Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 36. (1983)
BARANY, George: Széchényi, America, and Assimilation: An Ambiguous Legacy
194 George Bárány Széchenyi’s emotional third Academy adress was meant to aid his political struggle against Kossuth and his supporters, whose policies he deemed dangerous. Two months after the speech, Széchenyi published his Politikai Programm Töredékek [Fragments of a Political Program (1847)]. In this book-length polemical pamphlet Széchenyi accused Kossuth and the liberal opposition to which he had once belonged of pushing the nation into a violent political and social revolution and also of stirring up all the other nationalities against the Magyars S5). Insisting that the government had no longer intended to undermine the Magyar nationality by “amalgamating” Magyars with other ethnic groups or by infringing upon their constitution, but had embraced the cause of meaningful reforms, Széchenyi lent his support to the administration. Unlike in 1825, he regarded the prevalence of the opposition “in our present circumstances as an outright assassination of the fatherland” 36). To justify his changed attitude, Széchenyi claimed that the government had introduced “a wiser system of administration”, which resulted from the realization that it was impossible to transform Magyars into Germans or to deprive them of their constitution. Not quite consistently with his repeated expressions of doubt regarding Hungary’s future, he revealed his belief in “the possibility of Hungary’s immense evolution and the unmelt- able glaze of the Magyar race that can be polished to a most beautiful shine”. At the same time, he reminded extremists, intolerant and impatient magyarizers, that Hungary’s great kings of old had all relied on foreign tutors and advisors, and had tried to infuse foreign blood into the tender and as yet unstructured national element; moreover, Hungary lived in a “mixed” marriage with Austria, and the greater part of her inhabitants were non-Magyars 37). Personal prejudices and political motives greatly contributed to the inconsistencies and contradictions in Széchenyi’s human attitudes and policies. This can be seen from his idiosyncrasies regarding Kossuth, the Germans, and even more so, regarding the Jews. The London Rothschilds were Széchenyi’s lifelong bankers during his journeys to the West, whenever he needed money for machinery, household items, or parliamentary records for his private or public enterprises. The Vienna House, too, was involved in the financial backing of such major projects as the construction of the Chain Bridge and the flood regulation of the Tisza River3S). Yet at a * 38 as) Ibid. CLXIII—CCXVII, 671—679. See especially CLXXVIII—CLXXX, 719—722, 748, 768, 777—812. 38) Ibid. 710, 720, 724—730, 742, 747, 815, 825, 829—831. sq Ibid. 725, 730, 742—743. 38) I am grateful to Professor György Szabad for calling my attention to the commemorative plaque at the Buda bridgehead of the Chain Bridge, Budapest. For the Tisza regulation, see Széchenyi to Rothschild, June 27, 1846: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia Könyvtára, Levéltár, Budapest K 198/23; Széchenyi to the Archduke-Palatine Joseph, June 30, 1846 (with two enclosures): Magyar
