Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 36. (1983)
BARANY, George: Széchényi, America, and Assimilation: An Ambiguous Legacy
200 George Bárány tion protested the new by-laws of the Academy imposed on it by the Bach regime. In his scathing critique, Széchenyi condemned not only the new rules but the entire “insane theory of present-day statesmen” aimed at the “amalgamation and Germanization of the peoples of the Gesamtmonarchie” 53). Of particular interest is Széchenyi’s attitude toward the Jews during the Döbling period. Although he did not suggest that they be granted full civil rights, he seems to have accepted the idea of their emancipation on a restrictive basis, proposing freedom of marriage between Jews and non- Jews and the granting of full citizenship to Jews on payment of an indemnity fee similar to the redemption payment made by the former Magyar serfs. He also disapproved of the practice of making derogatory remarks about Jews who converted to Christianity S4). Széchenyi’s views and actions, insofar as they were known to the public, regained importance during the last three years of his life and, of course, after his death, when he became the pride of the Hungarian national Pantheon. His stand on the so-called Jewish question acquired new momentum following World War I, when the most influential historian of that period, Julius Szekfű55), used Széchenyi’s name to help consolidate the counter-revolutionary, anti-liberal, and anti-Semitic regime of Regent Nicholas Horthy. In his popular book Három nemzedék [Three Generations (1920)], Szekfű presented Széchenyi as a conservative reformer whose anti-assimilationist warnings fell on deaf ears in a liberal age of assimilation. This ideological justification of Hungary’s neo-conservative “Christian-National” government failed to do justice to Széchenyi’s intellectual roots in the eighteenth century enlightenment and nineteenth century liberalism, and also ignored his challenging ideas on assimilation’s historical role in the growth of nations. By confining the problem of assimilation to Széchenyi’s opposition to the complete emancipation of the Jews and by overlooking the broader Central European ethnic and social context in which his hero viewed the integrating of diverse elements into a body politic called a nation, Szekfű deprived Széchenyi’s thought of some of its most creative ingredients. Finally, by remaining silent about 5S) M a j 1 á t h Széchenyi levelei 3 718—720: Széchenyi to the Hungarian Academy, November 6, 1858. s4) Károlyi — Tolnai 3 589—592 (önismeret); Magyar Országos Levéltár Budapest Abszolutizmuskori Levéltár D 283 = K. K. Polizeiministerium Széchenyi Akten 5 (Kiss Márton elkobzott iratai) föl. 146, 153: Gondolattöredék. When sounded out by an agent of the Baron Solomon Rothschild whether the Viennese banker could be granted Hungarian citizenship (Indigenat), an indignant Széchenyi noted in his diary: ‘Als Jude! Er soll sich taufen lassen’, October 31, 1847: Viszota Széchenyi naplói 6 664. Like many Christian politicians before and after him, Széchenyi regarded conversion to Christianity to be the true and ultimate bona fide sign of Jewish assimilation. Cf. Jacob Katz From Prejudice to Destruction (Cambridge, Mass. 1980) passim. 55) Gyula Szekfű Három nemzedék [Three Generations] (Budapest 1920).
