When the edict, which made German the official language of the country, was published, the minds of men all over the country were already greatly disturbed. It is true, that hitherto the Latin and not the Hungarian language had been the medium of communication employed by the state. But the national spirit and the native tongue, which during the first seventy years of the eighteenth century had sadly degenerated, were awakening to new life during Joseph’s reign. The literature of the country began to be assiduously cultivated in different spheres. Royal body-guards belonging to distinguished families, gentlemen of refinement, clergymen of modest position, and other sons of the native soil labored with equal zeal and enthusiasm to foster their cherished mother-tongue. It would, therefore, have been an easy matter for Joseph to replace the Latin language, which had become an anachronism, by the Hungarian, and thus to restore the latter to its natural and legal position in the state. He was perfectly right in ridding the country of the mastery of a dead tongue, but he committed a most fatal error in trying to substitute for it the German, an error which avenged itself most bitterly. Joseph entertained a special antipathy to the Hungarian tongue, a dislike which betrayed him into omitting the teaching of the native language from the course of public instruction, and refusing to allow an academy of sciences to be established which had its cultivation for its object.
The emperor’s attack upon the language of the nation irremediably broke the last tie between him and the country, and, henceforth, the relations between them could be only hostile. The counties assumed a threatening attitude, some of them refusing obedience altogether. Thus most of them declined to give their official co-operation to the army officers who had been delegated by the emperor to take the census. The count, nevertheless, proceeded, but in many places the inhabitants escaped to the woods, and in some there were serious riots in consequence of the opposition to the commissioners of the census. A rising of a different character took place amongst the Wallachs. The Wallachs, smarting under abuses of long standing, buoyed up by exaggerated expectations consequent upon the emperor’s innovations, and stirred up by evil-minded agitators, took to arms and perpetrated the most outrageous atrocities against their Hungarian landlords. The ignorant common people were assured by their leaders, Hora and Kloska, that the emperor himself sided with them. The Wallach insurgents assassinated the government’s commissioners sent to them, destroyed 60 villages and 182 gentlemen’s mansions, and killed 4,000 Hungarians, before they could be checked in their bloody work. Although they were finally crushed and punished, a strong belief prevailed in the country that the court of Vienna had been privy to the Wallach rising.
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.
The Diets which met during this period paid no attention whatever to reforms. Their main function consisted in voting considerable supplies in money and soldiers for the war against the French. The Hungarian nation sacrificed a great deal for her king during the Napoleonic wars, and, when the hostile armies were approaching the border of the country, every noble personally took up arms to defend the throne of his crowned king with his life and blood. The gentry distinguished themselves by their devotion, especially in 1809. Napoleon made the Hungarians the most enticing offers in order to seduce them from their allegiance to King Francis. He called upon them by proclamation to abandon Francis, to elect, under the French protectorate, a king of their own, and to restore Hungary to complete independence. But the Hungarian nation remained unshaken in their devotion to the king, and rallied round him and the ancient dynasty. The French, failing in their scheme, entered Hungary. The Hungarians gallantly defended their native soil, but were defeated near Raab, owing to the incapacity of their Austrian generals. During the whole Napoleonic contest, to its termination, in 1815, Hungary made immense sacrifices for the royal throne, and thousands of her sons shed their blood in its defence, on the most distant battlefields of Europe.
Francis but scantily rewarded the fidelity of the nation. He always had words of praise for the Hungarians, but constantly put off remedying the evils they complained of. The long wars, paralyzing commerce and trade, had fatally affected the prosperity of the country. The government, in order to meet the expenses of the continuous wars, had issued paper money to such an enormous extent that the paper currency became completely depreciated. The depreciation of one florin to one fifth of its face value was subsequently officially promulgated by the government, causing thereby immense losses to the people. To these miseries were added the numerous illegal acts and arbitrary and unconstitutional proceedings of the government, which continued even after Napoleon had been safely chained to the rock of St. Helena and peace began anew to dawn upon the world. The reign of reaction and absolutism which set in in Europe in 1815 extended its baneful influence also over Hungary. The constitution was completely ignored by the king and no Diet was convened. These were sad days for Hungary. There was no one to promote her national interests, and her advancement in culture was hampered by the meddling rule of the Austrian police. And, indeed, had not, about this time, the national literature infused a fresh and hopeful spirit into the body politic, Hungary would have presented a most deplorable picture of apathy and despair. Literature, science, and poetry, the cultivation of which was sadly interrupted by the imprisonment of most of their votaries in 1795, in consequence of the Martinovics conspiracy, became powerful agencies in rousing the nation to renewed political activity. Numerous distinguished writers sprang up, exerting themselves to inculcate lessons of patriotism and national self-respect into the minds of the people who had been arbitrarily debarred from the most telling influences of legitimate culture by the Viennese government. The latter at last thought that the time had arrived when the absolute government prevailing in her Austrian dominions might be established with safety also in Hungary. The first attempt made by King Francis in this direction was to levy, arbitrarily, solely by his own authority and without the consent of the Diet (which was necessary under the law), 35,000 recruits for the army. This illegal exaction of the king created a tremendous commotion amongst the people, and resulted in a most desperate conflict between the Hungarian nation and the Viennese government. The political contest which lasted five years newly inflamed the national enthusiasm. King Francis finally saw the error of his ways, acknowledged the illegality of his action, and returned to constitutional government. He summoned the Diet, in 1825, which, continuing the work of reform checked in 1791, gave the impulse to a new era of modern progress in Hungary.
On one of the most picturesque positions in Buda-Pesth, on the left bank of the majestic Danube, stands the bronze statue of Stephen Széchenyi, the greatest Hungarian of this century. The piety of the nation has placed it in the midst of her most conspicuous creations. At its feet rolls the mighty river whose regulation was commenced by Széchenyi, who made it a line of communication in the commercial system of Europe; in front is seen the grand suspension bridge, and beyond it is visible the mouth of the tunnel which, piercing the castled mountain of Buda, connects the dispersed parts of the city. In the rear rise the palatial edifices of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, which owes its existence to Széchenyi’s munificence, and round about stretches noisy, surging Buda-Pesth, to whose embellishment and enlightenment no one ever devoted himself so zealously as Stephen Széchenyi. Every thing surrounding the statue reminds us of the transcendent genius of Széchenyi, who raised for himself by his indefatigable labors, which form a link between old and modern Hungary, a monument more lasting and grander than the one cast in bronze.
Stephen Széchenyi was born on the 21st of September, 1791. He was the scion of a family which had given many distinguished men to their country, and with whom patriotism was traditional. His father, Count Francis, was the founder of the greatest institute of Hungary, having public culture for its aim, the National Museum of Buda-Pesth, which is now reckoned one of the finest and richest of the kind in Europe. Count Francis clung with passionate devotion to the cause of his country. The tender mind of his son Stephen was often puzzled to see his father melancholy and lost in thought, and later only, when grown to manhood, did he learn that his father had been grieving over the backwardness of his country. Count Stephen inherited the patriotic sentiments of his father, and never for a moment lost sight of the one great object of his life, to revive the now decaying nation, which had acted so proud a part in the past, and to secure for her a better future by promoting her material and cultural interests. Stephen Széchenyi became the apostle of this patriotic mission; he devoted his whole life to this one lofty thought, studying for many years, reflecting, travelling, gathering knowledge, and when the hour arrived to enter upon the scene of action, he took the lead of the nation, aptly equipped for the severe task.
He finished his studies under the roof of his father, who was a man of high culture. The turmoils of the Napoleonic wars, shaking all Europe and with it Hungary, allowed but scant opportunity for peaceful avocations when Count Stephen had reached his sixteenth year. He accordingly entered the army and gallantly took part, as a young officer, in the wars of the period, being present at the famous battle of Leipsic. The Congress of Vienna put an end to the wars which had raged in Europe for twenty-five years, and during the protracted period of peace following it, Széchenyi bestowed his attention upon the affairs of his country. Before taking an active part, however, he travelled for a considerable time through Italy, France, and England, and only after having become familiar with the advanced civilization of foreign countries did he return to his own, filled with grand ideas, with lofty, patriotic feelings, his brain seething, and his soul thirsting for action, in order to conquer for himself a sphere of public activity.
The Diet of 1825 afforded him a fitting opportunity in this direction. During the thirteen years preceding the convoking of this Diet the country had been ruled in the most absolute manner. The government ignored, during that period, the constitution, collected by force of arms and arbitrarily illegal taxes, filled, in the same despotic way, the ranks of the army, fettered the liberty of the press, and deprived the nation of her ancient rights. These acts of violence stirred up the indignation of the country, and the natural reaction was still more roused and fostered by the dawning Hungarian literature which proclaimed a brighter future to the nation. Csokonai, Francis Kazinczy, Alexander and Charles Kisfaludy, Michael Vörösmarty, Francis Kölcsey, and other eminent writers were the fathers of a new era in Hungarian literature, and by their works they kindled the national feeling and roused the public spirit. The nation awoke and was eager to march in the footsteps of the civilization of Europe. She only lacked a leader, but in the course of the deliberations of the Diet of 1825, that leader was found.
Stephen Széchenyi, being a member of the Upper House by right of birth, took his seat there among the aristocracy of the land. His first act was destined to be the precursor of a new epoch in the history of the nation. On the 25th of October he made a short speech; his manner was embarrassed and confused; but he spoke in Hungarian, a proceeding which was looked upon at that time as a revolutionary act, full of boldness, and which excited the utmost indignation of the highest circles. The Latin language had until then remained, in keeping with the traditions of the past, the official language of the House of Magnates, Széchenyi was the first magnate who dared to cut loose from the ancient tradition, and, although a great portion of his fellow-magnates, especially the older ones, were shocked at the innovation, yet the number of Hungarian-speaking great lords continually increased after this, and the bold stand he took on that occasion had much to do with the restoration of the national language to its rightful place.
Shortly after the Lower House witnessed the triumph achieved by him in the cause of Hungarian culture. During the preliminary sessions preceding the plenary ones, the question had been deliberated upon for several days as to the best means of fostering the national language. Széchenyi, with several of his noble friends, was present at one of these conferences, listening and looking on. Each deputy in turn stated his views on the subject. One of them, Paul Nagy, a distinguished orator of the opposition, declared, with an air of deep conviction, that to cultivate the Hungarian language with a view to make it successfully compete with the Germanizing tendencies of the government, and with the Latin language, it was necessary to establish a Hungarian academy of sciences. To accomplish this, he added, money was needed, and this could not be obtained from the government, which was hostile to the scheme. Let the nation furnish the money, the great lords, the owners of the vast fortunes and landed estates, setting first a good example to the rest. The effect of these kindling words was a thrilling one. Széchenyi immediately stepped forward, and, addressing the presiding officer, asked leave to say a few words. Amidst the general attention of those present he briefly stated that he was ready to contribute one year’s entire income from his estates to a fund wherewith to found an institute whose object would be the fostering of the Hungarian language. These simple words were received with a storm of applause. A remarkable spectacle now ensued. One man after another arose eager to contribute to the fund of the future Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and the sum was soon swelled to 154,000 florins, Széchenyi’s contribution alone amounting to 60,000 florins. The institute was soon established, and, thanks to the patriotic support of the nation, the funds of the Academy exceed at present 2,000,000 florins. The activity of this institute has proved, for the last fifty years, most beneficial to the development of the Hungarian language and the advancement of science in the country.
This munificent act placed Széchenyi at once in the front ranks of the nation, and the very enthusiasm roused by his generous patriotism was the means of exciting his best energies, and of spurring him on to further action. Széchenyi, although acting, on the whole, with the exceedingly moderate opposition, which was conservative and not unfrequently quite reactionary, influenced as it was by the famous policy of Prince Metternich, never became a member of either of the political parties. His leading idea was that the first thing to be done was to improve the material and intellectual condition of the people, and to increase the prosperity and culture of the country. He had founded in the interest of civilization the Hungarian Academy, and now he labored enthusiastically to improve the commercial, industrial, and economical condition of the country. In this work he had to contend with all sorts of obstacles and prejudices on the part not only of the higher circles, but of the very class that was to be benefited by his reforms. But Széchenyi did not lose heart, and, undisturbed by many a bitter experience, he undeviatingly pursued his own course, and carried through with an iron will every measure deemed beneficial by him. His busy brain never ceased to devise new patriotic schemes, and to make them acceptable to the people. He won back the estranged aristocracy of the country, and assigned to them a leading position in national politics; he strove to raise the capital to a European level, and advanced the national prosperity by the discovery of new resources, the opening of new roads of communication, and by the creation of many useful public institutions. He had equal regard for the interests of all classes, from the lord to the peasant, and thus strove, while yet surrounded by the antiquated order of things, to awaken the people to a sense of national consciousness, and to promote the recognition of the solidarity of interests between all the classes of the nation. His busy brain embraced every public interest, and he exerted every social and economical agency to ripen in the nation the notions of modern European civilization. He was a powerful agitator, in equal degrees master of the sword and the pen, and although his whole individuality, his character, and his habits bore the stamp of the aristocratic circle in which he was born and educated, yet, by dint of his conspicuous and many-sided labors, he in reality was the most indefatigable champion and pioneer of democratic ideas in his own country.
His first great literary work (a smaller one had preceded it), entitled “Credit,” was published in 1830, and in it he treated of economical questions of the most immediate importance to the country. It was a work of great power, marked by scholarly thoroughness, practical statesmanship, and poetic elevation, and produced an extraordinary sensation throughout the country. It was read everywhere, in the palaces of the magnates, in the mansions of the provincial gentry, and in the homes and offices of merchants and tradesmen. The book was spoken of in the most exalted terms by some, while others declared its author to be a communist and revolutionary agitator. The foes to progress, the defenders of the decaying privileges of the nobility, burned the book, while the friends of the new ideas, and especially the rising generation, saw in it the gospel of a new era. It was in this work that Széchenyi, addressing the generation that vainly clung to the reminiscences of the past, said: “Do not constantly trouble yourselves with the vanished glories of the past, but rather let your determined patriotism bring about the prosperity of the beloved fatherland. Many there are who think that Hungary has been, but for my part I like to think that Hungary shall be.”
Under the influence of these exalted ideas Széchenyi persevered in his practical efforts for the common weal. He wrote a great deal up to the time of his death, and some of his works are justly ranked among the gems of Hungarian literature. But more precious than these are his practical creations, which still, for the most part, survive, and which are destined to perpetuate his fame for many centuries to come. His busy mind attended to every variety of matters of public concern. Thus it was he who introduced horse-racing into the country, not for the purpose of affording a mere gentlemanly pastime, but with the object of developing horse-breeding in Hungary, an object which has been very successfully accomplished by the new sport. In furtherance of this object he formed a society which subsequently became the National Breeding Association, which flourishes to this day. In order to afford to the gentry permanently a rallying and central point in the country, he established the Buda-Pesth National Casino, a social club of high distinction, still in existence and enjoying an enviable reputation in the best European circles. He took quite an active part in the management of the new Academy of Sciences; zealously supported the efforts made to found a permanent national theatre, efforts which subsequently proved successful; started and realized the scheme for building a permanent bridge across the Danube, connecting Pesth and Buda, and for the construction of a tunnel under the castled mountain of Buda; conducted for years the work of regulating the Danube, especially in the vicinity of the Vaskapu (Iron Gate); and also aided in the establishment of the Danube Steam Navigation Company, which at this day has hundreds of ships engaged in the local and export trade. His most glorious work, however, was the regulation of the Theiss, resulting, in the course of time, in the reclaiming of a marshy territory containing one hundred and fifty square miles, and turning it into a rich and fertile soil. His mind was teeming, besides, with various schemes looking to the building of railways, and to the promotion of commerce and industry; but all these various undertakings were marked by the same steady spirit of patriotic endeavor.
For fifteen years, up to 1840, the popularity of Széchenyi had gone on increasing throughout the country, and his name was cherished by every good patriot in the land. About this time, however, the great statesman was destined to come into collision with a man who was his peer in genius and abilities. The two patriots were representatives of different methods, and in the contest produced by the shock of antagonistic tendencies Széchenyi was compelled to yield to Louis Kossuth, his younger rival. Although there was no material difference between their aims, for both wished to see their country great, free, constitutionally governed, prosperous, and advanced in civilization, yet in the ways and means employed by them to attain that aim they were diametrically opposed to each other. Széchenyi, who descended from a family of ancient and aristocratic lineage, and presented himself to the nation with connections reaching up into the highest circles of the court, with the lustre of his ancient name, and with his immense fortune, wished to secure the happiness of his country by quite different methods from those adopted by Louis Kossuth, a child of the people, who, although he was a nobleman by birth, yet belonged to that poorer class of gentry who support themselves by their own exertions, and who, in Hungary, are destined to fulfil the mission of the citizen-classes of other countries. It is from these classes of the gentry that are, for the most part, recruited the tradespeople, the smaller landowners, professional men, writers, subordinate officials, lawyers, physicians, clergymen, teachers, and professors. By virtue of their nobility, it is true, they belonged to the privileged class of the country, and were not subjected to the humiliations of the oppressed peasantry, yet they had to earn a living by their own work, and were therefore not only accessible to, but were ready enthusiastically to receive, the lofty message of liberty and equality which the French Revolution of 1830 began to proclaim anew throughout all Europe. These doctrines formed a sharp contrast to the views of Count Stephen Széchenyi, views which, owing to the social position of the man who held them, were not devoid of a certain aristocratic tinge, and according to which the most important part in the regeneration of the Hungarian nation was assigned to the aristocracy. It was a part, however, which the Hungarian aristocracy was itself by no means disposed to assume. Among its younger members, indeed, could be found, here and there, enthusiastic men who were devotedly attached to the person of the lordly reformer, but the great majority of his class were hostilely arrayed against Széchenyi’s aims, and, obstructing the granting of even the most inoffensive demands of the nation, supported the Viennese government, which was rigidly opposed to political reforms and to any changes in the public institutions of the country. This attitude of the aristocracy compelled Széchenyi to avoid as much as possible all questions concerning constitutionality and liberty, and to confine the work of reform chiefly to the sphere of internal improvements. The only way in which he could hope to obtain the support of the court of Vienna and of the majority of the Upper House for his politico-economical measures, was to remain as neutral as possible in politics. The idea which chiefly governed his actions was that the country should be first strengthened internally, and that afterwards it would be easy for the nation to bring about the triumph of her national and political aspirations.
After 1840, however, the bulk of the nation, and especially the small gentry whose preponderating influence was making itself continually felt, were unwilling to follow Széchenyi in his one-sided policy. The reformatory work of Széchenyi during the preceding fifteen years had educated public opinion up to new and great ideas, but the leaders of that public opinion were now to be found in the House of Representatives in the persons of Francis Deák and Louis Kossuth. They wished to obtain for their country both political liberty and material prosperity. They knew the effect of political institutions upon the material well-being and civilization of a nation, and they no longer deemed it possible to attain these objects without a modern constitutional government. Louis Kossuth, who was born in 1802, was the very incarnation of the great democratic ideas of his age. He was entirely a man of work and entered the legal profession, after having completed his studies with great distinction, for the purpose of supporting himself by it. Kossuth was present at the Diet of 1832, when the government, which conducted itself most brutally and arbitrarily towards the press, refused to allow the newspapers to print reports of the deliberations of the Diet in spite of the repeated urgings by the deputies for such an authorization, and it was owing to his ingenuity that this prohibition was evaded. The censorship was exercised on printed matter only and did not extend to manuscripts. Kossuth wrote out the reports of the Diet himself, had numerous copies made of them in writing, and circulated them, for a slight fee, in every part of the country, where they were looked for with feverish expectation, and, owing to the spirit of opposition with which they were colored, were read with the greatest eagerness. This manuscript newspaper produced quite a revolutionary movement amongst the people, frightening even the Austrian government. The latter now attempted to silence Kossuth by gentle means, promising him high offices and a pension, but he refused the enticing offers and continued his work for the benefit of the nation. Foiled in the attempt to lure Kossuth from his duty, the government resorted to violence, seized the lithographic apparatus by means of which Kossuth planned to multiply his manuscript newspaper, and gave directions to the postmasters to detain and open all those sealed packages which were supposed to contain the reports. But these arbitrary proceedings of the government could not put an end to the circulation of the newspaper; the country gentlemen, by their own servants, continued to send each other single copies, and the matter was given up only when the Diet ceased to be in session. Then Kossuth, at the urgent request of his friends and, one might say, of the whole country, started a new manuscript newspaper at Buda-Pesth, which reported the deliberations of the county assemblies. The effect produced by this new paper was fraught with even greater consequences than the first had created, for it was instrumental in bringing the counties into contact with each other, thus affording them an opportunity to combine against the government. The latter, however, soon prohibited its publication, but the prohibition gave rise to a storm of indignation throughout the whole country. The counties in solid array addressed protests to the government against the illegal act and on behalf of Kossuth, who continued to publish the paper in spite of the inhibition. The government at last resorted to the most barefaced brutality. Kossuth, the brave champion of liberty, its eloquent pen and herald, was dragged to a damp and dark subterranean prison-cell in the castle of Buda, and detained there, whilst his father and mother and his family, who were looking to him solely for their support, were robbed of the aid of their natural protector.
Although at that period lawlessness was the order of the day, yet this last cruel and illegal act of the government greatly exasperated the public mind, which was already in a ferment of excitement. But while the excited passions raged throughout the country, the government, nothing loth, caused Kossuth to be prosecuted for high treason, and, having obtained his conviction, had him sentenced to an imprisonment of three years. Kossuth applied himself during his detention to serious studies, and acquired also, while in prison, the English language to such an extent that he was enabled to address in that language, during his exile, with great effect and impressiveness, large audiences both in England and in the United States of America. His imprisonment lasted two long years, after the lapse of which he obtained, in 1840, a pardon in consequence of the repeated and urgent representations of the Diet.
Kossuth returned to the scene of his former activity as the martyr of free speech, and the victim to the cause of the nation. He very soon found a new field in which to labor. The government perceived at last that violence was of little avail, and that those questions which were occupying the minds to such a degree could no longer be kept from being publicly discussed by the press. Kossuth now obtained permission to edit a political daily paper. Its publication was commenced under the title of Pesti Hirlap (Pesth Newspaper) in 1841, and may be said to have created the political daily press of Hungary. It disseminated new ideas among the masses, stirred up the indifferent to feel an interest in the affairs of the country and gave a purpose to the national aspirations. It proclaimed democratic reforms in every department; the abolition of the privileges of the nobility and of their exemption from taxation, equal rights and equal burdens for all the citizens of the state, and the extension of public instruction, and it endeavored to restore the Hungarian nationality to the place it was entitled to claim in the organism of the state.
The wealth of ideas thus daily communicated to the country appeared in the most attractive garb, for Kossuth possessed a masterly style, and his leaders and shorter articles showed off to advantage so many unexpected beauties of the Hungarian language, that his readers were fairly enchanted and carried away by them. His articles were a happy compound of poetical elevation and oratorical power, gratifying common-sense and the imagination at the same time, appealing by their lucid exposition to the reader’s intelligence, and exciting and warming this fancy by their fervor. Kossuth always rightly guessed what questions most interested the nation, and the daily press became, in his hands, a power in Hungary, electrifying the masses, who were always ready to give their unconditional support to his bold and far-reaching schemes.