Századok – 2013
A MAGYAR TÖRTÉNELMI TÁRSULAT 2012. ÉVI VÁNDORGYŰLÉSE - Paksy Zoltán: A konzervativizmus társadalomtörténete Zala megyében III/655
687 kommunista retorikája megszólította azokat a konzervatív szavazókat, akikben még élt a politikai katolicizmus hagyományos antikommunista, baloldal-ellenes attitűdje. Az 1990-es évek végére rögzültek és a választók előtt világossá váltak a pártok politikai koncepciói, közte a jobboldal vezérpártjának néppárti, a különböző konzervatív-jobboldali irányzatok igényeit egyszerre kielégíteni kívánó politikája, s ennek eredményeként válhatott — felelevenítve a történelmi hagyományokat — az 1998-as választás óta e pártszövetség országosan legerősebb bázisterületévé a Nyugat-Dunántúl, s benne Zala megye. THE SOCIAL HISTORY OF CONSERVATIVISM IN THE COUNTY OF ZALA by Zoltán Paksy (Summary) A KONZERVATIVIZMUS TÁRSADALOMTÖRTÉNETE ZALA MEGYÉBEN From the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, the county of Zala was regarded as one of the headquarters of noble opposition to the Habsburg ruler. The foundation of this political stance was provided by the traditional gravaminal policy of the nobility, which focussed on the defence of noble privileges and of the Hungarian constitution. In the so-called reform era this policy allied itself with the program of the new force, the liberals led by Ferenc Deák, who aimed to use resistance to an arbitrary ruler to deconstruct the feudal constitution. The county, however, was by no means turned into a liberal institution; the conservatives continued to form the majority there throughout, and only the political genius of Deák was able to drive them in the right direction. The conservative political program of the nobility survived into the second half of the 19th century, when it went on to defend its position against the liberal extension of the constitution as well. The political elite constituted by the successors of the common nobility (Hung, köznemesség) regarded themselves as the only authentical representative of Hungarian constitutionalism and nationalism, and this view enjoyed the support of the peasantry as well, which made up the majority of local society. This is apparent from the program and aims of the Catholic Populist Party, which was widely influential in the county in the 1890s, and can be regarded as the major representative of political Catholicism and agrarianism. Deafeat in WW I, the traumas of Trianon and of the Communist coup of 1919, pushed this policy further to the right: while preserving the main elements of its previous program, it became increasingly characterised by a resistance to the democratic extension of rights, by hostility to liberalism and the left, and by antisemitism. The survival over the generations of this political orientation can also be observed after 1945, when at the elections of 1945, 1947 and 1990, those parties obtained the majority of votes which represented recognisably the program outlined above among drastically altered historical circumstances.
