Content area
Full text
LIBERAL NATIONALISM IN HUNGARY, 1988-1990*
This paper will examine a few important aspects of resurgent Hungarian nationalism before and after the collapse of communism in Central Europe. It will concentrate on attempts to join the Hungarian national cause with individual rights, parliamentary democratic government, and a free economy. Liberal nationalism has been selected as the topic because prior to 1990 it had provided both the intellectual arsenal and emotional commitment to the struggle against communism and foreign domination. It also vitally influenced politics, foreign affairs and intellectual life in post-communist Hungary.
Contrary to widespread contemporary assumptions by the media, this writer does not believe that nationalism is an exclusively negative phenomenon, already outgrown by advanced Western nations and present only in formerly communist countries or in the "developing" Third World. Admittedly, after the concentration camps of racial extermination and various forms of recent ethnic cleansing, emphasis on the evil consequences of nationalist extremism seems justified. But we should remember that, depending on historical circumstances, nationalism can also be liberal, progressive and democratic and contribute to the self-realization of peoples. It can even sustain captive nations, as it did the French during the Second World War, or Central Europeans under Soviet domination and prepare them for liberation and reconstruction.
Although nationalism defies a brief all-inclusive definition, for the purposes of this article it will be considered primarily a state of mind, a sentiment, which unites a group of people with a common history, cultural traditions, institutions and language. Group loyalty, solidarity with co-nationals under foreign rule, devotion to country and its independence, desire for its prestige and possible expansion and potential hostility toward foreigners are also seen as important characteristics. 1
Patriotism will not be used as a separate category because it is often indistinguishable from nationalism and emanates from the same emotional context and mind set. Moderate and defensive forms of nationalism which protect rather than invade individual and group rights, will be considered the positive manifestations of the nationalist world view and philosophy.
The idea of the Hungarian nation is aristocratic in origin. Medieval chroniclers considered the king and the nobility the nation, or defined it as "the totality of nobles whose ancestors were related to the Huns and came from Scythia."2 Equating the...