Stephen Széchenyi
And The Awakening Of Hungarian Nationalism, 1791-1841
By George Barany
Re-publication of Princeton University Press original from 1968, by Sarkett & Associates, Inc., May 2011
The sole English language biography of Hungarian Count Stephen Széchenyi -- long out of print -- is now republished by Sarkett & Associates, Inc., Winnetka, Illinois.
Known to students of European history and not many others, Széchenyi was called "the greatest Hungarian." In this volume of fascinating and impeccable scholarship, Prof. George Barany (1922-2001) tells why. It was originally published by Princeton University Press in 1968.
The new edition includes a foreword from new publisher John A. Sarkett on what insights a study of the life of Széchenyi can bring to those of us in the 21th century. (See below)
Often called the father of the era of reform in Hungary, Széchenyi was a forerunner and political opponent of Louis Kossuth, whose name became far better known to the Western world. It was Széchenyi who sensed and tried to give guidance to much of the ferment sweeping down on the Habsburg Monarchy and Central Europe in the first half of the nineteenth century, but it was Kossuth who led the Hungarian Revolution of 1848-49.
Kossuth repeatedly called Széchenyi -- a visionary, dreamer, writer, engineer and doer --"the greatest among the Magyars."
Thus Professor Barany poses and seeks to answer the question, "Why is it that a nation gave the epithet 'greatest' to a man who seemed to have failed as a practical politician?"
Széchenyi was a man of paradoxes.
As a captain of hussars, previously unknown in Hungarian public life, this former military man became the founder of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
As a member of one of the leading and wealthiest Hungarian magnate families, he started a radical reform movement in a homeland he hardly knew as a youth.
He was one of the great landowners in Hungary, yet he raised his voice in support of the serfs.
A dandy at the Congress of Vienna, Széchenyi became one of his nation's most renowned thinkers and writers on its welfare, culture, and commerce.
Besides using the writings of Széchenyi and his Hungarian and foreign contemporaries, the official records and secret reports, the author conducted research in Austrian, British, French, and Swedish archives and in the Vatican.
Thus, on the basis of hitherto ignored sources, he is able to relate Hungary's political and socio-economic evolution in the realm of the Habsburgs - and Széchenyi's role in it - to broader questions of European history:
British gropings toward a more advantageous balance of power in Central Europe by giving an anti-Russian edge to the status quo;
the sensitivity of French diplomacy to the nuances of the Monarchy's domestic affairs, including the nationality problem;
the worries of the Holy See about the spread of liberal ideas;
and the first fumbling moves of economically motivated American representatives in the direction of restless Hungary.
Nevertheless, despite his accomplishments, Stephen Széchenyi died in 1860, a broken man alone in an asylum.
This volume takes his political career to its apex, but though Professor Barany was at work on a second volume which would complete the life and times of the "greatest Magyar," sadly, he did not live to complete it.
Plaudits for this classic work:
"This volume gives a new, balanced interpretation of Széchenyi's work. Those interested in the Enlightenment, the origins of nationalism, modernization, and industrialization will get an up to now unavailable insight into the events in one of the crucial province of the Habsburgs." Peter F. Sugar
"Barany's book does full justice to Count Széchenyi as an enormously complex, brilliant, self-defeating, tortured personality." Istvan Deak
Available from Amazon, or on request from your favorite bookstore.
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Called by Kossuth the "greatest among the Hungarians", Count Stephen Széchenyi. No one among his peers had more vision, imagination, or derring-do. He sacrificed his funds, his time, eventually his life for the betterment of his nation.
Foreword
We need a complete regeneration.
Count Stephen Széchenyi , speech to Hungarian chamber of magnates, April 22, 1840
As a young man, privileged and wealthy Hungarian nobleman Istvan Széchenyi came across a prophecy by the German writer Johann Gottfried Herder, written in 1791. Herder said there would be no such thing as “Hungary” in just 100 years. The country was too backward, too beset by problems.
Széchenyi was struck as though by lightning by this pronouncement. He had spent a lot of time in European capitals away from Magyarorszag, his Hungarian language skills were, shall we say, rudimentary, yet something stirred within him: patriotism. Soon enough, he determined to set about with his whole being, his intellect, imagination and financial capital, to make the dire and somewhat cynical prophecy not so.
After a lifetime of creativity and hard work, Széchenyi was successful enough to earn the appellation “the greatest Hungarian” from another individual who could himself qualify for the honor (Lajos Kossuth, a Hungarian much more widely known in the West, and leader of the 1848 rebellion). Indeed, Széchenyi was a George Washington of his day, (but opposed to war), consumed with a vision for his nation, and giving his very life for the cause.
Today, more than 200 years later, and half a world away, America seems as pressed on all sides as Hungary was back in the 18th century. We may not face absorption into our neighbors, but the problems we face are, similarly, for our very survival.
Consider the following:
Financial crisis. Our staggering debt – federal, state, individual – has made real the threat of financial collapse. I would quote numbers here but for the fact that by the time you read this, they will be much, much larger. Széchenyi was very much concerned with finance. He wrote on credit. One cannot discuss our financial situation without considering our military policy, and energy policy. On the former, we have too much; on the latter, we have none. Again, Széchenyi was active on all these fronts, as you shall see.
Terrorism. The USA has enemies overseas who want to see its destruction. Countless acts of terrorism preceded 9/11. They occupy a relatively low level of prominence in the average American psyche. There will be more acts of terrorism downline. How do we handle these? How do we make our nation “secure” in the face of militant Islam? These questions will likely be with us daily for the rest of our lives.
Production. Let’s say the USA was solvent, and the world, peaceful. Still we have economic competition vis-ŕ-vis China, Brazil, India, Russia, and a host of emerging nations. Széchenyi was concerned with production, he wrote on agriculture, the biggest industry of the day. He engineered a bridge spanning the Danube, linking Buda and Pest, to stimulate trade, earning the nickname, “Bridgeman.” The famous Széchenyi Bridge still stands. Széchenyi was first to navigate the Danube to the sea, again to set the stage for more trade, a stronger Hungary.
One cannot write about competing in the global marketplace without considering education. American schoolchildren have fallen far, far behind their rivals overseas. Széchenyi was deeply concerned about education; he founded Hungary’s National Academy of Sciences with funds from his own pocket. What might he imagine here, now, were he with us?
Health crisis. None of the above matters if you aren’t alive. The obesity epidemic is a modern-day equivalent of the bubonic plague. It is everywhere. So, too, is heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer, arthritis. Some of this is genetic, but some of it is environmental, brought on by consumption of excess calories, especially sugar and white carbohydrates like bread, pasta, cookies, cakes, and candies. Factor in alcoholism, drug abuse and all the rest. America is facing a health crisis, which precipitates a financial crisis to pay for it.
One would be remiss to leave out of this list things spiritual. A complex man, motivated by many things, one of these was his strong faith, Christianity. A Roman Catholic, Széchenyi went to confession and received communion all his life. Before undertaking an overseas trip with his Protestant friend, Wesselényi, Széchenyi warned him it was his custom to pray on his knees each night. But it didn’t end there, with prayers, communion, confession, important as these were to our protagonist. His faith required action. It required him to join the battle of good and evil as an “active citizen.” Which would mean addressing – straight-on – the aforementioned issues that beset us all.
And so we have come full circle – and yet barely scratched the surface. Each issue today deserves a treatise of its own, or some would say, a library’s worth of treatises.
How did we get here? The current generation didn’t start in the hole, “one down,” as they say. It seems to me a particular perversity of the human animal that it cannot hold onto success for long.
Our fathers and mothers fought “the good war,” and kept the world safe from Axis power world domination. They came home, went to work, wanting not much more than peace, safety, and quiet. They found their spouses and had their kids. They took a country that was under siege from east and west, won its war, and made it the leader of the world, leader of freedom.
Meanwhile, many of their kids wanted nothing more than the freedom to raise hell, most famously at Woodstock, but at countless other venues countless other times.
A little of that sort of thing goes a long way, and could be laid off to youthful indiscretion, and overlooked or forgiven, but the trouble is, the Woodstock generation grew old, got hold of politics, and brought the “free love” ethos of Haight-Asbury right into the blue-carpeted halls of Congress.
Free love, free everything, in fact. Why pay for Social Security, or Medicare or Medicaid, when you can get it for “free?” Why put down money on your mortgage, when you can get it for 0% down and cash back? Wink, wink.
Turns out nothing’s free, not really. The market has its ways. There is a comeuppance, no matter how long it’s put off.
I fear for our comeuppance. Our generation is not up for it, not given to sacrifice. The 1940s generation of 18-year-olds flew bombing runs, and fought Hitler on the ground all the way across Europe.
The next generation of 18-year-olds lost themselves, many of them, in self-indulgence.
Our times cry out for a Széchenyi , a leader with the moral caliber to own up to the problems at hand, face them squarely in the eye, not flinch and then to call for the requisite sacrifices, the regeneration, the imagination to develop solutions, the vision to see a better day, and the energy to make it all happen.
There are few such leaders on the modern scene, but only a few, and they are meeting hellacious opposition from those who put themselves first, who get JFK’s aphorism “ask not” forever backwards.
Széchenyi was always: country first, the people first.
When you see such a one rise up today, thank God and thank him or her. And support them.
I came across this remarkable work of scholarship many years ago. It made an indelible impression, and proved that the dictum “all politicians are crooks” (and I am writing this from Chicago) is not true, after all.
There are exceptions, very rare, but they exist. This book will let your imagination soar on what is possible when the drivetrain of imagination is engaged by the engine of energy and action.
It is my personal honor to bring this volume back to you -- too long out of print – especially for a time like this.
John A. Sarkett
Publisher
Chicago, Illinois
