Századok – 1991

Tanulmányok - Varga J. János: Kollonich Lipót és az Einrichtungswerk V–VI/449

BERENDEZÉSI TERVEK A TÖRÖK KIŰZÉSÉNEK IDEJÉN 487 PROPOSALS FOR A NEW ADMINISTRATION OF HUNGARY IN THE PERIOD AROUND THE END OF THF, TURKISH RULir by Varga T. jano Summar By the time of the 1687/88 diet at Pozsony (Bratislava) the larger part of the country had already been liberated after a century and a half of Ibrkish rule. The outdated administrative and legal institutions, the old type of taxation and the old defence system were no more sutitable for the new demands of the state and the society, so there was an urgent need for reform. A committee of seven led by the bishop of Győr and former president of the Hungarian Chamber of Accounts, Kollonich Lipót was commissioned m July, 1688 to work out a project for the solution of the administrative, ecclesiastical, political, military and financial problems of the country. The committee made up of government officials prepared a project called the „Einrichtungswerk des Königreich Ungarn". Kollonich consulted leading Hungarian politicians and also foreigners working in Hungary. The most important of them was Palatine Esterházy Pál who put down his ideas concerning the „iustitiarium", „ecclesiasticum", „politicum", „militare", and „camerale" in his own handwriting in April, 1688. Five months after the submission of the proposal of the palatine Leopold I ordered a commission of the Estates to be set up at Pozsony led by Esterházy Pál and Széchényi György, archbishop of Esztergom to work out their own version. The project — called in Hungarian historiography the „Hungarian Einrichtungswerk" — was therefore closely connected with the one of the palatine, and was, indeed, based on it. Both reflect the attitude of the Hungarian Estates whishing to defend their own privileges and the independence of the country at the same time. Although the Vienna court did not agree with most of this project, the committee of Kollonich Lipót took it into consideration to a certain extent The bishop's project was finally submitted to the Crown Council in November, 1689. The authors of the memorandum started from the fact that Hungary was part of the Danubian monarchy of the Habsburgs and it followed from this that the materia] well-being of the large „hereditary province" had to be cared for just as the Bohemian and German territories had been taken care for by the Vienna government It was to the interest of the whole monarchy that the provinces should be self-sufficient, so Hungary was to be made self-supporting as well, the project went. For this purpose the administrative and the legal systems were to be separated, the laws were to be revised, the old feudal courts of appeal were to be replaced by new ones, new codes were to be introduced taking the principle of equality before the law into consideration, and the countiy was to bs repopulated and made wealthy again by the promotion of industry and commerce so that royal income could be extracted from it The authors of the project did not even refrain from curtailing the privileges of the nobility for the sake of a proportionate division of the tax burdens, and sharply criticized the imperial army garrisoned in Hungary and tormenting the people. The proposals of bishop Kollonich's committee did not become part of an official government programme either in 1689 or in the following years. Although it deserved a better lot, the project failed because of the resistance of the military circles it criticized and the nobility defending its privileges, as well as the unfavorable turn in foreign policy. (Emperor Leopold I was namely forced to wage war also at the Rhine following the French attack of 1689 and could not concentrate exclusively on the Tbrkish front.) However, the „Einrinchtungswerk" became deeply embedded in the thinking of the day and revealed the possibilities of the future, primarily as regards administration. This was why the members of the so-called Regular Committee could rediscover it after the diet of 1712-15 and contribute to the incorporation of some of its ideas into the statutes of 1723.