Discussion

READ THESE GUIDELINE5!

Completion: Students ore responsible for completing all fourt een of these primory source exercises ond for onswering oll guesfions in o given exercise. Posts will be groded for guolity ond length. No lote posts will beaccepted.

Formot: Complel e sentences ond occurote grommor are required. ff you do use direct guototions, you must provide proper in-text citotions - see our oddendum for detoils.

Originolity: Do not repeot the some informotion onother student hos olreody posted - odd something new to secure os mony points os possiblel Breoking ground eorly moy be odvontogeous. Eleventh hour posts thot simply restote moterial olreody discussed will not secure the highest scores. Cutting ond posting from on internet source does not guolify os completing an exetcise.

Student Replies: Replying to, or oddressing,onother student's post is encouroged ond is o gneot woy to moke certoin you're not simply nepeoting informotion ond

losing points for redundoncy. Respectful debate is welcomed.

Word Count: Posts must meet the 2OO-word minimum to eorno possing score ("C"). Quolity posts thot exceed this minimum length will secure points thot proportionolity exceed the minimum possing grode. For instonce, quolity posts of 300 words or more eorn "B's" while guolity posts of 400 words or more secure "A's." But guolity is better than guontity! 5o o greot post with 200 words will do well. This is not on occosion for tersereplies. Contextuolize the guestions inyour chopter reodings.

Lgos Kossuth on Democracy and Hungarian Nationalism

Lalos (Louis) Kossuth (1802- 1894) was a lawyer and journalist who em as a leader of Hungarian nationalists inerged the Austrian Habsburg E,mpire during the 1848 revolution. He briefly became the governor of an independent government but was t'orced to f lee when Russlan armies, supporting the Austrian Habsburgs, put an end to the revolution. At'ter a short stay in Turhey, the U nited States government invited Kossuth to visit. During his visit to United States, he embarhed on a successful speaking tour in which he was celebrated as a fervent supporter ofThis text comes t'rom a speech he made bet'ore a banquet ot' journalists in New york City.

! ut happy art thou, free i nation of America, ! founded on the only ! solid basis, -libertyl ! 1... ] Tyrantsare not in

common freedom or common oppres- sion: -all this enters into the complex idea of Nationality.

That this is instinctively felt by the common sense of the people, nowhere is more manifestly shown than at this moment in my native land. Hungary was declared by Francis-Joseph of Austria no more to exist as a Nation, no more as a state. lt was and is put under martial law. Strangers, aliens to our laws and history as well as to our tongue, rule now where our fathers lived and our brothers bled. To be a Hungarian is become almost a crime in our own native land. Well: to justify before the world the extinction of Hungary, the partition of its territory and the reincorporating of the dissected limbs into the common body of servi- tude, the treacherous dynasty was anx- ious. to show that the Hungarians are in a minority in their own land. They hoped that intimidation and terrorism would induce even the very Magyars to dis- avow their language and birth. They ordered a census of races to be made. They performed it with the iron rule of martial law; and dealt so arbitrarily that thousands of women and men, who pro- fessed to be Magyars, who professed not to know any other language than the I\z1agyar, were, notwithstanding all their protestations, put down as Sclaves [sic], Serbs, Germans, or Wallachians, because their names had not quite a Hungarian

sound. And still wh at was the issue this malignant plot? That of the millions of inhabitants of H proper, the Magyars turned out to more than eight millions, some two lions more than we know the case is. The people instinctively felt that tyrant had the design through the text of language to destroy the of the complex nation, and it met tyrannic plot as if it answered, ,,We

and must be, a nation; and if the takes language only for the mark nationality, then we are all Magyars.,,

the midst of you to throw the apple of discord and raise hatred in this national family, -hatred of races, that curse of humanity, that venomous ally of despo- tism. Glorious it is to see the oppressed of diverse countries, -diverse in lan- guage, history, habits, -wandering to these shores and becoming members of this great nation, regenerated by the principle of common liberty.

lf language alone makes a nation, then there is no great nation on earth: for there is no country whose popula- tion is counted by millions, but speaks more than one language. No! lt is not language only. Community of interests, of rights, of duties, of history but chiefly community of institutions; by which a population, varying perhaps in tongue and race, is bound together through daily"infercourse in the towns, which are the centers and home of commerce and industry: -besides these, the very mountain-ranges, the system of rivers and streams, -the soil, the dust of which is mingled with the mortal remains of those ancestors who bled on the same field, for the same interests, the com- mon inheritance of glory and of woe, the community of laws and institutions,

Source: Francis W. Newman, ed.,Speechesof Kossuth (London: Trubner, 1853), pp.62-65.

Questions for Analysis 7. What does Kossuth admire about

political culture of the United

2. How does he define a ,,nation,,?

does he reject using language as primary criterion for determir membership in a nation?

3. What does Kossuth's example national census taken by the government tell us about the kinds of institutions that states developed in response rise of nationalism?

706 I cHnnrrn zr Reyolutions and Nation Building, lg4L_jg7 j

-

An alyzing Primary Sources