In the Address by the Hungarian Parliament and Demands of the Hungarian People, many requests are made for political freedom. The author of this work gives the Hungarian government many reasons why these people deserve their freedom. The author says, “we are likewise of opinion that the time has arrived for granting political rights to the people.” Along with reasons why they should get political freedom, the work gives the 12 demands of the Hungarian citizens. Do you think that Hungary would be able to carry out all of the requests if they were supported enough? Which do you think would come into play the easiest? Which of the demands do you think would be the hardest for Hungary to carry out?
Making the Modern World: Europe in the 19th Century
Liberalism and socialism and imperialism, oh my!
Reviewing the twelve demands of the Hungarian people gives insight into what the priorities were during the revolution of 1848, something that you mentioned about is that the document is arguing for the people’s political freedom and that ultimately correlates with many of the demands that follow, like “a responsible ministry with its seat in the capital” and “an annual parliament in Budapest” (420-421). This tells us that the revolution, at least from this perspective, was chiefly concerned with political and civil rights rather than economic goals which is only really addressed in the seventh demand “abolition of serfdom” (421) this is important because it shows who would benefit most from these ideas being implemented and therefore who might support them. Does political freedom directly benefit the lower working class citizen who is struggling to survive? Maybe but regardless, it probably wasn’t their first priority. This could potentially lead to a couple conclusions. That these policies were not supported by the majority of the people because they didn’t directly benefit them or if they were supported shows how much these more liberal ideas were popular at the time. Either way, it is interesting to try and evaluate these ideas on how practical they were. However, there is also the question of implementation, if the revolution had succeeded and then the following reforms were made, they would still run into problems with making sure ideas like “taxes to be paid by all” became realized since it was nobility and gentry who were at the time exempt from taxes and they might not be too happy with that kind of change.