1848

1848

Hungarian Spring

I like to imagine my great great great grandparents, I like to imagine my great great great grandparents, I like to imagine my great grandparents, great great Juliána Tóth & János Fábos, Juliána Tóth & János Fábos, Juliána Tóth János Fábos, both serfs on nobleman Pál Széchényi's land, working a life of unhurried cultivation. both serfs on nobleman Pál Széchényi's land, working a life of unhurried cultivation. both serfs on nobleman Pál Széchényi's land, working a life of unhurried cultivation.
Wheat field

WHY
unhurried? It was their only form of resistance — their quiet weapon as powerless people.

One-ninth of János’s crop went to Pál Széchényi and one-tenth of his earnings went to the church. He was obligated to give hours of free labor to Széchényi during plowing and harvesting seasons. And he had to pay imperial taxes, which supported the Habsburg Empire, not Somogy County where he lived. To work extra hard would have been foolish.

Small peasant house "soot house" "soot house" “soot house”

Meanwhile, Juliána struggled to manage the extra animals, the children (some of whom would have died at young ages due to pneumonia, smallpox, and the like), sew clothes according to prescribed colors and materials, and cook meals in a house with no chimney. Confined to a “soot house,” Juliána was likely, very frequently, covered in soot.

Juliána and János periodically starved or just got by. They would never get ahead, unless — according to superstition — they had a seventh child who could lead them to hidden treasure. One of their sons, József — my great-great grandfather — was born in 1846. They may have had other sons or daughters ... I will never know!

Maybe they had a seventh child... Maybe they had a seventh child... Maybe they had a seventh child...

What I do know is that their lives were like their parents’ lives, whose lives were like the generations before them, over many centuries. The difficulties of this sooty, starving existence cannot be overstated. Many peasants — possibly János and Juliána — lived in an alcoholic haze.

IN
1848 the largest village in their region of Somogy County was Marcali, population 2299, a village on higher land overlooking the scenic Lake Balaton. Marcali’s inhabitants were mostly Magyar (like my family) but with an interesting mix of Germans, Slovaks, Croatians, and Jews (most of whom came to Marcali during the 1700s), and Roma (a migratory people who frequently came into town for brief stays before moving on to their next destination). All these people made Marcali an ethnically diverse place, much like the Kingdom of Hungary as a whole.

Illustration of a county fair in Transylvania
Fields

The most socially superior families in and around Marcali were the local nobles: the Széchényis, Hunyadis, and Festeticses, who all tended to intermarry and controlled (with the clergy) the land in the region. Along with the 140,000 or so other noble families throughout Hungary at the time, the Marcali nobility still enjoyed the extreme privileges brought by the 1221 Golden Bull. They paid no taxes. They (and only they) could vote, or hunt, or carry out justice. They also received hours upon hours of free labor from their serfs. The whole system was rigged in the nobility’s favor.

And yet ... some Hungarians had been seeing this division between the privileged and non-privileged as increasingly unhealthy for the country for some time. A few thousand tremendously wealthy noble families controlled millions of impoverished peasants, some of whom rented land they weren’t allowed to leave, while others worked as serfs on manorial estates. Indeed, the desire for reform had been brewing for decades, not only in Hungary, but all across Europe.

Page from the Communist Manifesto in Karl Marx's handwriting

ITwas no coincidence that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who had met in 1844 in a French café (friends for life!), were beginning to formulate a set of ideas that would become The Communist Manifesto. Published in 1848, the first sentence gets to the main point:

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"THE HISTORY OF

ALL HITHERTO

EXISTING SOCIETY

IS THE HISTORY

OF CLASS STRUGGLES.”

Marx and Engels, who wrote about the new industrial proletariat and capitalistic exploitation in factories, would in turn influence others throughout Europe — including agricultural Hungary — where social change seemed increasingly necessary.

07 Hungarian reformers were torn between two proud camps led by two PROMINENT heroes from Hungary's “official” story.

ISTVÁN SZÉCHENYIHe came from an esteemed noble family and could trace his ancestry back to Prince Árpád. He was proudly nationalist and wanted to beautify Buda and Pest and create national institutions. He was literally a bridge builder (having spearheaded the magnificent chain bridge project linking Buda to Pest) and an “old school” reformist who wanted to work within the system and continue ties with the Habsburgs.

István Széchenyi believed loyalty to the Habsburgs would lead to stability and prosperity. But he also worried that Hungary would not modernize. His extended family also owned much of the land around Marcali, where my family labored.

09b ISTVÁN SZÉCHENYI 09c “Old School”
The Széchenyi Chain Bridge

“I FEEL PROFOUND PAIN

AND DOWNHEARTEDNESS

AT THE SITUATION...

OF OUR COUNTRY....

OUR COUNTRY IS SLEEPING.”

- ISTVÁN SZÉCHENYI

István Széchenyi questioned the nobility’s inalienable rights to land, making him unpopular among his peers, but not as unpopular as the fellow in the other camp.

Kossuth Lajos 10b LAJOS KOSSUTH 10c “New Liberalism”

LAJOS KOSSUTHHe was the son of a landless lesser nobleman and editor of the progressive paper Pesti Hírlap. Like Széchenyi, Kossuth believed in ending the extreme privileges of the landed gentry, freeing the serfs, and ending all public floggings. However, he wanted more. Having been influenced by new ideas of liberalism, democracy, and nationalism, Kossuth wrote dazzling editorials that pushed for complete Magyar autonomy from the Habsburg Empire and for economic prosperity through education, democratization, and culture.

Front page of Pesti Hirlap

“I WILL LABOR FOR FREEDOM

AND FOR THE MORAL

WELL-BEING OF MAN!”

- LAJOS KOSSUTH

Pesti Hírlap, means Pest News. Pest was its own city before becoming part of Budapest in 1873.

BOTH
Széchenyi and Kossuth embraced Magyar nationalism. Both questioned noble privilege. Both wanted economic progress. But each had a different plan for getting there: one was with the Habsburgs, the other without.

11 In the end, Kossuth's ideas proved more popular (or maybe it was just the way he delivered them)!

It’s not often mentioned that Széchenyi was raised speaking German (like most noble elites) and had to learn how to give speeches in Hungarian. Kossuth grew up speaking HUNGARIAN; his rhetorical eloquence went unquestioned (he also had handsome facial hair that men all over Hungary would imitate). Kossuth’s ideas were winning favor. As Széchenyi would once say to Kossuth:

“FOR GOD’S SAKE

DON’T USE THE NIMBUS

OF YOUR POPULARITY

TO PLUNGE US INTO CHAOS!”

- ISTVÁN SZÉCHENYI

FINALLY,
by 1848 Kossuth’s “chaos” won out over Széchenyi’s stability. Was it the sublime eloquence of Kossuth’s speeches? Or simply a growing anger against dynastic rule (and an economic depression) that caused revolutions in Hungary and throughout Italy, France, Germany, Denmark, Switzerland, Ukraine, Poland, Belgium, Ireland, Austria, Czechlands, Romania? Europe was exploding with revolutions.

Revolts in Vienna successfully caused the Emperor’s much-despised chancellor, Prince Klemens Von Metternich (responsible for many inequitable Habsburg policies), to resign and flee to London.

Caricature of Klemens von Metternich fleeing Vienna in 1848

ON
March 15, a national holiday in Hungary to this day, Kossuth led mass demonstrations calling for Hungarian autonomy; revolutionaries circulated a list of twelve demands; 25-year-old Sándor Petőfi screamed out his stirring “National Song” poem from the steps of the National Museum to a crowd of 20,000 people; political prisoners were released from jail ...

12 points
12a KOSSUTH 12b SÁNDOR PETȌFI Composite image of Lajos Kossuth in a crowd and Sándor Petőfi on steps depicting the 1848 Hungarian Revolution

... and the Imperial Governor accepted all of the demonstrators’ demands. The revolutionaries formed a new government, sanctioned by Habsburg Emperor Ferdinand himself.

The first Hungarian cabinet sat in these nine chairs The first Hungarian cabinet sat in these nine chairs The first Hungarian cabinet sat in these nine chairs
Nine chairs from Hungary's first cabinet as exhibited in the Hungarian National Museum
- now preserved in Budapest's National Museum - -now preserved in Budapest's National Museum- - now preserved in Budapest's National Museum -
They approved a sweeping reform package that included a free press, Jewish emancipation, and an end to serfdom. They approved a sweeping reform package that included a free press, Jewish emancipation, and an end to serfdom. for a few short months. They approved a sweeping reform package that included a free press, Jewish emancipation, and an end to serfdom. For the citizens of Marcali, this would mean drastic changes to their feudal peasant lives. For the citizens of Marcali, this would mean drastic changes to their feudal peasant lives. For the citizens of Marcali, this would mean drastic changes to their feudal peasant lives.

The problem with this new democracy, however, was that it wasn’t very democratic. The Magyar nationalists (nearly all members of the nobility) neglected to set chairs out for peasant representatives — the ostensible beneficiaries of their reforms. Also not included were all the people who lived in Hungary but did not consider themselves to be Magyars: the Croatians in the south, for example, or the Romanians of Transylvania. Both the Croatian and Romanian nationalists protested their exclusion from the new government. Just like so many other instances in Hungary’s history, in 1848 class and ethnic divisions prevented the country from truly unifying.

AND
while civil war began to brew in Hungary, the Habsburgs enthroned a new Emperor, the peach-fuzzed 18-year-old Franz Joseph, who was persuaded by his circle of advisors that Hungary’s new Constitution — sanctioned by the previous Emperor — was a threat to the empire and had to go.

Franz Joseph's favorite pastime was sketching and drawing. He also had a fondness for military outfits and worshipped his mother, Sophie, who was likely his main advisor.

18-year-old Franz Joseph Emperor Franz Joseph Emperor Franz Joseph EMPEROR FRANZ JOSEPH 18 years old 18 years old 18 YEARS OLD

1849

WHEN
young Emperor Franz Joseph nullified Hungary’s Constitution, Hungarians, both willingly and reluctantly, took up arms to defend it. They were urged on by Lajos Kossuth‘s rhetoric of independence, and fought back Habsburg soldiers who had been sent in to crush the revolution.

But the Magyar revolutionaries were not just fighting the Habsburg army. Emperor Franz Joseph had convinced Hungary’s dissident nationalities to help him fight the revolutionaries, and he got even more help from Russian Tsar Nicholas II, who sympathized with the Emperor’s fight. The combined Habsburg, dissident, and Russian troops wiped out the Hungarian revolutionary army by August 1849. Poor Hungarian nationalists, proud and torn.

The Magyars - including 9,000 revolutionary soldiers from Somogy county (very possibly even my great-great-great grandfather, János, among them) The Magyars - including 9,000 revolutionary soldiers from Somogy county (very possibly even my great-great-great grandfather, János, among them) The Magyars - including 9,000 revolutionary soldiers from Somogy county (very possibly even my great-great-great grandfather, János, among them) - didn't have a chance. didn't have a chance. didn't have a chance.
1849 revolutionary battle

Imperial armies would trounce every revolution across Europe that year.

KOSSUTH
escaped to the Ottoman Empire (a hundred of his comrades were immediately executed; his revolutionizing sisters were also thrown in jail). He then traveled to Italy, France, Portugal, London, and finally to the U.S. for a rousing and triumphant tour espousing democratic principles, and to raise money for Magyar independence. Today, monuments, counties, cities, schools, and streets across the U.S. bear his name. His bust is in the U.S. Capitol Building. He has a special place in Hungary’s official story.

István Széchenyi wound up in a mental institution. He killed himself in 1860, but his name rings today in Hungarians’ ears as another VIP Magyar hero.

Frame Lajos Kossuth in Cincinnati in 1852
Kossuth, posing for a photo op in Cincinnati, in 1852. Kossuth, posing for a photo op in Cincinnati, in 1852. KOSSUTH, posing for a photo op in Cincinnati, in 1852.

WITH
Kossuth’s revolution in pieces, the Habsburgs instituted a period of repression that even included a ban on Kossuth-style beards! The Habsburgs were also particularly hard on Jews, many of whom had enthusiastically fought for Magyar independence and the promise of Jewish emancipation. The defeated Magyar nobility were sent back to their estates.

So what do Lajos Kossuth and the revolutionary parliament have to do with János Fábos, Juliána Tóth, and their three-year-old son, József? So what do Lajos Kossuth and the revolutionary parliament have to do with János Fábos, Juliána Tóth, and their three-year-old son, József? So what do Lajos Kossuth and the revolutionary parliament have to do with János Fábos, Juliána Tóth, and their three-year-old son, József?

There was one enormously positive outcome to this year-long revolution that directly concerned my peasant family ancestors. The Habsburgs emancipated peasants across the Austrian Empire. It was tactical: if Emperor Franz Joseph was to maintain control, he needed to satisfy the peasants’ basic grievances and thereby neutralize the largest segment of the population. So, with the stroke of a Habsburg pen, land — mostly forests, swamps, and about 280,000 acres of actual farmland — was given to peasants for free.

Peasants during harvest
Incredible! And my family members' lives would be changed forever. Incredible! And my family members' lives would be changed forever. INCREDIBLE! And my family members' lives would be changed forever.

Not every peasant got land. Those who had previously worked on a manorial farm (about one-fifth of all peasants) were “emancipated” with no property. They often had no choice but to resume life as before under serf-like conditions on those same farms. Their misery continued.

Peasant workers making hay

ANOTHER
group of peasants were “emancipated,” but received chunks of land so small that it was nearly pointless to farm them. They were called “smallholders” (about half of all peasants were in this lot) and their misery more or less continued.

But some peasants (and my family was in this group!) received land parcels large enough to conceivably farm. Conceivably is the important word here: only 280,000 acres of prime farm land were reassigned from the Magyar noblemen (who were compensated handsomely). Some peasants received parcels of forest, clay, or wetland.



1853

Lake Balaton map
In 1853, my great-great-great grandfather, János received 19.17 acres of swamp in Boronka (east of Marcali, close to Lake Balaton) In 1853, my great-great-great grandfather, János received 19.17 acres of swamp in Boronka (east of Marcali, close to Lake Balaton) In 1853, my great-great-great grandfather, János received 19.17 acres of swamp in Boronka (east of Marcali, close to Lake Balaton)
(sorry Juliána, women didn't get anything in their name). (sorry Juliána, women didn't get anything in their name). (sorry Juliána, women didn't get anything in their name).

19.17 acres amounts to about 7.75 hectares.


The official measurement was 13.5 hold, the standard unit of land measurement in Hungary after 1851.

A swamp! They received a swamp. But 19.17 acres was not bad! János and Juliána made the best of it. It was their own land! The identity and the destiny of the Fábos family had been suddenly and profoundly altered. A swamp! They received a swamp. But 19.17 acres was not bad! János and Juliána made the best of it. It was their own land! The identity and the destiny of the Fábos family had been suddenly and profoundly altered. A swamp! They received a swamp. But 19.17 acres was not bad! János and Juliána made the best of it. It was their own land! The identity and the destiny of the Fábos family had been suddenly and profoundly altered.

1861

Tsar Alexander II Tsar Alexander II TSAR ALEXANDER II The Tsar's dutiful dog, Milord The Tsar's dutiful dog, Milord The Tsar's dutiful dog, Milord Tsar Alexander II and his dog in 1870

AS
a small footnote, Tsar Alexander II would liberate Russian serfs a few years later.

“IT IS BETTER TO ABOLISH

SERFDOM FROM ABOVE

THAN TO WAIT FOR

THE TIME WHEN

IT WILL BEGIN TO ABOLISH

ITSELF FROM BELOW”

- TSAR ALEXANDER II

And Hungary — despite ongoing abject poverty for many, and a sublimely wealthy aristocracy — was becoming a slightly more equitable place.