A Trio of Hungarian Balkanists: Béni Kállay, István Burián and Lajos Thallóczy in the Age of High Nationalism

Author: Okey R.

Source: The Slavonic and East European Review, Volume 80, Number 2, 1 April 2002 , pp. 234-266(33)

Publisher: Modern Humanities Research Association

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Abstract:

This article discusses three Hungarian scholar-politicians of the Dualist period, Béni Kállay, István Burián and Lajos Thallóczy, whose careers were linked through their Slavic interests and specifically through their role in the Austro-Hungarian administration of Bosnia-Herzegovina. It seeks to show how difficult it was in the age of nationalism even for the few who isolated themselves from their fellow countrymen through their interests in foreign cultures to escape the pull of national preoccupations and ambitions. In the case of the Hungarian Balkanists studied the dilemma was compounded by Dualism and the inherent difficulties of constructing a plausible Hungarian Balkan policy under the Habsburg aegis. The article also posits a passage from a (highly qualified) liberal nationalism of the mid-nineteenth century to what the writer calls the ‘high nationalism’ of the immediate pre-1914 decades, characterized by growing pessimism about reconciliation of different national interests, expressing itself in the cases studied in its protagonists' relations with Serbdom.

Language: English

Document Type: Research article

Affiliations: 1: The University of Warwick

Publication date: 2002-04-01

More about this publication?

The Review is the oldest British journal in the field, having been in existence since 1922. Edited and managed by the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, it covers not only the modern and medieval languages and literatures of the Slavonic and East European area, but also history, culture, and political studies.