Abstracts from the conference

Anglophilia and the British Constitution in Central Europe 1750-2000

October 11-13, 2013 Notre Dame London Centre Organized by

Dr. John Deak University of Notre Dame

Prof. Dr. Ferenc Hörcher Institute of Philosophy of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences

Dr. Kálmán Pocza Department of Political Science, Pázmány Péter Catholic University

2 Abstracts Executive Summary

We are using the term Anglophilia to cast a broad net in which we hope to capture the importance, admiration for, and critical engagement with British constitutional law and political thought in Central and Eastern Europe. Great Britain is and has been the primary example of a state with an unwritten constitution in the region. As such, it has served as both a role model and a source of vital stimulation to the collective political imagination of Central Europe. The conference focuses on the two and a half centuries between 1750 and 2000, searching for answers to the questions of what historical context determined the British orientation in Central European political thought, and what sort of political activities were connected to it? Who were the major representatives of these intellectual trends, and what effects did they have on local politics or constitutional theory? Are there themes, topics or motifs which made an interest in British constitutional traditions a logical necessity? As for the contemporary relevance of our topic, in the twenty first century, on both sides of the Atlantic, the role of parliamentary and judicial authority, human rights, self-governance and ideas of citizenship and identity loom large in public debate. We hope to capture the moment and the current climate of searching for answers to twenty-first century constitutional questions by examining historically the intellectual connections between British and Central European Constitutional thought. Our conference is supported by the Nanovic Symposium Grant of the Nanovic Institute for European Studies (University of Notre Dame, USA), and by the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts (University of Notre Dame, USA). Organizing institutions include the Nanovic Institute for European Studies at the University of Notre Dame in cooperation with the Department of Political Science of Pázmány Péter Catholic University, and the Institute of Philosophy of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

Anglophilia and the British Constitution in Central Europe 1750-2000 3 English Freedom vs. Polish Freedom: Areas of Similarities and Discord in the Polish Enlightenment Debate

Iwona Barwicka-Tylek (Jagiellonian University of Krakow)

In spite of many affinities that can be found between the historical development of both English and Polish political systems, for a long time there was no deeper interest in England among the Polish nobility (szlachta). The attitude changed in the second half of the 18th century, when a visible decline of the first Polish Republic made many look for the best way to overcome the growing corruption of the domestic form of government. For the major figures on the Polish political scene (starting with the king Stanisław August Poniatowski) the case of England became an attractive source of inspiration. The special tribute, however, was paid not so much to the British constitution as such – described and praised for instance by Montesquieu – but to a more general appreciation of the presumed freedom of the English nation. Given the fact that liberty was a superior value for the szlachta, and the whole Polish political system was founded upon it, there was one particularly engrossing question to be pondered over. Namely, why the principle of liberty seemed to work for the benefit of the British society, while the Polish Aurea Libertas (Golden Liberty) had been slowly but inevitably perverting the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The article presents a few significant answers to this question, examining the abundant political literature of that time. The sources include the Monitor (one of the first newspapers in Poland, printed from 1765 to 1785 and greatly influenced by the English Spectator), works of publicists supporting two major political parties: the ‘patriots’ (Franciszek Ksawery Jezierski, Stanisław Staszic) and the ‘republicans’ (Adam Wawrzyniec Rzewuski), and some less known brochures, like Ignacy Łobarzewski’s Zaszczyt wolności polskiej angielskiej wyrównywający (Honour of Polish Freedom, Equal to England’s). Differences between the Polish and the English political culture thus pointed out by Polish writers allow us to reconsider whether, and in what sense we can speak of two different ‘freedoms’, as the title of Łobarzewski’s work suggests. This last issue goes beyond strictly historical analysis and may have some significance for the on-going modern debate on possible concepts of liberty – such as widely discussed negative and positive liberty or liberty as non-domination.

4 Abstracts British Diplomacy and the ‘Lingering Trace’ of Anglophilia in Post-War Hungary

Gábor Bátonyi (University of Bradford)

In the wake of the Second World War, the British government showed no desire to get entangled in defeated Hungary’s affairs. Contrary to conventional wisdom, this detached attitude was not just a meek response to Soviet pressure. Britain’s Central European experts harboured serious doubts about the nature and extent of Hungarian Anglophilia. After all, during the war British efforts, including a succession of ill- starred SOE missions, to stir up anti-German resistance and organise sabotage had won minimal backing in Hungary. The bombing of Budapest had been specifically designed to shake the complacency of the Hungarian political elite. Unsurprisingly, post-war Hungarian professions of admiration for British political institutions and the English way of life gained little purchase. Whilst it was acknowledged that Britain might have remained more popular in this former enemy state than elsewhere in the region, the first Hungarian endeavours to make ‘political capital’ in London yielded scant success. The prospect of the Hungarian prime minister visiting London in 1946 as a ‘suitor requesting some favours’ was positively unwelcome. The Foreign Office anticipated the coming Hungarian appeals for political support against Czechoslovakia and Romania, and tried to avoid any commitment. After all, throughout the interwar years, Hungarian governments had cultivated ‘special’ relations with the British establishment primarily in order to secure advantages against their Central and East European rivals. This competitive aspect of Hungary’s British orientation was much in evidence until the signing of the peace treaty. Soviet attempts to capitalise on this regional rivalry made British policy towards Hungary especially hesitant. Even so, Whitehall lent some support to the Hungarian claims against Romania, if not to those against Czechoslovakia. In 1947-8 the Foreign Office was also caught up in Hungarian party politics. The Labour government contrived to re-establish some of Britain’s pre-war prestige in Hungary, especially amongst social democrats. Labour influence grew so strong that the Attlee government became the favoured target of communist broadsides. Rákosi in 1950 issued a personalised attack on four prominent Labour politicians. In the context of the early cold war, it is also telling that Hungary expelled fewer American than British diplomats in the aftermath of the Vogeler trial in 1950. The diplomatic assaults on Britain were so fierce that they threatened the rupture of bilateral relations, with Britain launching ‘economic warfare’ against the Rákosi regime at the end of 1949.

Anglophilia and the British Constitution in Central Europe 1750-2000 5 Under these extreme circumstances, the political value of Anglophile Hungarian traditions once again increased in London. The main purpose of the British mission in Budapest was now to revive and maintain contact with erstwhile friends of Britain. As late as February 1952, a British diplomat could still note a ‘lingering trace of former Anglophily’ in Hungary. Even at the height of Stalinism, some 6,000 people in Budapest had access to the bulletins of the British Legation. The country also remained a key listening station and observation post in Central Europe throughout the cold war. However, it was not until the mid-1980s, following Thatcher’s visit to Budapest, that Hungary replaced Poland as the principal East European object of British diplomacy.

Burke and Kant on Revolution and Resistance

Richard Bourke (Queen Mary, University of London)

It is a well-known fact that Immanuel Kant supported the ideals of the French Revolution, justifying the principles of civil equality and the separation of powers. However, it is also clear that he opposed the recourse to revolution as a means of advancing moral objectives of the kind. In that context, he denied that a revolution had occurred in France at all, charging Louis XVI with abdication. Burke, like Kant, defended the idea of a constitutional order in France, but he claimed that the Revolution had squandered this possibility. Accordingly, he denied the legitimacy of the resistance to French authority. However, this denial has to be explained in the context of a general affirmation of the right to revolution, a moral resource which Kant explicitly denied. In juxtaposing these two responses to the Revolution in France, this paper will recover a debate about the right of resistance, associated with British constitutional theory, as it was taken up in late eighteenth-century Königsberg.

Poland-Lithuania and Great Britain in the Eighteenth Century

Richard Butterwick-Pawlikowski (University College London)

Eighteenth-century Britain and Poland could hardly have differed more in geographical, economic, social and religious respects, but their constitutions and political cultures offer some striking parallels. Under the Hanoverians and Wettins respectively, both were multiple polities. The kings of Great Britain and Poland were also electors of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. This analogy ended

6 Abstracts in 1764, but the chief similarity was between the parliamentary unions of England and Scotland, and the Polish Crown and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Both Britain and Poland-Lithuania also featured mixed forms of government and political cultures that prized liberty. Political practice in both polities was often corrupt, and such corruption was feared as a harbinger of absolute monarchy. But for all the similarities, dating back to the shared heritage of classical republicanism and its sixteenth-century rediscovery, there were substantial differences, even at ideological and constitutional levels. On the spectrum of European polities the United Kingdom of Great Britain occupied a more monarchical position than the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The social and economic chasm meant that in Great Britain, the agrarian assumptions of classical republicanism had to compromise in the era of continual deficit-financed global warfare with commercial and financial interests, and seek virtue in urban politeness as well as in rustic simplicity of manners and morals. Poland’s burghers, Jews and peasants in contrast, were subjected to a numerous and highly privileged nobility, the szlachta. By the first decades of the eighteenth century, Britain and Poland had drifted further apart than at any time in the previous two centuries. Diplomatic contacts were largely incidental, while economic exchange declined. Much earlier intercourse had taken place between Protestant and Catholic co-religionists. But by c. 1700, Protestants were marginalized in the Commonwealth and Catholics in Great Britain. Political stereotypes were fanned by religious hostility. For Polish opinion-formers, the English heretics did not enjoy true liberty, but its shadow. The hereditary monarch could corrupt a majority in Parliament and rule despotically. Poland was protected from such a fate, and the consequent high taxes on the nobility by free royal elections, by the famed liberum veto or ability of each member of parliament – the sejm – to prevent any legislation at all, as well as by the right of the szlachta to form an armed league – or confederacy – in an emergency. As far as the English were concerned, Poland was a byword for political anarchy, social oppression, and Catholic fanaticism and superstition. The Poles changed their minds about England before the British repaid the compliment. As thinkers sought remedies for political anarchy and economic backwardness, under the influence of the European Enlightenment, they came to see in England evidence that liberty was indeed compatible with an hereditary throne, majority voting in Parliament, and a flourishing and respectable burgher estate. One such was Stanisław Poniatowski the elder, who in 1744 recommended voyages abroad for young noblemen, ‘so that [...] they might also inform themselves about the means of government, about the economy, about the position, the power, strengths, and interests of different states, and so that from this they might then choose, what might

Anglophilia and the British Constitution in Central Europe 1750-2000 7 be proper and useful in the Commonwealth.’ He sent his own son – the future King Stanisław August –to Western Europe, including England, in 1753-54. The numbers of young nobles visiting Britain thereafter steadily increased. First, they would experience the enormity and bustle of London. Having left the metropolis, the manufactories of Birmingham, the potteries of Stoke, or Herschel’s telescopes at Slough, might be on their itinerary, as well as landscaped parks and the fashionable waters of Bath. As English literature gained in popularity among the Polish aristocracy (albeit usually mediated by French translations), literary pilgrimages began. The king grumbled that Jan Potocki, ‘instead of thoroughly studying what could be useful for us to imitate in that form of government, has gone to the Orkneys, in order to verify the alleged poems of Ossian’. Magnates mingled as equals in aristocratic company. But poorer noble travellers saw another world. Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, for example, was struck by the comfortable and honest lifestyle of his hosts, who were among the ‘middling sort’. He saw ‘all the blessings of wise liberty, pure morality and enlightened religion’. Under the influence of such observations, and of reading Montesquieu, the very meaning of liberty was redefined – especially by writers close to Stanisław August. Reformers began to understand liberty as the tranquillity and security enjoyed by every inhabitant of the country under the protection of the law and an independent judiciary. The republican idea of a sovereign nation, freed from the chains of cultural and institutional inertia, also gained in popularity. When at last the Russian fetters could temporarily be cast off in 1788, the two concepts could merge. Stanisław August attempted to make the new Polish form of government as much like the British as possible. During the Polish Revolution of 1788-92, the English example served those who wished to replace royal elections and interregna with hereditary succession to the throne. Others, it must be admitted, avidly cited Rousseau’s opinion that the English were slaves apart from during parliamentary elections. The eighteenth century saw mutual prejudice between Britons and Poles turn into mutual sympathy. Both elites came to recognize the other nation as genuinely free. However, this was not a symmetrical process. One state acquired a worldwide empire; the other did not survive the century. Educated Poles came to admire greatly the nation they had previously despised, and sought to learn from its example – its constitution, economy, science, and culture. In this they participated in a general European trend of Anglophilia. More Poles visited Britain than Britons visited Poland-Lithuania. Despite the excellent impression made by most Polish visitors to Britain, Britons continued to deride Poland until 1791. Even then, their attitude

8 Abstracts may generally be described as patronizing. That said, culturally and politically, the elites converged markedly in the course of the century. The calamity of the partitions would once again set them on divergent paths.

England and the Idea of Reform: A View from the Late Habsburg Monarchy

John Deak (University of Notre Dame)

This paper will explore the milieu of Anglophilia and ideas of British Constitutionalism as a model for administrative and constitutional reform in late- imperial Austria, 1900-1914. As a historian, I will approach this topic through microhistory, looking at the life and connections of Joseph Redlich, (1869-1936). Redlich was a renaissance man who was deeply committed to importing British political values into Austria. After serving in the Austrian administration, Redlich earned a Ph.D. in Law at the University of Vienna. He began working on major studies of English local government (published 1901) and wrote a habilitation on English Parliamentary Procedure (published in 1905). In 1907 two major events in his life occurred almost simultaneously: He became a professor of administrative law at the Technical University in Vienna and he was elected to parliament. From his professional and political chairs, he began to advocate for major constitutional and administrative reforms in the Monarchy, eventually leading to the establishment of a Committee for Promotion of Administrative Reform in 1911. Redlich’s career brought him many important connections and it through Redlich that I will explore the web of Anglophilia in Vienna’s academic, political, and artistic circles on the eve of the First World War. Redlich traveled extensively in Britain, corresponded with Sydney and Beatrice Webb, and hoped to create a Fabian-style movement in Austria. He funded and wrote for Imperial Austria’s Anglophile newspaper, Die Zeit, an opportunity that brought him into close contact with Vienna’s literary elite: Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Hermann Bahr, among others. Finally, his political and professional work made him an advocate for English- style royal reform commissions and gave him access to highest political elites in the Habsburg Monarchy in its last decade of peace. I will explore through Redlich’s connections, the various shapes and meanings of political Anglophilia in late Imperial Austria. One of the crucial points of my paper is that Anglophilia is often a way of expressing a special political critique of one’s own

Anglophilia and the British Constitution in Central Europe 1750-2000 9 time and place, but this critique has its own pitfalls and problems as well. Often, the view of Britain that “Anglophiles” produce is a fairy tale land of political progress, divorced from reality.

Vague, but Useful: Anglophilia in Czech Dissident Movement and Post-Communist Politics (1970-1990s)

Adéla Gjuričová (Charles University in Prague)

Relating to British politics and society has been a major topic for liberal Czech intellectual elite since the 19th century. It involved much admiration for British journalism and business environment, but showed awareness of the real British political system. The Czechoslovak Republic was founded after WWI and run by Anglophiles, including T. G. Masaryk and especially E. Beneš who sought diplomatic ties with Britain, went through the trauma caused by the Munich Agreement and reached the British recognition of the Czechoslovak government-in-exile. In the long intermission caused by the Communist Party dictatorship, the Prague Spring of 1968 represented a crucial moment. A large number of intellectuals made a university or other professional experience in Britain. This generation of Anglophiles formed an important part of the post-invasion dissident movement: they admired the non-ideological, pragmatic style of British politics and political system (Petr Pithart’s Defence of Politics of 1972-73), and later organized a series of underground lectures introducing the British conservative political thought (Roger Scruton). With the democratic system re-opening after 1989, the dissident figures were joined by Anglophiles from the (semi)official institutions, including, for example, Václav Klaus, and began to form conservative and liberal political parties. They explicitly used the British political style, system and major figures as an ideal, but on the other hand only used a limited part of the British conservative tradition, avoiding the authoritarian and aristocratic accents completely. The paper argues that this inspiration was labelled “British conservative”, but was closer to US neo- conservatism. However, being inaccurate does not prevent an ideology from becoming politically successful: most of the post-communist Right-wing formed around the alleged admiration for unwritten British constitution, old democratic institutions and open political environment. The Europeanization of Czech politics has brought another important element: the British eurosceptics gained loyal allies among Czech conservatives (Manifesto of Czech Euro-realism, 2001) who even elaborated a concept according to which the Czech political thought traditionally showed special affinity to the British thinking.

10 Abstracts ‘The Mother of Parliaments’?: The British Constitution 1780-1918

Angus Hawkins (University of Oxford)

‘England is the mother of Parliaments’ the radical MP John Bright declared in 1865. While the British parliament provided a natural constitutional model for British colonies acquiring self-governing status during the 19th century, it was also extolled and emulated by liberal politicians and writers throughout the rest of Europe – notably by Hungarian commentators and thinkers. This process involved a double prism. Two pairs of spectacles, as it were, through which the parliamentary government of Westminster was viewed. First, there was British understanding of their constitution. Secondly, there were the lessons and examples foreign commentators drew from their own understanding of Britain’s political system. I wish to focus on the changing and evolving debate in Britain from the late 18th century to the early 20th century as to the precise nature of their constitution. What did the British during this period understand by ‘parliamentary government’? This forms the background or foil to those outside Britain who extolled or sought to replicate the British model of government. Between the 1780s and 1918 British understanding of the nature of their constitution underwent fundamental and far-reaching change. The outline of these changes can be sketched out as follows. 1. Up to the 1820s the constitution was defined as a form of ‘mixed government’. The authority of the monarch in parliament affirmed a convergence, rather than a separation, of powers. In parliament the monarch, the aristocracy (the House of Lords), and limited popular representation (the House of Commons) came together. This merger of constitutional powers embodied the sovereignty of parliament. The monarch ruled through parliament. His government operated through the institutional framework of parliament. This was the legacy of the Glorious Revolution of 1688. 2. From the 1830s (following the 1832 Reform Act) to the 1860s ‘parliamentary government’ prevailed. The monarch’s prerogative powers were reduced. The House of Lords became a revising chamber. But most importantly, it was the Commons (rather than the monarch) which now invested governments with their authority. Governments were made and unmade in the Commons. It was the Commons which determined which politicians governed the nation. Constitutional sovereignty now

Anglophilia and the British Constitution in Central Europe 1750-2000 11 lay with the Commons. Based on a restricted franchise, defined in terms of property, a Commons was periodically elected seen to represent the wealth, intelligence and morality of the nation. Yet, while the monarch no longer ruled, nor did the electorate decide directly who should govern. The authority of governments was reliant on the endorsement of the Commons. This required in Westminster cohesive, yet mutable, parliamentary party alignments. 3. After 1867 and the Reform Act of that year constitutional sovereignty shifted. National, centrally-organised political parties, primarily the Conservative and Liberal parties, mobilised a broadened more ‘popular’ male electorate. Both in parliament and the country party alignments became more rigid, tightly disciplined and increasingly dominant in the division lobby and the constituencies. As a result, changes of government became aligned with general elections. The electorate, enlisted in party alignments, determined who governed. At the same time the authority of the party leaderships was enhanced. The discretion of individual MPs was sharply reduced. In short, ‘party government’ after 1867 replaced the ‘parliamentary government’ which had prevailed from the 1830s to the 1860s. By the 20th century party partisanship dominated the British political system. Further extensions of the franchise in 1884 and then in 1918 (granting universal male suffrage) and 1928 (enfranchising women on the same terms as men) reinforced these developments. The evolution of the British constitution between the 1780s and 1918, therefore, saw the shift from ‘mixed government’ to ‘parliamentary government’ and then ‘party government’. The changing language, ideas and perceptions of the British constitution which accompanied these shifts are the subject of this paper.

Anglophilia in Bohemia in the 19th Century: Phrenology, Self-government, Social Question, and Darwinism.

Milan Hlavačka (Charles University in Prague)

This paper is based on the experience with the English orientation of Franz Thun- Hohenstein (phrenology), Heinrich Jaroslav Clam-Martinic (self-government), František Ladislav Rieger (social question), and Jan Evangelista Purkyně (Czech reception of Darwin´s theory of evolution). The study consists of a brief examination of the reception of four historical phenomena in Bohemia believed to have their origin in the English cultural, social, and scientific milieu.

12 Abstracts A Hungarian Burke or a Hungarian de Maistre: The Case of Count Ferenc Széchényi

Ferenc Hörcher (Hungarian Academy of Sciences)

In the progressivist historiography of the Communist era, Count Ferenc Széchényi, father to István, a key figure of the Reform Era in Hungary, was regarded as a religiously bigot and arch-conservative. On the other hand, no one could deny that he was the founder of the Hungarian National Museum and National Library, two moves to open up culture for a wider audience. In the paper I try to show the obvious duality of the thought of the Count, and have a look at his travel to Britain, trying to find an answer to the research question, where did he pick up his anglophilia, and in what ways was he influenced by his trip to Britain.

Slovak Political Thought in the Long Nineteenth Century and the Great War: From Anglophobia to Anglophilia

Dušan Kováč (Slovak Academy of Sciences)

Slovak political thinking was closely connected with Slovak political programmes forming since the 1840s. These political programmes reacted predominantly to the main idea of political nationalism - the idea of a national state. During the first phase the German influence dominated Slovak elite. Especially questions of a national state and statehood, autonomy and federation represented the vital issues, while constitutionalism and the inner political structure of the state were treated as marginal. Owing to impossibility of execution of the national political programme on their own, the Slovak intellectual elite aimed its attention at foreign countries and international relations. In relation to England, a part of the Slovak elite moved extremely from Anglophobia to Anglophilia. No sooner than after the beginning of the 20th century decisive criticism of England, its imperial efforts and assertion of itself in the world trade can be found in the Slovak press. Russophilia and relying on the help of Russia with execution of the national programme: Slovak autonomy within the Kingdom of Hungary, was characteristic of conservatively oriented members of the Slovak National Party residing in the town of Turčiansky Sv. Martin. This group changed its relation to England only after signing of Anglo-Russian agreement in

Anglophilia and the British Constitution in Central Europe 1750-2000 13 1907, i.e. after the Triple Entente came into existence. Mainly at the turn of the 19th and the 20th centuries the second liberal stream of Slovak politics oriented on democratic and liberal west, including England. This movement was crucially affected by T. G. Masaryk. It was also this group that managed to participate intensively in the foreign resistance movement led by Masaryk during World War I and contributed to the formation of Czecho-Slovakia in which England played one of the key roles.

Austro-German Liberalism and the English Example, 1861-1914

Jonathan Kwan (University of Nottingham)

For many Austro-German liberals, the British system – its political institutions, economic growth and overseas Empire – was an example to admire and follow. One of the most Anglophile liberals was Ernst von Plener who spent six years at the Austro-Hungarian embassy in London. He wrote two books on working conditions in England, adopted many mannerisms of an English gentleman and sent his only son to Cambridge. He was also from the mid 1870s to the mid 1890s at the heart of the Austro-German liberal party. In this paper I would like to investigate the connections Austro-German liberals had with England and what, if any, effect these connections had on the movement. Other liberals such as Joseph Maria Baernreither and Alexander Peez wrote on England, while the scholar Theodor Gomperz supervised the translation of John Stuart Mill’s volumes into German. The young Sigmund Freud was one of his translators. The paper will focus in particular on the political, social and diplomatic aspects of the relationship.

Title

William O’Reilly (University of Cambridge)

TBA Abstract text will be placed here...estimating 300 word. Oreserum elit et am et odipsanis dolescil excepuditi di oditiaspe porita ipis eiur soluptatur rendunt iscimint, consed molendis esciatur, aut aut ex eosanienda volecerae nonecto tatecum etur, te nonseditis explam velitio rroreperiaes ipis ulpa a vellabor restinc tatusae provid ut a commodi tataque consequae ped ut quatur modi totas volorerspel ipsam alit ex elia non nullest, cum quas audanis doluptiis qui officia voleceatiam dendaestrum, ipsumque estiosam, qui vernat eos nimin plandit ectur, aut ra santium is vellaut magnimpor alit qui ut aut eos as est quiae nonserum fugia quis dolore, corepudi aut

14 Abstracts liqui demque velent aut hictis utem non reius milles poruntis et ulparum et ut aut re, quat autem verio optio to es eaquiatus dem velectorit, sit verum ratiatu ribusci officit rem que iuribus, quassim restrum laborer oluptatia volori ommoluptae volorpo reptur rem. Gendi voluptatur audam quam qui am sin core numquatiis secte delenim dem eum quamusti demporeicid magnim ex et liquas ex et alibusciure voluptur? Qui rempor sustorem quidel illam id qui re voluptam lautem re nos rercipsam, nihictam quiam que susapit, estiunt eatemolorrum facesti sciaecusam, consentiur?

Constitutional Crises in Comparison: Hungary and the United Kingdom

Kálmán Pócza (Pázmány Péter Catholic University)

In this essay we are going to scrutinize two political debates in order to enlighten the symptomatic image of British parliamentarism which dominated the Hungarian political thought for a long period. At the beginning of the 20th century both Hungary and the United Kingdom experienced serious constitutional crises. Since the competence of the monarch to appoint a prime minister - even in absence of the confidence of the parliamentary majority behind him - was one of the most discussed topics in both countries, I will compare the prevalence and exercise of this royal prerogative in both countries. After describing and evaluating the events of the constitutional crises at the beginning of the 20th century in both countries I also hope to have a more sophisticated picture on the mechanism of instrumentalization of the image of the British parliamentarism in Hungary. This paper concludes that: 1. Hungarian political thought was dominated by a largely idealized image of the 19th century British parliament. 2. The origins of these idealized pictures trace back to a failure to understand British parliamentarism as a political praxis based on unwritten conventions and traditions. 3. Contrary to the violation of written laws violation of conventions cannot be sanctioned immediately by means of the law. 4. During times of critical political constellations the outcome of a conflict will be determined rather by the actual constellation of political power and the perception of their role in the political process than by existing written rules. Due to the analysis of the debates between Gyula Andrássy the Younger and István Tisza on the one hand, and between Győző Concha and Albert Deák on the other hand, we claim that the patterns of behaviour of the political actors and the perception of their own role (and not the existing institutions) are the crucial elements in shaping the political process.

Anglophilia and the British Constitution in Central Europe 1750-2000 15 Anglophilia and its other: Enlightened cosmopolitanism and the origins of Romantic nationalism in late eighteenth-century Germany.

Regina Portner (Swansea University)

The paper will take the writings of Gebhard Friedrich August Wendeborn (1742- 1811), Lutheran vicar in London and at the time popular Enlightened author of various accounts of late 18th C. England, as a starting point for a broader discussion of the sources, intellectual substance, and possible objectives of 18th C. German Anglophilia. It will be argued that German intellectuals’ fascination with Britain’s political ‘liberty’ was to some extent counterbalanced by their more ambivalent response to Britain’s industrial and commercial prowess. The crises of the American and French Revolutions raised important questions about Germany’s future in a world dominated by Revolutionary France and Imperial, industrial, Britain. Enlightened cosmopolitanism and - for the most part fairly insubstantial - republican affinities gave way to antimodernism as the predominant sentiment informing mainstream debates on political reform and Germany’s place among the nations of Europe.

Two Traditions from the English Political Thought: In Political Thinking of the “Stanczyks”

Bogdan Szlachta (Jagiellonian University in Krakow)

One of the most interesting conservative groups at the turn of the 20th century was the “Stańczyks”, active in autonomous Galicia from the end of 1860s, after the suppression of the January Uprising. The “Stanczyks”, whose name was inspired by the name of the sceptical jester of Sigismund the Old, the penultimate king of the powerful Jagiellonian dynasty, were a conservative grouping that was mainly comprised of people who had earlier been close to the emigration movement Hotel Lambert led by Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, former tsar Alexander’s foreign minister and later a supporter of the November Uprising who, while in exile, counted on the support of France and England for the Polish cause. The eminent historian Józef Szujski, the historian of literature and the rector of the Jagiellonian University, Stanisław Tarnowski, as well as the publicist and the theatre critic Stanisław Koźmian, were the most known personalities of the group. From 1866 the “Stańczyks” published “The Polish Review”, an influential journal which, during the period of Galicia’s autonomy within the Austrian part of the Habsburg monarchy, expressed opinions that were

16 Abstracts close to the governing elite of the district (and also close to Julian Dunajewski, another follower of their group). Till the end of 1860s the “Stańczyks” drew upon the ideas expressed no by the members of former conservative group, which named the “Krakow body” (the Marquees Aleksander Wielopolski, Paweł Popiel, and Antoni Zygmunt Helcel), whose connected with the Edmund Burke’s conservative tradition, but the utilitarian or liberal ideas. After establishing by the emperor Francis Joseph I autonomy for Galicia they supported reform as well as an agreement with Rusini (against other conservatives who do denied the inhabitants of Eastern Galicia the status of a nation and against the pro-Moscovite “świętojurcy”). They also wanted to establish a national authority in education and to introduce teaching in national languages, and, later on, a change of the dualistic government (that was similarly dangerous to the unitary government of the separate nations in the Habsburg state). In their argumentations against constitutionalism and parliamentarism arose from their quest for the protection of individual liberty and natural communities, including the nation, against the attempts of the liberal majority to introduce norms that would diminish the rights of every minority, against irredentism, neutralised the politics of emotions by replacing it with a sense of duty guided by political reason, the “Stanczyks” presented ideas of such British or English conservative thought which is connected with Burke. Being critical about both national history and the maximalist conservative programmes of previous generations, they stressed the need to revive national life within the existing autonomy. They defended the gentry as representing the leading strata of the society. In stressing the necessity of developing a “moral and material existence” and the importance of spontaneously grown social bonds and intermediary bodies, they urged a return to “what is natural and results from God’s mercy”, which is “the mystery of peace and balance”, and required the preservation of traditional institutions: the family and corporation, property and liberty, as well as a greater influence of Roman Catholic religion, which was viewed as being a fundament of a well-ordered social life that was achievable in a Catholic monarchy such as the Habsburg state. In the later thinking they presented also very important critique of utilitarian traditions and liberal conceptions, which former defended.

Anglophilia and the British Constitution in Central Europe 1750-2000 17 The End of Official Anglophilia

Eric Beckett Weaver (University of Debrecen)

At any given time, in any given country, one can find Anglophiles, Francophiles, Germanophiles, Hellenophiles, and even Albanophiles, Hungarophiles, or Serbophiles. The mere existence of fans of one nation or another is not terribly interesting. However, smaller countries are compelled to align with greater powers, especially in times of trouble. In small states, at such times, elite sympathies for another country can have significant effects on the subsequent course of that country’s history. In 1932 a commentator in a leftist Hungarian journal sarcastically noted that Anglomaniac conservative Hungarians had copied virtually every institution from England, from the WC through horse races to the houses of Parliament, while (claimed the commentator) the very unsportsmanlike behaviour of these conservatives demonstrated that they could not understand the essence of British culture. The sarcasm was misplaced. Virtually every great power had its camp of fans in Hungary, and the victory of one camp (Germany) or another (the Soviet Union) had very little to do with how well Hungarians understood the spirit of this or that foreign state. Though the sarcasm was unwarranted, the comment did contain a good deal of truth, as there was an odd tradition of attraction to Great Britain among prominent Hungarians that continued in the period between the two world wars. It was not only in the fields of sport or hygiene that Britain was source of inspiration; the traditional British parliamentary system, the monarchy, and British imperial power were greatly admired. They were admired despite the fact that Great Britain was one of the founders of the Versailles system. Indeed, many in Hungary hoped Britain would help effect a revision of Hungary’s Versailles settlement, the Treaty of Trianon. Despite these hopes, in 1938, because of decisions made in Budapest and London, official Anglophilia suffered a setback from which it could not recover for fifty odd years.

18 Abstracts Anglophilia and the American Founding

Michael Zuckert (University of Notre Dame)

Although the Americans had just completed a long and bitter war against the British the British constitution still had tremendous authority with them when they set out to make their own constitutions. This is especially true for the new constitution of the union. It was not actually the British constitution itself that had authority but the various theoretical accounts of it by the likes of Montesquieu, Blackstone, and DeLolme that were important to the Americans. The paper is restricted to a consideration of Montesquieu as a theorist of the Constitution: he served both to set the terms in which the Americans understood their task of forging a regime of liberty and at the same time set the severe challenge they faced in attempting to do so. The paper emphasizes both the guidelines and the challenge.

Anglophilia and the British Constitution in Central Europe 1750-2000 19