was removed from Buda to Presburg, the laws of 1790-1791, which form part of the fundamental articles of the Hungarian constitution, were finally passed. By them the independence of Hungary as a state obtained the fullest recognition. The laws, which were the result of the co-operation of the crown and the Estates, declared that Hungary was an independent country, subject to no other country, possessing her own constitution by which alone she was to be governed. Important concessions were also made to the rights of the citizens of the country. The privileges of the nobility were left intact, but the extreme wing of the reactionary nobles had to rest satisfied with this acquiescence in the former state of things, and were not allowed to push the narrow-minded measures advocated by them. The majority of the Diet was influenced in their wise moderation, partly by the exalted views of the king, and to a greater extent yet by the disaffected spirit rife amongst the people, and especially threatening amongst the Serb population of the country. The laws secured the liberties of the Protestant and the Greek united churches, remedied the most urgent griefs of the peasantry, and declared those who were not noble capable of holding minor offices. Although the most important measures of reform were put off to a future time by the diet of 1790-1791, several preparatory royal commissions having been appointed for their consideration, yet the work it accomplished was the salutary beginning of a liberal legislation which culminated, not quite sixty years later, in the declaration of the equal rights of the people as the basis of the Hungarian commonwealth.

After the meeting of this Diet, however, very little was done in the direction of reforms. The good work was interrupted, partly by the premature death of Leopold II. (March 1, 1792), and partly by the warlike period, extending over twenty-five years, which, in Hungary as throughout all Europe, claimed public attention, and diverted the minds of the leaders of the nation from domestic topics. Francis I., the son and successor of Leopold II., caused himself to be crowned in due form, and much was at first hoped from his reign. But the Jacobin rule of terror in Paris, and the dread of seeing the revolutionary scenes repeated in his own realm, wrought a complete change in his character and policy. He soon stubbornly rejected every innovation, and gradually became a pillar of strength for the European reaction, that extravagant conservatism which expected to efface the effects of the French Revolution by an unquestioning adherence to the old and traditional order of things. This illiberal spirit of the monarch rendered impossible for the time any further reform-movement in Hungary. Every question of desirable change met with the most obstinate opposition on the part of the king, and the reforms submitted by the royal commissions were considered by every successive Diet without ever becoming law. The period which now followed was gloomy in the extreme, as well for Hungary as for the Austrian provinces of Francis I. The inhabitants of these countries were constantly called upon by the king in the course of the wars to make sacrifices in treasure and blood, by furnishing recruits and by paying high taxes. At the same time the government resorted to the most absolute and arbitrary measures to prevent the people from being contaminated with French ideas. The press was crushed by severe penalties. Every enlightened idea was banished from the schools and expunged from the school-books. Only men, for whose extreme reactionary spirit the police could vouch, were appointed to the professorships or to other offices. A system of universal spying and secret information caused everybody to be suspected and to suffer from private vindictiveness, whilst those who dared to avow liberal views were the objects of cruel persecution.

The numerically few but staunch adherents of democracy, being thus debarred from openly laboring for their views, endeavored to accomplish their purposes by secret combinations. A secret society was formed in Pesth, the centre of the political life of the country. This league of Hungarian Jacobins had but a confused idea of its own aims, and of the means of achieving them. They produce, at this distance of time, the impression of an organization, indulging in crude, exaggerated, and even thoughtless visions, but theirs, nevertheless, is the credit of having been the first society of the kind in the country, and of thus furnishing a link in the political development of the public spirit in Hungary. Although the members of the league were unable to secure any tangible results, yet they deserve a place in the national history as the first martyrs of universal freedom and human rights in Hungary, for they forfeited their lives or suffered long imprisonments for the holy cause. The movement was originally planned by Ignatius Martinovics, a learned abbot who entered into relations with the Jacobins abroad, first with those of Paris, and afterwards with their sympathizers in Germany and Austria. With the assistance of these he intended to bring about a republic of Hungary, and to establish there the doctrines of equality and liberty. He organized for that purpose a secret society in Pesth, after the pattern of the masonic societies, which were then flourishing throughout the country. There were in point of fact two distinct associations, one called the reformers, the other styled the friends of liberty and equality. The former knew nothing of the designs of the latter, whilst these, occupying a higher rank, were fully initiated into the secrets of the reformers. The aim of both alike was to insure the triumph of the principles of the French Revolution. The members recognized each other by secret signs, and used in their correspondence a cipher devised for the purpose. Martinovics’ scheme was to hoist the revolutionary flag as soon as the increased number of members in both societies might render such a step advisable. Meanwhile the sole business of the members consisted in spreading among the people a catechism conceived in a revolutionary spirit.

Martinovics commenced the organization of the secret society in the spring of 1794. He was assisted in his work by John Laczkovics, formerly a captain in the army, Joseph Hajnóczi, an ex-alispán (vicecomes or deputy sheriff of a county), and Francis Szentmarjay, a young man of distinction, who were all zealously engaged in recruiting members for the new association. Among the latter, however, but few knew of Martinovics’ ultimate object, or of his French connections. Most of them thought that it was his intention to secure the introduction of reforms by lawful means. As to the secret character of the society, they looked upon it as a concession to the fashion of the period, introduced by the freemasons. During the eighteenth century a real mania for secrecy of this kind prevailed all over Europe, and secret societies sprang up in every quarter for purposes which, if publicly proclaimed, would have met with no opposition whatever. The society of the Hungarian Jacobins did not owe its existence to subversionary tendencies, but to that eagerness for reforms which never ceased to agitate the nation. With the exception of a dozen unreflecting men who dreamt of overthrowing the Hungarian monarchy with the aid of the French, the rank and file were entirely composed of men who believed in reforms achieved by lawful methods. The leaders themselves, Martinovics, Hajnóczi, and Laczkovics, had filled important offices under the Emperor Joseph, and had subsequently supported King Leopold in his efforts at reform. If Leopold had lived, every one of them would have borne a conspicuous part in public affairs. But the triumph of the reactionary spirit under the reign of King Francis made them conspirators. Those of their friends who joined them were all honest and enthusiastic patriots, who saw in the success of democratic ideas the welfare of Hungary. But they did not look to a revolution for the realization of their fond hopes. They entered the society for the sole purpose of preparing the minds of their countrymen for reforms to be obtained by constitutional means. Almost every Hungarian writer, who was not in some dependent position, belonged to the society. Amongst these was Francis Kazinczy, the regenerator of Hungarian literature, and one of the most respectable members of the literary guild. The French ideas found a grateful echo among the intelligent elements of the country. The reports of French victories were hailed with joy in the capital, by the professors at the university, and the students, as well as by people in the country, especially in the county of Zemplén, the home of Kazinczy. Liberty poles were erected in several places, many hoping that the victories of the French would establish in Hungary the reign of liberty and equality. These demonstrations, however, were entirely independent, and were not inspired by Martinovics. Such occurrences reflected only the effect of foreign events on the public mind of Hungary, which had at all times been open to influences from abroad, and which did not fail, in this instance, to respond to the voice of humanity which then rang out through a large portion of the Western world.

The secret society confined its work to procuring fresh members and to a wide distribution of their political catechisms. The number of the members amounted altogether to seventy-five, of whom twenty-seven lived in Pesth, and the remainder belonged to every part of the country. Only three months had elapsed after the organization of the society when Martinovics was arrested in Vienna, and Laczkovics, Szentmarjay, and Hajnóczy in Pesth. The Viennese police had discovered the Austrian fraternity, and, finding Martinovics amongst its leaders, detained him at once. Martinovics while in prison made a full confession of every thing, and the arrests in Hungary were the consequence. About fifty men were thrown into prison. At the time of their arrest, the distribution of a few revolutionary pamphlets excepted, no deed, subversive of the public order, could be traced to the secret society of which they were members. It was therefore hoped that the government, in punishing them, would act with moderation and humanity. King Francis disappointed such hopes. He ordered them to be prosecuted without mercy, being determined to set a terrifying example, and, by inaugurating a reactionary reign of terror, to discourage his subjects from sympathizing with French ideas. Eighteen prisoners were sentenced to death, but Martinovics and six of his companions only were executed. They lost their heads by the executioner’s sword on the meadow in Buda, a spot called to this day the field of blood. The remaining prisoners, with few exceptions, were sentenced to longer and shorter terms of imprisonment, and two of the suspected escaped arrest by suicide. Francis Kazinczy suffered severe imprisonment in an Austrian dungeon during eight long years, and numerous other Hungarian writers were similarly deprived of their liberty.

These bloody executions created widespread dismay in the country. No one felt safe, for everybody was ignorant of the nature of the crimes with which the unhappy victims had been charged. The counties remonstrated, in addresses sent to the king, against these cruel proceedings, but without any effect. Francis pensioned off five liberal professors at the university, interdicted the teaching of Kant’s philosophy at that seat of learning, began to persecute every enlightened man in the country, and especially delighted in vexing in every possible way the intelligent element of Zemplén County. The friends of liberty, the men of progress, were thoroughly frightened. The press, too, was fettered by the government, and thus, by degrees, public life in Hungary became torpid and stagnant, the adherents of reform were reduced to silence, and innovations had to bide their time. The reactionary government achieved a complete victory. It banished from the high offices even the most moderate men, and filled every place of importance with persons who delighted in relentlessly repressing every democratic impulse in Hungary.