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Economic Factors in Nationalism: The Example of Hungary at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2009

Iván T. Berend  and
György Ránki
Iván T. Berend
Affiliation:
Historical Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
György Ránki
Affiliation:
Historical Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
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Extract

Although it cannot be denied that the primordial manifestations of nationalism can be traced back to the pre-capitalistic age, it has long been obvious to scholars who have investigated the economic and social factors involved in nationalism that its development has been closely connected with that of modern capitalism. It is just as apparent that economic developments in Eastern Europe have differed fundamentally from those in the western part of the same continent.2 These differences in development can be detected as far back as the fifteenth century, and they have become more and more evident during the course of the succeeding centuries. The relationship between social and economic factors and nationalism has consequently been entirely different in Eastern Europe from what it has been in the countries of Western Europe, which have more advanced economies as well as populations constituting a more or less homogeneous nationality.

Type
Economic Factors
Information
Austrian History Yearbook , Volume 3 , Issue 3 , January 1967 , pp. 163 - 186
Copyright
Copyright © Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota 1967

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References

1 Various participants at the Indiana University conference on April 2–6, 1966, expressed the opinion that at that meeting insufficient attention was paid to economic and social factors. The editor wishes to thank Iván T. Berend and György Ránki for their cooperation in partly filling the gap by writing for the current issue of the Yearbook this article illustrating the close relationship between economic conditions and nationalism.

2 Pach, Zsigmond Pál, Die ungarische Agrarentwicklung im 16–17. Jahrhundert. Abbiegung vom westeuropäischen Entwicklungsgang. In Studia Historica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, No. 54 (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiaóó, 1964), especially pp. 37–38 and 92–94Google Scholar.

3 Although Marx's idea that “the industrially more developed country presents to the less developed country a picture of the latter's future” (Das Kapital) was not always fully confirmed by actual practice, many reformers believed that their country should be developed along the lines which they had seen abroad.

4 Vargha, Gyula, Magyar hitülugy és hitelinttzétek törtenete [The History of Credit Institutes and the Credit System in Hungary] (Budapest: Pesti Nyomda, 1896)Google Scholar.

5 See Vagyó, János, Széchenyi Istyán közlekedésügyi reformja [István Széchenyi's Reforms in Transportation and Communications] (Budapest: Athenaeum, 1913)Google Scholar.

6 Képessy, Árpad, A magyar vasutügy története [A History of Hungarian Railroads] (Budapest: Wodianer, 1908)Google Scholar.

7 See Eckhart, Perenc, A bécsi udvar gazdaságpolitikája [The Economic Policies of the Aulic Court in Vienna] (Budapest: Magyar Történelmi Tarsulat, Akadémiai Kiadó, 1959)Google Scholar.

8 For the above-mentioned statistical data as well as for a good discussion of the whole problem of the decline of the medium-sized estates, see Hanak, Peter, “A dualizmus korának néhány vitás kérdése” [Some Frequently Debated Questions of the Dualistic Era], Századok, 1962, No. 1–2, p. 218Google Scholar.

9 By the middle of the nineteenth century England's urban population already outnumbered the rural population. Cameron, Rondo E., France and the Economic Development of Europe, 1800–1914 (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1961), p. 6Google Scholar. Between 1789 and 1859 the population of France grew from 25,000,000 to 36,000,000, while the percentage of urban population increased from 20 to 25 percent, Levasseur, Émile, Histoire des classes ouvrières en France depuis 1789 jusqu'à nos jours (2 vols., Paris: Hachette, 1867), Vol. I, p. 156Google Scholar. As a result of the industrialization of the western regions, the percentage of non- rural population in the German states increased from 20 percent of the total population in 1830 to 40 percent in 1860. Benaerts, Pierre, Les origines des grandes industries allemandes (Paris: Turot, 1957)Google Scholar.

10 For the above data, see Láng, Lajos and Jekelfalussy, József, Magyarország népességi statisztikája [The Demographic Statistics of Hungary] (Budapest: Athenaeum, 1885); and the census returns for the year 1910Google Scholar.

11 Matlekovits, Alexander, Das Königreich Ungarn, Vol. II (Leipzig: Duncker and Humblot, 1900), p. 93Google Scholar.

12 Berend, Iván T. and Ránki, György, “Das Niveau der Industrie Ungarns zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts im Vergleich zu dem Europas,” in Studien zur Geschichte der österreichisch-ungarischen Monarchie, edited by Vilmos, Sándor and Péter, Hanák. In Studia Historica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, No. 51 (Budapest: Akadéiniai Kiadó, 1961), pp. 267–286Google Scholar.

13 For a discussion of the problem in principle, see Gerschenkron, Alexander, Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective: a Book of Essays (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962), p. 8Google Scholar.

14 In Hungary, as in Germany, the idea of industrialization was connected from the very beginning with the theories of Georg Friedrich List. In other words, nationalist concepts were always championed in the guise of economic slogans.

15 Cameron, France and the Economic Development of Europe, p. 79.

16 Landes, David S., “Technological Changes and Development in Western Europe, 1750–1914,” The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, Vol. VI, Pt. 1 (Cambridge, England: The University Press, 1965), p. 558Google Scholar.

17 Feis, Herbert, Europe the World's Banker, 1810–1914 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1930)Google Scholar.

18 Sándor, Vilmos, Nagyipari fejlödás Magyarországon 1867–1900 [The Manufacturing Industry in Hungary, 1867–1900] (Budapest: Szikra Kiadó, 1954), p. 771Google Scholar.

19 For this and the data which follows, see Berend, Iván T. and Ránki's, György article on “Tökefelhalmozás és nemzeti jövedelem 1867–1914” [Capital Accumulation and National Income, 1867–1914], in Történelmi Szemle, 1966, No. 2Google Scholar.

20 Berend, Iván T. and Ránki, György, Magyarország gyáripara 1900- 1914 [The Hungarian Manufacturing Industry, 1900–19141 (Budapest: Szikra Kiadá, 1955), p. 156Google Scholar.

21 In 1785 there were 75,089 Jews in Hungary. By 1805 the Jewish population had increased to 127,816 and in 1840 to 241,632.

22 The above statistics were taken from the Magyar Statisztikai Közletnények. Gyula Szekfü has made an interesting analysis of the Jewish problem in Hungary, though one with an anti-Semitic accent, in his Három nemzedék (Three Generations). Our own opinion, however, is much closer to those expressed by Hanák, Péter in his “Vázlatok a századelö magyar társadalmához” [Hungarian Society on the Eve of the Twentieth Century], Történelmi Szemle, 1962, No. 2Google Scholar; and by Laczkó, Miklós in his Nyilasok, nemzetiszocialisták [Arrow Cross Men and National Socialists] (Budapest: Kossuth Kiadó, 1966)Google Scholar.

23 The problem is analyzed by Katus, László in an article on “A nem magyar népek nacionalizmusának jellemvonása és szerepe a soknemzetiségü Magyarországon [The Role and Characteristic Features of Nationalism among the non-Hungarian Peoples of Hungary], in Történelmi Szemle, 1960, No. 2, p. 333Google Scholar.

24 In 1910 the land tax amounted to 1.87 crowns per hold in the Great Plain area and 1.97 crowns in the Transdanubian region. During the same year the land tax rate was only 0.35 crown in Ruthenia, 0.47 crown in Transylvania, and 1.02 crowns in Slovakia. See Kolossa, Tibor, “Statistische Untersuchung der sozialen Lage der Agrarbevölkerung in den Ländern der österreichisch-ungarischen Monarchic,” in Die Agrarfrage der österreichisch-ungarischen Monarchie (Bucharest: Verlag der Akademie der Sozialistischen Republik Rumänien, 1965), p. 153Google Scholar.

25 Pascu, Stefan, Giurescu, Constantin C., Kovács, Josif, and Vajda, Ludovic, “Einige Fragen der landwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung in der österreichisch-ungarischen Monarchic,” in Die Agrarfrage der österreichisch- ungarischen Monarchic, pp. 14–16Google Scholar.

26 It should be noted, however, that, since the level of capitalistic development was higher in the central and western areas of Hungary, the landowning peasantry integrated more rapidly in that region than in the destitute non-Magyar districts. Thus a paradoxical situation arose. While most of the impoverished small holdings were owned by peasants belonging to the national minorities, the majority of landless agricultural proletariat were Hungarians. The agrarian proletariat constituted 52.8 percent of the total agricultural population of the Great Plain and 38.1 percent of that of Transdanubia but only 29 percent of that of Transylvania and 37 percent of that of the northern and northeastern areas inhabited by non-Magyar nationalities. See Kolossa, “Statistische Untersuchung der sozialen Lage der Agrarbevölkerung in den Ländern der österreichisch-ungarischen Monarchie,” p. 165.

27 Pascu et al., “Einige Fragen der landwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung in der österreichisch-ungarischen Monarchie,” p. 19.

28 These statistics have been taken from Magyar Compass, Year 1914- 15; and Statisztikai Szemle, 1923, Vol. II, p. 864.

29 Katus, László, “Über die wirtschaftlichen und gesellschaftlichen Grundlagen der Nationalitätenfrage in Ungarn yor dem ersten Weltkrieg,” in Die nationale Frage in der österreichisch-ungarischen Monarchie 1900–1918, edited by Péter, Hanák and Zoltán, Szász (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1966), pp. 149–216Google Scholar.

30 Berend and Ránki, Magyarország gyáripara 1900–1914, p. 138.

31 Based on data found in Magyar Compass, Year 1914–15.

32 Deutsch, Emeric, Constantinescu, Nicolae N., Negrea, Alexandra, and Negucioiu, Alexandra, “Über die Vorherrschaft des Finanzkapitals in Transsilvanien in den ersten Jahrzehnten des 20. Jahrhunderts,” in Die Frage des Finanzkapitals in der österreichisch-ungarischen Monarchie (Bucharest: Verlag der Akademie der Sozialistischen Republik Rumänien, 1965), p. 55Google Scholar.

33 Katus, “Über die wirtschaftlichen und gesellschaftlichen Grundlagen der Nationalitätenfrage in Ungarn vor dem ersten Weltkrieg,” passim.

34 The capital of the non-Magyar bourgeoisie was insignificant, however, in comparison with that of the Budapest banks, which had a large network of branches and affiliates, some of which were located in the non-Magyar areas of the country. These banks monopolized the most important industrial and business enterprises of Hungary. The non-Magyars found it extremely difficult to compete with the 4,000 banks and savings banks which were in existence before the First World War. They had to content themselves mainly with granting loans to peasant farmers and small-scale producers of industrial commodities, marketing these goods, and amassing small and medium-sized amounts of capital.

35 Of these, 66.9 percent were non-Magyars; 25 percent were Slovaks, 18.4 percent were Germans, and 15.4 percent were Rumanians.

36 All told, there were 61,000 Slovak and 34,000 Rumanian industrial workers in Hungary.

37 The above data has been based on statistics in Statisztikai Szemle, Year 1923, p. 300.