The Hungarian Historical Review, a peer-reviewed scholarly journal of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, invites articles for its thematic issue on the history of nineteenth-century Hungarian political thought. The thematic issue will publish original articles and historiographical essays on Hungarian political thought in the late Enlightenment and early nineteenth century (the so-called Reform Age), the period of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise, and the economic and social boom of the Dualist Era. In particular, we welcome comparative essays that explore the development of Hungarian political thought in comparison with similar debates among other political or cultural elites of the Habsburg Empire (e.g. German, Croatian, Czech, Polish, or Romanian). Proposals that address similar developments among other national elites and the imperial center will be also considered.
Relevant research questions include:
– Can one speak of distinct eras of constitutional thought divided by periods of Habsburg absolutism, or do these debates represent continuity in political thinking? To what extent can nineteenth-century Hungarian political thought be seen as an organic, continuous development? Is it better understood as a set of individual reform movements isolated from one another by political repression or by the centralised power of the Viennese court?
– To what degree can Enlightenment ideas be used as interpretative tools to understand political ideas and debates in the 1790s about constitutional reforms?
– To what extent can these ideas be assessed as the direct predecessors to the discourses of the Reform Age in the second quarter of the nineteenth century?
The journal welcomes case studies that examine whether continuity or discontinuity should be seen as the determining factor in political and ideological developments related to constitutional thought.
The thematic issue will go beyond the frames of national history, strictly understood, and welcomes proposals that attempt to situate Hungarian political thought in a regional context. We are particularly interested in inquiries that address the following questions:
– How did political thinking and constitutional ideas among the Viennese elite shape the Hungarian debates?
– To what extent and by what means were works of contemporary political thought in Europe (and specifically in Central Europe) circulated and appropriated in Hungary? To what extent were the individual products of Hungarian political thought original and indigenous? Who were the most widely read foreign authors, and how were they interpreted or translated? What was the role of censorship in the reception?
– How was the role of the state conceived in these debates?
We encourage proposals that adopt interdisciplinary perspectives and methodologies and aim to rethink the state-of-the-art, including historiographical problems (such as the problem of periodization, the challenges of using the terminology of present-day political science in interpretations of nineteenth-century debates, and the impact of historical teleology).
We provide proofreading for contributors who are not native speakers of English.
Please send an abstract of no more than 500 words and a short biographical sketch, together with a brief biography and a selected list of three publications (we do not accept CVs).
Proposals should be submitted to the organizers by email:
hunghist@btk.mta.hu
For further information visit the website.