Project description in English

The project presents several aspects of the parliamentarism of the Kingdom of Hungary within the Habsburg Monarchy. The main objectives of the research are to uncover and publish partly unexplored sources, to explore the history of some of the Hungarian diets, and to describe the functioning of parliamentarism and with it politics, its language, the relations and activities of the political actors, especially in the 18th century and the reform era. A particular emphasis is placed on the politics of the polity in the periods when Parliament was not available as a forum for the representation of interests, especially when the most important state reforms were introduced in the Kingdom of Hungary. We will also look at the most important issues of the feudal society and the feudal estate, and the signs of its dissolution and transformation during its last period. The most important political issues of the period will be discussed, highlighting the position of the Kingdom of Hungary within the Habsburg Monarchy and the most important public, economic and socio-political issues of the country.

The sources of Hungarian parliamentarism and the history of early parliamentarism have not yet been researched. The project will attempt to carry out basic research and processing in a coordinated manner. The Diets of the Kingdom of Hungary were one of the most important arenas of national politics in public law. In the course of the research, we will seek to further clarify the public law relationship between the Kingdom and the Habsburg Monarchy, highlighting the nodes that were crucial in this relationship. A full analysis of the Diet of the period after the Peace of Satu Mare is outstanding in this respect, as is the way in which the reform measures of the Viennese court were implemented in the period before the failed Diet of 1765-1766, and how the relationship between the central government and the political public sphere of the kingdom changed. In this political relationship, the Diets were the fundamental arena for this debate. In the period between 1766 and 1790 and during the Napoleonic War, the political will and interests of the country had to be represented without the assemblies, and it is our aim to explore and describe the hitherto unknown forums and channels for this. We will examine how the revival of the parliamentary period differed from the politics of the 18th century and what kind of public law was created. The period of reform, on the other hand, brought with it the much-studied parliaments of the period of the renewing Kingdom of Hungary. The somewhat schematic picture that has now emerged for this period will be nuanced by the research to be carried out and further research will be assisted by the historical sources to be published.

The application submitted earlier by the research team was the first to seek to answer questions on the very long period of the history of Hungarian parliamentarism (1526-1848), which was the subject of a joint effort by several researchers. In this proposal we would continue this work, partly building on the results of the previous project and partly focusing on new questions. The period can be regarded as a unified one in terms of public law, since it examines the most important public institution of the Kingdom of Hungary within the Habsburg Monarchy and its constituent orders, the Hungarian Estates, in the period before the Compromise. The coordinated research of the research group in itself represents a new perspective in the history of Hungarian parliamentarism, as it is not an isolated research. In implementing the research plan, we will produce monographs of outstanding importance, bringing a new historical perspective, and present a wealth of new sources, both traditionally and through digital publishing. The latter has never been done before in historical research in Hungary, but we will create it based on the digital background of the Hungarian National Archives, building on the publications of literary history and the German methodology. In addition to the methods of historiography, our research will also draw on the methodologies of linguistics and literary history. We will explore and present the antecedents and roots of Hungary's political culture by presenting the history of 16th-19th century parliamentarism.