Antall József szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 69-70. (Budapest, 1973)
SZEMLE KÖNYVEKRŐL - Bödy, P: Joseph Eötvös and the Modernization of Hungary, 1840—1870 (Antall, József)
the decades of the Hungarian Risorgimento so rich in trials for men and nation — formulated the tasks lying ahead of the country and realized them as far as they could. The contemporary political scene in Hungary may have appeared as a motley of colours but it was blended by the programme of bourgeois transformation and national self-government, by the spirit of liberalism. By the 1840s the aims have become so commonly shared that neither conservatism nor radicalism were very far from classical liberalism either in method or in doctrine. Each of the periods had its leading personality; first István Széchenyi, then Lajos Kossuth, and finally Ferenc Deák. Despite their different character both Kossuth and Deák might be termed professional, "parliamentarian" politicians considering their ability to draw up a practical programme and to mobilize forces for its realization. But if one searches not for the statesmen of the limelight but for the political philosophers who left their imprint on the thinking of an age, who planted new ideas, planned political models, then probably Eötvös stands out as the greatest. He himself was aware of it when before the making of the Ausgleich he compared Deák's role with his own: "Why should he not play the lead when the play we are going to perform is mine!" Then it is by no means accidental that Body, who is at home in the study of political philosophy (and liberalism in particular) chose Eötvös as the subject of his essay. First he presents the political scene, the Hungary of the early 19th century, then the influence of European liberalism and "social Romanticism" on the formation of Eötvös's personality. The other formative elements were his parents, his education and his friends, including a mutually determinative childhood friendship with László Szalay, the great jurist and historian. Examining the role of Eötvös Ín the reform movement (1840—48) Body confronts the factors that determined the political situation, i.e. the central issues (feudal conditions, the relationship of the nobility and the serfs, outmoded political institutions, the position of Hungary within the Habsburg Empire, and the national tensions) with the endeavours of the liberal politicians aiming at the modernization of the country. The author successfully shows the influence of Tocqueville and Sismondi on their Hungarian followers, despite the fact that they conveyed the liberal criticism of a more advanced, "Industrial society" to a backward country struggling among feudal remnants. Eötvös and his friends (often called Hungarian doctrinairs) were responsive to the social questions, too, while their critical evaluation of the socialistic-communistic doctrines shows that they travelled in the mainstream of European liberal thought, although these problems appeared to be very distant, almost "futurological" ones even to the reformists engaged in practical politics. Eötvös entered the political arena in the 1840s with the aim of trying to apply the ideas derived from political philosophy to practice. He continued to serve this ideal until his death. He and his circle earned the name of centralists for their championing of a modern, central, parliamentarian-ministerial government in place of the outdated county system. This reformist programme can be discerned in Eötvös's novels and political writings, combining the rational arguments with an appeal to sentiment, and the same was served by his public II 1 *
