Kenyeres István (szerk.): Urbs. Magyar Várostörténeti Évkönyv XV. - Urbs 15. (Budapest, 2021)
Abstracts
Abstracts 419 Tamás Dobszay Changes in the Weight of Towns at the National Assemblies over the Last Half Century of the Estate System The political role of towns became a sensitive issue between 1825 and 1848. The decrease in significance and the negative perception of towns were confirmed in the operation of the Diet: their voting rights were limited and their unfavourable seating arrangement in the chamber was fixed. Both contemporaries and historians tried to justify the change and mentioned such reasons as the nobility’s selfish insistence on their privileges; the government dependent situation of the towns; their closed, anti-democratic internal organization. It is also obvious that nationalism contributed to the stigmatisation of the towns, which had a considerable German-speaking population. However, the modification of the functioning of the Diet’s institutions and the rise of the idea of the popular representation also contributed to the change in the towns’ situation as participants of the National Assembly. Not only the relations and aversions of the different actors of the estate system, but the development of the decision-making mechanism, the expansion of voting, the revaluation of the status of the different sessions also could have caused the change in the towns’ position. Neither the burghers, nor the political system refrained from the correction of the situation and addressing the causes. Both the efforts of the towns or certain groups of their citizens and the estates’ reform plans concerning the towns and their position aimed at the removal of the disadvantages and reaching a fair settlement. Although certain feudal elements remained in both, the implemented changes headed in the direction of self-correction, moreover, overcoming the estate system already before 1848. István H. Németh The Royal Representation and the Presence of the State in the Free Royal Towns in Hungary The study aims to present how the new urban policy changed in relation to the representation in the last third of the 17th century. The role of the state in the administration of the free royal towns became obvious from the last third of the 17th century. The free royal towns became more and more incorporated into the state administration and the royal commissioners appointed by the monarch embodied the monarch and the state power, which can be observed in the changes of the re-elections, and more importantly, in the changes of the power representation in the free royal towns. The study presents this background and especially these changes, with an outlook on the power representation that can be observed in the Hungarian towns in the 16—17th centuries. The focus of
