LANGUAGE AND LEARNING AGAINST DESPOTISM. 1840-1846.
Contrast between position of German language in North Germany and
in Austrian Empire.--Condition of Germany between 1819 and
1840.--Literary movements.--Protest of the Professors of Goettingen
against abolition of Hanoverian Constitution.--Effect of the
protest on other parts of Germany.--Position and character of
Frederick William III.--His struggle with the Archbishop of
Cologne.--Accession of Frederick William IV.--His character and
policy.--Ronge's movement of Church Reform.--Robert Blum's share in
it.--Language movement in Hungary.--Position and history of
Croatia.--Louis Gaj and the "Illyrian" movement.--"The Slavonic
ocean and the Magyar island."--Kossuth's treatment of the Slavonic
movement.--Count Zay's circular.--The "taxation of the
nobles."--Szechenyi's position.--Deak's resignation.--The Croats at
Presburg.--Kossuth's inconsistency.--Ferdinand's intervention in
the struggle.--The struggle of races absorbs all other
questions.--History of Transylvania.--The "three nations."--The
position of the Roumanians.--Effect of Joseph II.'s policy in
Transylvania.--The "Libellus Wallachorum."--Andreas
Schaguna.--Stephan Ludwig Roth.--General summary of the effect of
the revival of national feelings.
'Twas from no Augustan age,
No Lorenzo's patronage,
That the German singers rose;
By no outward glories crowned,
By no prince's praise renowned,
German art's first blossom blows.
From her country's greatest son,
From the mighty Frederick's throne,
Scorned, the Muse must turn away.
"_We_ have given thy worth to thee;"
"Let our heart-beats prouder be;"
Can each German boldly say.
So to loftier heights arose,
So in waves more swelling flows
German poet's minstrelsy.
He in ripeness all his own,
From his heart's deep centre grown,
Scorns the rule of pedantry.
So sang Schiller; and, while in Germany the Muse was ascending to the
heights in which Schiller gloried to see her, the opposite process had
been producing opposite results under the rule of another German
sovereign. Frederick II. of Prussia preferred bad French to the best
utterances of his own country; and so the German Muse was free to
develope in her own way. Joseph II. of Austria felt his heart warmed
with the greatness of German traditions; he looked round on dominions
inhabited by men of different races and languages, and, perceiving
that these differences led to continual misunderstandings, and
hindered any great work of common reform, resolved to extend the
blessings of German language and literature to all the races of his
dominions. To them, he thought, a change would prove a bond of union;
while neither Bohemian, Hungarian, nor Croat could claim for their
native tongues, however dear to them, such glorious associations and
traditions as were already connected with the language which was to
take their place.
The consequence of this nobly intended effort has been that German is,
to this day, a badge of tyranny to the majority of the people of the
western half of the Austrian Empire; and if it has almost ceased to be
so in the eastern half, that is simply because its supremacy has been
replaced by the no less crushing tyranny of another language which was
offered to the various populations of the Hungarian kingdom by its
rulers, as a symbol of national freedom and unity.
The spirit of literary independence in North Germany, and the rivalry of
languages in the Austrian Empire, were both forcing themselves on the
attention of the public during the period of Metternich's rule. To
outward appearance there was no time at which the condition of Germany
must have seemed more helpless and hopeless than between 1819 and 1840.
The German insurrections of 1831 could not be compared for their
historical importance with either the English reform movement of the
same period, or with the Italian uprisings; nor for dramatic brilliancy
with the Polish insurrection of 1830. Even the Hanoverian Constitution
of 1833, which seemed to be firmly established, went down four years
later without a sword being drawn in its defence; while the heavy
burdens of the Carlsbad decrees of 1819 and the Frankfort decrees of
1832 were made still heavier in 1834 by a new Edict, passed at Vienna,
establishing courts of arbitration, elected by members of the Bund, to
decide questions at issue between sovereigns and parliaments. If the
Assemblies, in defending their rights of taxation, should refuse to
appeal to this Court, the sovereign might then proceed to levy, without
further delay, the supplies which had been granted by the previous
Assembly.
Yet Germany was not dead. Apart from the continual assertions of
independence by the South German States, the growth of German literature
was keeping alive the sense of union between the different parts of the
nation. Stein, after his retirement from political affairs, had devoted
himself to the encouragement of German literature, and particularly of
German history. For this purpose he brought together historians from
different parts of Germany; and Perthes, the bookseller, who had helped
to defend Hamburg against the French, exerted himself to promote a book
trade which was to unite the North and South of Germany. Occasionally,
some prince, like the Duke of Saxe-Coburg Gotha, would show an
inclination to play the part of the Duke of Weimar as a patron of
literature, but could only call attention thereby to such life as still
remained, not evoke any new life. The German Muse was still to thrive by
her own labours, and the great proof of the existence of a still
independent literary class was given in 1837, when the King of Hanover
suppressed the Constitution which his predecessor had established.
On November 17th, 1837, seven professors of Goettingen University drew
up against this act of tyranny a protest which so ably connected the
feeling of the true literary man and the true teacher with that of the
independent citizen that it deserves to be given at length. They said
that the whole chance of the success of their work depended not more
certainly on the scientific worth of their teaching than on their
personal blamelessness. Should they appear before the young students
as men who would play carelessly with their oaths, then at once the
blessing of their work would be gone; and what importance could the
oath of homage possibly have, if the King had received it from men who
just before had audaciously violated another oath? This protest was
signed by Dahlmann, Albrecht, Gervinus, the brothers Grimm, Weber, and
Ewald. They were summarily dismissed from their offices by the King,
who declared that he could buy professors anywhere for money, as
easily as dancers. At once the greatest enthusiasm broke out in
different parts of Germany. In Leipzig and Koenigsberg subscriptions
were opened for the professors, and in twelve hours the Leipzigers had
subscribed nearly 1,000 thalers. The subscription of Leipzig was
followed by a public reception given to Albrecht and Dahlmann; an
address was delivered in which the professors were told that the whole
heart of the German people beat with them. The man who delivered this
address, and who thus first made his appearance before the public, was
the Leipzig bookseller, Robert Blum. In Saxony the Constitution which
had been won in 1831 was still nominally in existence, and the Prime
Minister was even called a Liberal. The Members of the Parliament
hoped to seize this opportunity of putting Saxony forward as the
champion of German rights; but the Government shrank from that
position, and seemed disposed even to check the independent movement
among the people.
Now in spite of the steady courage that had shown itself among the
literary men of Germany, the bulk of the nation was still essentially
monarchical, and they needed some king at the head of the movement for
freedom and unity. However much of Liberalism might occasionally have
been shown by some of the smaller princes of Germany, none of them
were in a position to take the leading part in any common German
movement. The Emperor of Austria, even had his policy tended in that
direction, was hindered by his connection with non-German territories
from assuming such a leadership. And the memories of 1813 gathered, if
not round the King of Prussia, at least round his kingdom. The
institution of the Zollverein formed one point of attraction between
Prussia and the Liberals of Germany; the position of Prussia as the
great Protestant Power strengthened her influence in Northern Germany;
and just at the time when the King of Hanover was dismissing the
professors of Goettingen, the King of Prussia was supporting at the
University of Bonn professors whom the Archbishop of Cologne was
trying to suppress. The prohibition of mixed marriages by the same
Archbishop further excited Frederick William's opposition; and, unable
to secure obedience by other methods, the King seized and imprisoned
the Archbishop. An act of tyranny in the interests of liberty seems to
commend itself more readily to Continental revolutionists than to
those who have been bred up under the principle of mutual forbearance
produced by Constitutional life; and there can be little doubt that
much of the strongest part of North German feeling was enlisted on the
side of the King of Prussia. But Frederick William III. was not a man
to take the lead in anything. By the mere accident of his position he
had become the figure-head of the rising of 1813; and by the same
accident he continued to attract the wishes, one can hardly say the
hopes, of those who desired to counteract in Germany the policy of
Metternich. He could at no time have done much to help forward the
unity of Germany; and he had long since abandoned any wish to work in
that direction.
But while the excitement arising from the tyranny of the King of
Hanover, and the struggle of the King of Prussia with the Archbishop
of Cologne, were still distracting Germany, Frederick William III.
died, and was succeeded by Frederick William IV. The new King was a
man of somewhat poetical and enthusiastic temperament, with a strong
religious bias, desirous in a way of the welfare of his people, and
not ill disposed to play a Liberal part within due limits. He restored
Arndt to his position at Bonn; he set free not only Jahn, but also the
Archbishop of Cologne; he found a post for Dahlmann in the University
of Bonn; and he began also to talk Constitutionalism in a way which
roused new hopes in Germany. He inspired no confidence in those who
looked more closely into matters; but his career began at a time when
the Germans were in a state of eager expectation, which had been
quickened by a movement already preparing in other parts of Germany.
The first utterance of the new reformers was a protest against
religious superstition. A Roman Catholic priest, named Ronge,
denounced the famous worship of the Holy Coat at Treves. This protest
attracted attention, and was followed by an attack on a number of
other corruptions of the Roman Catholic Church. The movement spread; a
reformed Catholic Church was founded in Posen and Silesia, and Ronge
was appointed minister of the first congregation of the new faith.
It was in 1845 that the movement reached Saxony. Two years before, the
Liberal Ministry had retired; a complete reaction had set in, and
Robert Blum had been subjected to a fine and four weeks' imprisonment
for an article in which he had advocated publicity of trial. Nothing
daunted by this, Blum threw himself heartily into the new movement,
and, although a Roman Catholic himself, denounced the practice of the
confessional and the celibacy of the clergy. The Ultramontanes raised
a riot in which Blum was personally attacked, and the Saxon Ministry
declared their determination to put down "the sects." Such a threat
naturally gave new force to the reformers, and they raised the cry, so
often to be heard in the coming Liberal movements, of "Down with the
Jesuits!" That unfortunate Society, so often the object of hatred both
to kings and Peoples, was in this case specially obnoxious to the
Liberals from the patronage which was extended to it by the heir to
the throne. When the Prince appeared to review the troops at Leipzig
he was received in silence, and when he had retired to his hotel the
crowd gathered round it with cries of "Long live Ronge!" and "Down
with the Jesuits!" accompanied by the singing of "Ein fester Burg ist
unser Gott," and followed by songs of a different description. Stones
soon began to fly. Then the soldiers were called out, they fired on
the crowd, and many were killed.
On the following day the students of Leipzig gathered to hear an address
from Robert Blum. He urged them to abstain from violence, but to put
into form their demand for legal remedies; and for this purpose a
committee was chosen. The following demands were laid before the Town
Council--viz., that the preservation of order should be entrusted to
the civic guard; that the soldiers should be removed from the town; that
inquiries should be made into the circumstances of the riot, and a
solemn burial given to those who had been shot. The Town Council
yielded, and though the soldiers were soon sent back into Leipzig, a
beginning had been made which might lead to a larger reform. Blum then
founded a debating society; and, at the end of 1845, he was chosen
representative of Leipzig in the Lower House of Saxony.
But while the national feeling of Germany was gathering round the
intellectual leaders of that country, the feeling for national
peculiarities and national language was producing widely different
results in those countries where the unfortunate policy of Joseph II.
had made the German language a symbol of division rather than of unity.
The movement for substituting the Magyar language for the Latin (which
had previously been customary in the Diet at Presburg) was the revival
of a struggle which had begun in the very time of Joseph II.; and, had
Hungary been a homogeneous country, the movement might have passed as
naturally into a struggle for freedom as the enthusiasm for German
poetry and German learning had chimed in with the desire for German
political unity. But Hungary had never been a country of one race or of
common aspirations. Several waves of conquest and colonization had
passed over different parts of it, without ending, in any case, in that
amalgamation between the different races which alone could secure
national unity.
Yet it is just possible that, had the leadership of the Magyars
fallen into the hands of a man of wider sympathies and more delicate
feeling than Kossuth, an understanding might have been effected
between the different peoples of Hungary. During the struggle against
Joseph II., the other races seem to have submitted to the leadership
of the Magyars, and to a great extent to have adopted the Magyar
language, because it was not then thrust on them by force. But when,
after the Diet of 1830, Hungary began to reawaken to the desire for
liberty, signs of national feeling soon showed themselves among other
races than the Magyars.
The first race who felt the new impulse were the Croats. They, more
than any of the other peoples who had been annexed to the Kingdom of
Hungary, had preserved their separate government and traditions of
independence. In 1527 they offered the throne of Croatia to the
Hapsburgs, without waiting for any decision by the Magyars; and when
Charles VI. was submitting to the Powers of Europe and to the
inhabitants of his different dominions the question of the Pragmatic
Sanction, Croatia gave her decision quite independently of the Diet at
Presburg.
But apart from her actual legal rights to independence, there remained
a tradition of the old period when the Kingdom of Croatia had been an
important Power in Europe, and had extended over Slavonia and
Dalmatia. But these claims were not undisputed. The hold which Venice
had gained over Dalmatia and Istria had introduced into those
provinces an Italian element; and when, in the sixteenth century, the
Serbs were called into Hungary in large numbers, Slavonia had
developed a variety of the Slavonic tongue which must have weakened
the absolute supremacy of the Croats. The sense, however, of a
connection between the dialects of the different Slavonic States was a
bond of union between those States which might at any time be drawn
closer.
When, then, Szechenyi began to stir up the Magyars to develop their
language and literature, it occurred to a Croatian poet to link
together the different dialects of the Southern Slavs into one
language. The Croatians had been so far in advance of their neighbours
the Serbs that they had abandoned the Cyrillic alphabet, which had been
introduced at the time of their first conversion to Christianity, and
had adopted the ordinary Latin alphabet. But the Croatian dialect, by
itself, would not have been accepted by the other Slavs; and the softer
language and higher culture of the old Republic of Ragusa supplied a
better basis for the development of the new language. Louis Gaj, the
Croatian poet, had studied at the University of Leipzig, which seems to
have been the centre of a good deal of Slavonic feeling; and he hoped
to link together, not merely the three provinces of Croatia, Slavonia,
and Dalmatia, but several, also, of the south-west provinces of
Austria; and, on the other hand, he wished to draw into this bond of
sympathy those Slavonic countries which still groaned under the Turkish
yoke. It was necessary, however, to find a new name for a language
which was a new combination of dialects. To call it the Croatian
language would have implied a claim to superiority for Croatia which it
was most desirable to avoid; and as none other of the Slavonic
provinces could well be treated as the godmother of the new language,
Gaj went back to the seventeenth century for a name.
At that period Leopold I. of Austria had granted special privileges to
the _Illyrian_ nation, and it was only in the eighteenth century that
the _Illyrian_ Chancellery at Vienna had been abolished. Here, then,
was a name, recognized by Imperial authority in legal documents, and
giving no superiority to any one of the Slavonic provinces over the
others. To carry out his purposes, Gaj started a journal in 1835 to
which at first he gave the name of the "Gazette of Croatia," but which
he soon renamed the "National Gazette of Illyria." This newspaper was
written in the new language, and the Hungarian authorities refused to
sanction it. Nor were they the only opponents of the new movement. The
Turkish Pasha in Bosnia was alarmed at the attempt to draw the
subjects of the Sultan into closer alliance with the Slavs in Hungary;
and he tried to persuade Francis that Gaj was attempting to shake the
Imperial authority and found a separate kingdom. At the same time the
Bishop of Agram warned the Pope of the evident tendency of this
movement to give the upper hand to the members of the Greek Church,
who formed the majority of the Southern Slavs, over the Roman
Catholics of Croatia. But these efforts failed. Metternich saw in
Gaj's movement an opportunity of weakening the Magyars; Francis sent a
ring to Gaj, as a sign of his approval; and Gregory XVI. was so far
from being influenced by the Bishop of Agram's appeal that he removed
him from his see for having made it.
The fact that Francis had encouraged, and Metternich at all events not
disapproved, this movement was enough to alarm the sensibilities of
the Magyars; and when Gaj appeared in the Hungarian Diet of 1840,
Deak rebuked him for his work. Gaj answered in words which became
afterwards only too memorable. "The Magyars," he said, "are an island
in the Slavonic ocean. I did not make the ocean, nor did I stir up its
waves; but take care that they do not go over your heads and drown
you." The words were certainly not conciliatory; but they had been
provoked by the evident signs of hostility on the part of the Magyars.
If the latter had been content to ignore the movement, it might have
remained, for their time at least, a purely literary effort; or, if it
had taken a political form, it might have drifted into union with the
Bohemian struggle against German supremacy, or even into a crusade
against the Turks. It is, however, more than probable that the attempt
to found this new language would have been earlier abandoned had it
not been for the opposition which it called forth. For Gaj, however
zealous as a patriot, and however ingenious as a philologer, seems to
have been deficient in the power of producing such a great work of
imagination as that which enabled Dante to unite the not less diverse
elements of the Italian language.
But the Magyar cry of alarm at the demands of the Slavs was now echoed
by a fiercer voice than that of Deak. In 1841, the year after the
dissolution of that Presburg Diet by which Metternich had been so
signally defeated, Kossuth started a paper called the "Pesti Hirlap"
(the Gazette of Pesth), which soon became at once the most determined
champion of those liberties which Kossuth desired for his countrymen,
and the bitterest opponent of those liberties which he grudged to the
other races of Hungary. For it was not merely in provinces marked off
from the Magyar world like Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia, that a
movement like Gaj's would produce effect. The Slavs were scattered
about in nearly all the districts of Hungary, and though they might
not all desire separate political organizations like those which the
Croats demanded, the question of the preservation of their language
concerned even those who had no separate political existence; and they
too resented any attempt on the part of the Magyars to substitute for
it the language of the ruling race. Kossuth was as indignant at this
hindrance to his schemes of national unity as Joseph II. had been at
the hindrances which had been thrown in the way of the Germanizing of
the Empire. The same year, 1841, which saw the starting of the journal
in which Kossuth was to vindicate the liberties of Hungary against
Metternich, was also the year in which he dealt his first decided blow
against the liberties of the Slavonic races of Hungary. At a general
convention of the Hungarian Protestants, he proposed that certain of
the schools in which the Slavonic clergy studied physical science, and
other branches of knowledge, should be deprived of these teachings,
and that mere practice in writing sermons should be substituted. This
proposal was defended on the ground that Slavonic gatherings, unless
carefully limited, must be a source of danger to the country. Any one
who ventured to defend the Slavonic cause at this meeting was howled
down, and Kossuth's motion was carried.
Fierce attacks on the Slavs and their language now appeared in the
"Pesti Hirlap," and Kossuth refused to insert the answers to these
attacks. Count Zay, who had just been appointed chief inspector of
the Protestant Congregations and Schools, openly announced in a public
circular his determination to Magyarize the Slavs. The Slavonic
speech, he said, would prevent the Slavs from being firm in the
Protestant faith; and while they used that speech they would not be
capable of freedom, and could not even be considered to have a proper
share in humanity. The Magyarizing of the Slavs was the holiest duty
of every genuine patriot of Hungary, every defender of freedom and
intelligence, and every true subject of the Austrian House. Others
accused the Slavs of offering sacrifices to their old deity Svatopluk;
while that great bugbear, the fear of Russian influence, was pushed
forward on every occasion. Slavonic hymns, previously sung in the
churches, were prohibited; and Magyar preachers were thrust upon
congregations who did not understand a word of the Magyar language.
It was while this bitter feeling was at its height that the elections
began for the Diet of 1843 at Presburg, and for the Croatian Assembly
at Agram. The Hungarian elections turned, to some extent, on the
quarrel with the Slavs; but partly also on the question, which was now
coming to the front, of the exemption of the so-called nobles of
Hungary from taxation. These "nobles" were not confined to the great
families who sat in the House of Magnates, but included all the
freeholders of the country; and great injustice had arisen from the
fact that the men who laid on the taxes were, in the main, not those
who paid them. Szechenyi, as before mentioned, had tried to diminish
this injustice; but the fiery methods of Kossuth, and the growing
tendency to opposition to the Austrian rule, had alarmed Szechenyi;
and he shrank more and more from the leaders of the popular movement.
It was not, however, merely the extreme character of their aims, nor
their rough-and-ready methods, which alienated him; it was also their
growing injustice to the Slavs. Szechenyi, who had been so much the
first in reviving an interest in Magyar language and literature, now
came forward, as President of the Hungarian Academy, to denounce any
step for spreading the Magyar language which could offend the Croats.
On the other hand, the peasant nobles of Hungary protested fiercely
against the attempt to deprive them of their exemption from taxation,
and they gathered at the county meetings in a riotous manner,
breaking, in one case, into the Hall of Election, with knives in their
hands, and shouting, "Freedom for ever! We will not pay taxes."
This fierce intimidation on the part of the opponents of reform
provoked reprisals from the reformers. And, where they were unable to
hold their own by intimidation, they resorted to bribery. One protest
was made against this defection from the true principles of liberty
which was of vital importance to the future history of Hungary. The
election of Zala county had ended once more in the return of Francis
Deak; and the electors were gathered to hear the announcement of the
election, when, to their dismay, Deak came forward and stated that, in
consequence of the way in which the election had been conducted, he
should refuse to sit as their representative. His friends pressed
round him, some entreating him not to desert their cause; some even
venturing to reproach him with cowardice in shrinking from the
struggle. But he replied that, if he went to the Diet after this
election, he should always "see bloodstains on his mandate." Thus, at
a crisis when they most needed a man who would combine genuine popular
feeling with moderation and justice, the reformers were deprived of
_the_ leader in the Lower House who possessed those qualities in the
largest degree. As for Deak himself, it must be remembered that he was
sacrificing the undoubted position of leader of the reforming party,
at the time when its objects were becoming more and more definite, and
its leadership was in consequence growing more attractive to a man of
courage and patriotism. Though he was still to play a useful part in
the coming struggles, it was of necessity a secondary one; and it was
not till twenty-three years later that he was to resume the first
place in the Hungarian national movement.
In the meantime the Croatian question had become more complicated by
an element of internal division. In a district not far from Agram,
there was established a complete settlement of Croatian "nobles," of a
similar type to those who had been raising the cry against equal
taxation in the Hungarian counties. These men claimed the right, much
disputed by the other Croats, to attend the county meetings at Agram
_en masse_, instead of returning representatives like other citizens.
In this Diet of 1843, Count Jozipovic, leader of this band of
"nobles," asserted their right in a very imperious manner; and a
fierce fight followed in the streets of Agram. Thus began a contest
which extended, with various degrees of violence, over several years.
The Croatian Assembly, however, at first attempted to place their
claims in a moderate manner before the Magyars; and instructed
Haulik, Bishop of Agram, to assure the Magyars of their desire to live
on good terms with them, if they were secured in those rights which
had been granted by law, and guaranteed by the oath of the King.
They pointed out that many of them were ignorant of the Magyar
language, and that the Magyars were in many cases ignorant of theirs.
On the former ground they desired to maintain the right of their
representatives to speak Latin in the Hungarian Diet. On the latter
ground they objected to censors being appointed over the Croatian
press, who were ignorant of the Croatian language. The former right
was the first to be tested; for no sooner did the Croatian deputies
begin, according to old custom, to speak Latin in the Diet of Presburg
than they were interrupted by a clattering of sabres from the Magyar
members, and a demand that they should speak in the Magyar language.
Thereupon Jozipovic saw an opportunity of making new friends for his
cause; and, while he disputed the legality of the election of his
opponents, he declared that he and his supporters were "body and soul
Hungarian." Kossuth at once assumed the justice of the cause of
Jozipovic; and, while he was eagerly opposing the privileges of the
nobles in Hungary, he thus supported in Croatia an aristocratic
privilege of doubtful legality, and undoubtedly disorderly and unjust
in its effects. The Magyars responded to Kossuth's appeal; and the
Lower House of the Hungarian Diet passed a resolution forbidding the
use of any language but Magyar in the Diet. The House of Magnates,
doubtless under the influence of Szechenyi, were disposed to make
concessions to the Croats; but even they were not able to do much to
check the storm.
In the meantime the Emperor had been trying to exercise a moderating
influence on these conflicts. Finding the bitterness caused in Hungary
by Gaj's movement, Ferdinand prohibited the use of the name "Illyrian"
in newspapers and in public discussions; but at the same time he
promised to encourage the development of the Croatian language, and
urged the Magyars to suspend for six years their prohibition of Latin
in the Hungarian Diet. While, too, the Magyar language was to be used
in Church boards and legal tribunals of Hungary, Hungarian officials
were to accept Latin letters from Croatia and the other outlying
districts that were united with Hungary. But these proposals,
unfortunately, did not satisfy the feeling of the Magyars; and some of
them actually ventured on the extraordinary statement that, if the
Croat boards could understand letters written in the Magyar language,
they must necessarily be able to compose Magyar letters in answer; and
they maintained that the Croats ought not to be allowed to elect any
members to the Diet who could not then speak the Magyar language.
Thus, although in all parts of the Kingdom of Hungary there was a
growing demand for freedom and equality, each question in turn became
complicated by this quarrel between the members of the different
races. On the one hand, a proposal for admitting men not hitherto
recognized as "nobles" to the possession of land was met by an
amendment to limit this concession to those who knew Magyar; and this
exclusion was rejected by only twenty-eight votes against seventeen;
while a proposal to limit offices to those who could speak Magyar was
rejected by a majority of only two. On the other hand, the Croats
successfully resisted a proposal to allow Protestants to settle in
Croatia as a part of the scheme for Magyarizing their country. But
though these divisions hindered the co-operation of the members of the
different nations who might have worked together for freedom and
progress, it should always be noted that the desire of each nation
was, in the first instance, for the development of a free national
life, connected with true culture and learning, and independent of
mere officialism. If the Magyars were tyrannical and overbearing
towards the Croats, it was partly because they believed that these
divisions, (the fault of which they attributed to the Croats) were
tending to strengthen the hands of their common oppressors. If, on the
other hand, the Croats appealed to the Emperor for protection against
the Magyars, it was not from any courtier-like or slavish desire to
strengthen the hands of despotism; but partly because they felt that
the position of the Emperor enabled him to judge more fairly between
the contending parties, partly because they found from experience that
Ferdinand of Austria was a juster-minded man than Louis Kossuth.
While the growth of national feeling in Hungary and Croatia was
tending at once to a healthier life and to dangerous divisions, a much
more remarkable awakening of new and separate life was showing itself
in the province of Transylvania. The geographical isolation of that
province from the rest of Hungary is very striking, even now that
railways have connected the different parts of the kingdom; but in
1848 this isolation was far greater, and had a considerable effect on
the political history of the time. The Carpathians almost surround the
country, and form a natural bulwark. Between this high wall of
mountains on the north-east and Buda-Pesth stretches a vast plain. No
province of the Empire contained a greater variety of separately
organized nations. The Transylvanian Diet was not, like the other
local assemblies, the result of an attempt to express the feelings of
a more or less united people, but arose merely from the endeavour to
give reasonable solidity to an alliance between three distinct
peoples. Of the three ruling races, the first to enter Transylvania
were the Szekler, a people of the same stock as the Magyar, but slower
to take the impress of any permanent civilization. They conquered the
original inhabitants of the country, a race probably of mixed Dacian
and Roman blood, called Wallachs or Roumanians. Towards the end of the
ninth century came in the Magyars, before whom the Szekler retreated
to the north-east, where the town of Maros-Vasarhely became their
capital. This town is on the River Maros, which, rising in the
Carpathians, flows all across Transylvania.
The Magyars in the meantime extended their rule over all parts of
Hungary, but the position which they gained in Transylvania was one of
much less undisputed supremacy than that which they established in
Northern Hungary; for in the former province they remained a second
nation, existing by the side of the Szekler, neither conquering nor
absorbing them.
Much of the country, however, was still uncolonized, and was liable to
inroads from dangerous neighbours; so in the twelfth century a number
of German citizens who lived along the Rhine, and some of the German
knights who were seeking adventures, came into Transylvania to offer
their services to the King of Hungary. The German knights were unable
to come to a satisfactory agreement with the King, and went north to
try to civilize the Prussians; but the citizens remained, acquired
land, developed trade, and developed, also, a power of self-government
of which neither Szekler nor Magyar were at that time capable. That
portion of the country which has been colonized by the Saxons has a
look of greater neatness and comfort than the rest. The little
homesteads are almost English in their appearance, with, occasionally,
gardens and orchards. Hermannstadt, the capital of this district,
bears traces of its former greatness in several fine old churches, a
law academy, and picture gallery. Its fortifications must have been
almost impregnable in old times, with strong watch-towers and walls of
great height. The portions of the walls that remain show marks of the
sieges of 1849. The Carpathians, on the south-east, are many miles
distant, but the Rothenthurm Pass, through which the terrible Russian
force made its way into the country, is visible in some lights.
These three ruling nations--the Magyar, the Szekler, and the
Saxon--though separate in their organization, had more than one common
interest. They were united by a common love of freedom and a common
temptation to tyranny. In 1438 they formed a union against the Turks,
which in 1459 was changed into a union in support of their freedoms and
privileges, "for protection against inward and outward enemies, against
oppression from above or insurrection from below." And when, in the
seventeenth century, they separated for a time from Hungary, the three
nations accepted the Prince of Transylvania as their head. When
Transylvania and Hungary had both passed under the rule of Austria,
Leopold I., in 1695, established a separate Government for Transylvania,
and Maria Theresa increased the importance and the independence of this
position. It will be noted that among the objects for which the three
nations combined is mentioned "insurrection from below;" and this was a
bond of great importance; for, while the Magyar, Szekler, and Saxon were
enjoying an amount of freedom and independence in Transylvania not
generally allowed by the House of Austria to its subjects, the original
population of the country, the Wallachs, or Roumanians, as they prefer
to be called, were hated and attacked by the Szekler, made serfs of by
the Magyar, excluded from their territory by the Saxons, and despised by
all. Even the full benefit of the village organization, which was the
great protection of the Hungarian peasant, was not extended to the
Roumanians in Transylvania, for they were never allowed to choose one of
their own men as president of the village community; and while the
landowners oppressed them in the country, the Saxon guilds excluded them
from the trade of the towns. So they remained a race of shepherds,
without culture and wealth, among the warriors of the Magyar and
Szekler, and the prosperous traders of the Saxons.
When, then, the reforming zeal of Joseph II. was extended to
Transylvania, the Roumanians alone hailed it with delight; for, while,
in his eagerness for a united Empire, the Emperor tried to sweep away
all the special organizations of separate self-government so dear to
the ruling races, he introduced sweeping reforms in favour of the
serfs. He put forth an Edict, securing to the peasant an amount of
liberty not hitherto enjoyed by him. No peasant was to be hindered from
marriage, or from studying in other places, or from following different
kinds of work; none was to be turned out of his village or land at
bidding of the landlord; the power of the landlord to impose new
burdens (already restricted by the Urbarium of Maria Theresa) was to be
still further limited; and the county officials were to protect the
dependant from any oppression of his landlord. The hopes of the
Roumanians were naturally raised by this Edict; and many of them
believed, when a general conscription followed, that by entering
the army they could escape serfdom. The lords, backed by many
of the officials, hindered this attempt, and interfered to prevent
the carrying out of the Edict. Thereupon the Roumanians rose in
insurrection, under two leaders, Hora and Kloska; and all those horrors
followed which are naturally connected with an agrarian rising of
uncivilized serfs, and the violent suppression of it by hardly more
civilized tyrants.
But among the bishops of the Roumanians, to whom they always granted
great authority, were some who saw a better way than insurrection for
the cure of the sufferings of their countrymen. Having observed that
when the three dominant races were protesting against the reforms of
Joseph II. they had appealed continually to historic rights, these
Roumanian leaders drew up a petition, which was called the "Libellus
Wallachorum," and was presented to the Diet of 1791. It was in this
document that the Roumanians first put forward that claim to descent
from the ancient Romans which has ever since exercised such influence
on the imagination of this singular race. The petition further
declared that, in the first inroad of the barbarians, the Roumanians
had continued to maintain that Christianity which they had learned
under the Roman Empire; and that when the Magyars came into the
country, the Roumanians had voluntarily accepted the Magyar chief as
their leader; that though their name was then changed by the invaders
from Roumanians into Wallachs, their independent rights were still
secured. They went on to say that even the union of the three ruling
races in 1438 had not been intended originally to deprive the
Roumanians of their rights; it was not till the seventeenth century
that they had been crushed down into their present position. They
therefore entreated that they might be restored to all the civil and
political rights which they had possessed in the fifteenth century;
that the clergy of the Greek Church, to which they belonged, might be
placed on an equality with those of other religions; and that,
wherever the Roumanians had a majority in any villages, those villages
might be called by Roumanian names. The reading of this petition was
received by the representatives of the three ruling races, after a
brief silence, with fierce protests; only the Saxons thought it
necessary to make even vague promises of concession; and those
promises were not fulfilled.
But, when this demand had once been put into form, the memory of it
lingered on among the Roumanians; and in 1842, during the general
wakening of national feeling, they attempted again to make an appeal
to the Transylvanian Diet for special recognition. Again they failed;
but their leaders did not, therefore, lose heart. Some of them,
indeed, were disposed to resort to their old method of insurrection;
and a few years later they rose, under the leadership of a woman named
Catherine Varga, and for a long time held their own against the Magyar
officials. But it is to the suppressor of this movement, rather than
to its leader, that the Roumanians look back as their national hero.
This was Andreas Schaguna, who, at the time of Catherine Varga's
insurrection, was holding the position of Archimandrite. He came down
to the village, where the Magyar officials had not dared to penetrate,
rebuked the Roumanians for their turbulence, and carried off Catherine
Varga from their midst, no one daring to resist. But this, though a
striking, was not a characteristic exercise of his authority. He was
far from thinking that force was a remedy for the grievances of the
Roumanians; and he devoted time and thought to the foundation of
schools and the education of the people. This education he carried
out, not by mere teaching, but by seeking out and advising those whom
he saw fitted for more intellectual occupations, and helping them to
become lawyers and doctors. Last, but by no means least, he tried to
reduce into a more literary form the Roumanian language.
But it was not only in their own ranks that the Roumanians were now
finding champions for their national cause. In 1842 appeared a
pamphlet by a Saxon clergyman, named Stephen Roth, in which the writer
protested against the attempt of the Magyars to crash out the rival
languages in Transylvania; for this, as he pointed out, was a new
form of tyranny. In North Hungary, indeed, the movement had been
accompanied by an attempt to improve the condition of the peasant; and
the Magyar language was held out to him as a new boon to be added to
the abolition of feudal dues. But in Transylvania little or nothing
had been done by the Magyars to improve the condition of the peasant;
and therefore there could be no talk of _benefits_ there. If there
were to be one official language in Transylvania, it ought, urged
Roth, to be the language of the majority of the population, that is,
Roumanian; and though it was undesirable to make this or any other
language universal, it was certain that the ruling race would never be
able to Magyarize the Roumanians; who might, however, be pacified by
greater respect for their dignity as men, completer recognition of
their form of Christianity, better means of education, provision for
material need, and a freer position. This pamphlet of Roth's was
notable, as a sign of sympathy felt by a member of the most cultivated
race in Transylvania for the complaints of the most uncivilized one.
But it is no reproach to Roth to say that he was thinking, at the
time, as much of maintaining the rights of his own race as of
redressing the wrongs of the Roumanians. For though the Magyars did
not, as yet, venture to lord it over a German People as they did over
Slav and Roumanian, they were yet trying, by various underhand
methods, to weaken the devotion of the Saxons to their race and
language. Roth and his friends tried to counteract this, partly by
founding unions for the encouragement of German culture; and also by
the more effective way of introducing German immigrants from the old
country. A movement of a similar kind had been inaugurated by Maria
Theresa about 1731; and for more than forty years it had been carried
on with success; the German Protestants, who had been driven out of
other countries, finding a natural refuge in the wholly Protestant
Saxon settlement of Transylvania. Strange to say, Joseph II. does not
seem to have carried on his mother's work; perhaps he had made himself
too unpopular in Transylvania to do it with success. But Roth had
special friends in the University of Wuertemberg; and in spite of the
Liberal tendencies of the King of that State, the taxation in that
country was specially heavy. When, then, in 1845, Roth went to
Wuertemberg, so many citizens of that State consented to emigrate to
Transylvania in the following year that the Government at Vienna and
the Magyars at Pesth became alike alarmed. Ferdinand was persuaded
that this was a Protestant invasion, and probably, also, a Communistic
attempt. The Magyars, on the other hand, cried out that this was part
of an attempt to Germanize Transylvania. Roth defended his cause, and
refuted the charge of Protestant propagandism by showing that Roman
Catholic families were among the emigrants; while, as to the idea of a
Communistic proletariat, many of those who had emigrated were well
provided with money, and some had been encouraged by the former
impulse given to the movement by the Viennese Government. But a vague
prejudice, once excited, is rarely got rid of by mere statements of
fact; and the Governments, both at Vienna and Pesth, threw such
difficulties in the way of the emigrants, that they had to suffer
great misery on their journey; and these sufferings tended (with other
grounds of prejudice) to excite much indignation against Roth. Nor
would the Magyars, at any rate, feel more friendly to him when they
found that an organ of the Croatian patriots at Agram claimed him as
an ally against the overbearing demands of the Magyars.
Thus, then, it is clear that, during the period from 1840 to 1846,
there was a general awakening both in Germany and Hungary of strong
national feelings. In Germany those feelings, gathering round a common
language and literature, prepared the way directly for a movement
towards freedom; while in Hungary the divisions of races and languages
hindered the full benefits of the revival, and gave a handle to the
champions of despotism. Yet whether among Magyars, Croats, Roumanians,
or Saxons, the movement was in itself a healthy one, tending to newer
and more natural life, and weakening the traditions of Viennese
officialism.