Purcsi Adrienn: Historical Essay on the Nationality Politics and the Revision Appearing in the Spirit of St. Stephen’s Idea of the State

This article is a mirror translation of a previously published article. In our opinion, its appearance is essential in terms of the importance of the topic. Furthermore, this essay is a summary of our previously published publications. In our essay, we try to answer the questions formulated above. First of all, it is important to clarify how and why this idea of the state appears? Perhaps this is the easiest to answer. Called to life by the Peace Treaty of Trianon, the proclamation of the principles of the idea was also a kind of instinctive social reaction to the emerging insecurity in the country, which was later adopted by the Christian-conservative political elite of the Horthy era. St. Stephen’s idea of the state considers the Empire of St. Stephen and his policy as an example, the return to which was the ultimate goal in post-Trianon Hungary. Fortunately, we don’t have to search for a definition for a very long time since Prime Minister Pál Teleki[1] perfectly formulated the essence of the concept: “This is the state ideal of understanding the peoples, the correct and sane leadership of the peoples in this area, so it is the state ideal of the Danube basin. It organizes all people living here into a common life, a unified way of life, and joint aspirations.”[2]

St. Stephen’s concept of the state contains two important, interrelated public issues and offers solutions to them. One is revision and the other is the question of nationality. Emphasizing these is essential when examining the concept. Knowing the above, it can be very simply concluded that the ultimate and only goal of the revisionist policy appearing in the spirit of St. Stephen’s ideal of state is the restoration of St. Stephen’s Empire, while minor differences can be observed in its implementation and the way it is carried out. But there is another important feature behind the idea of restoring the Empire and it is none other than the minority issue. In previous research, this was not given a prominent role, although it is by no means negligible, because the concept formulates how it should have been before, and also defines how the nationalities should be treated at the time when the separated parts of the country are reunited.

According to the representatives of the state idea, the reason for the Trianon case was that the country had deviated from the path marked by St. Stephen, and this was also true for nationality politics. Therefore, the quickest solution would be for the country to start treating its nationalities as it did in the time of St. Stephen. But what exactly does that mean? István Bethlen put it as follows: “The conscious settlement of foreign ethnic elements in Hungary began already in the time of St. Stephen and sometimes at a faster and sometimes at a slower pace, but it continued uninterrupted for 800 years, until the first half of the last century, until the Hungarian Risorgimento.”[3] He also pointed out that later in the reform era, the Hungarian government had to rein in the nationalities that had awakened to national consciousness, and he blamed the Habsburg Empire for the forced resettlement after the Turks, because it served to weaken the Hungarian nation, unlike St. Stephen, who, as Bethlen puts it, settled foreign nationalities absolutely consciously and was guided by the intention to improve, “so that the seeds of Western Christian culture could be sown in the ranks of the people of the steppes who had been brought up in Asian culture, so that new branches of occupation could be introduced, without which a civilized country could not exist and so that the one-sided military qualities of our people could be replaced.”[4] According to this, the territory of Hungary cannot be limited to areas inhabited by Hungarians, but must include all the peoples of the Carpathian Basin, and only the Hungarian people are qualified to lead it.

Overall, in our opinion, the important government political figures whose thinking was permeated by the idea of the state, such as Pál Teleki and István Bethlen, all agreed that a return to medieval Hungarian nationality politics was the only right way, and that the nationality policy of the following eras did not take the relationship between the Hungarians and the nationalities in the right direction because it only sharpened the contrasts. The concept does not end here, as this was not the only element of nationality politics that should be pursued by the leadership, but the restoration of the borders and the leading role of the Hungarians who have held the empire together since St. Stephen and led the peoples living here should also be part of it. They advocated for a federalist cooperation, as this is the only way this area could prosper. We need the nationalities that have ended up across the border want to rejoin the motherland. In addition to all these highlighted and sometimes polarized points, of course differences can also be observed in the theories of different political personalities, for example in terms of putting these ideas into practice. Still, the common and particularly important elements of the idea of the state are those highlighted above. It is also important to emphasize that all of this could have worked very well in theory, and as a result, the politicians set extremely ambitious goals. However, the implementation of this policy is a very complex task, which was made difficult by various factors, such as the nationalities in the annexed areas having been attuned against the Hungarians.

Nevertheless, despite all these difficulties, questions and problems, St. Stephen’s idea of the state occupies an important place in the political thinking of the Horthy era, since this was the ideal of the state represented by government thinking.

Bibliography

Bethlen István, gróf [count]: Szent István napján [On St Stepehen’s Day], Pesti Napló, LXXXIX. évf., 1938/165, 1938. augusztus 20., 1–2.

Teleki Pál, gróf [count]: Magyar nemzetiségi politika [Hungarian nationality politics], Budapest, Stádium Sajtóvállalat Rt. nyomdája, 1940. 3–4.

References

  1. Pál Teleki (1879-1941) Hungarian politician. Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1920 to 1921 and from 1939 to 1941.
  2. Gróf Teleki Pál: Magyar nemzetiségi politika [Hungarian nationality politics], Budapest, Stádium Sajtóvállalat Rt. nyomdája, 1940, 3–4.
  3. Gróf Bethlen István: Szent István napján [On St Stephen’s Day]: Pesti Napló, LXXXIX. évf., 1938/165, 1938. augusztus 20., 1–2.
  4. Ibid.