Anglophilia and the British Constitution in Central Europe 1750-2000

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

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