Oldal 127 [127]
OCR
CSABA DUPCSIK melted into the Empire as in the case of the Czech Kingdom, nor was it an independent state bound to the other territories of the Habsburg’s countries by a personal union (as some Hungarian intellectuals often tried to believe). “The Hungarian nation” had some autonomy at local and national level as well (which was inside and outside of the Habsburg Empire). The Austro— Hungarian Compromise of 1867 modernized and emphasized this particular status; even the Habsburg Empire was renamed the Austro—Hungarian (Dual) Monarchy (until 1918). Before 1848 the social and political foundation of this “autonomy” consisted of the estate institutions overwhelmingly run by the nobility, while the estate nationalism served as the ideological foundation. As a thought experiment, Let's try to imagine that the opinion leaders of the country in the 19" century tried to reform the Hungarian estate nationalism into a “pure” modern type of nationalism (figure 1 and 2). As some assembly of the elite and the middle strata could declare, “we, the people of the Hungarian Kingdom, in Order to form a more perfect state and modernized society...” 1. Figure. Thought experiment: the reinterpretation of Hungarian estate nationalism as ethnic Hungarian nationalism in the 19" century The Hungarian nation (natio) The Hungarian nation = the body = the estates = (in practice) the > of the ethnic Hungarians nobility [in the 19" century less than half of [nobleman: in practice ethnic the population of Hungary] Hungarian majority, but in theory the ethnicity was irrelevant] 2. Figure. Thought experiment: the reinterpretation of Hungarian estate nationalism as state nationalism in the 19" century The Hungarian nation (natio) = the The Hungarian nation = the whole privileged population [in practice: > | population, ‘the people’ the nobility] This “extended-to-the-people” nationalism would seem to be a very promising “multifunctional ideology”: 1.) It could be a modernizing ideology. The most enlightened noblemen and intellectuals often thought that the insistence on the feudal system could easily lead * 126 +
