Nation-Building and Contested Identities: Romanian & Hungarian ...

MÓNIKA BAÁRthey were lacking in originality: the fact that they were written in Hungarianseemed to overshadow the importance of the content.A significant part of Horváth’s articles discussed historiographicaltopics. Horváth repeatedly stressed that historical science and life couldnot be separated. Since the task of history-writing was to offer guidancefor the present, its cultivation could only be fruitful if the results filteredthrough life. History, if examined from a critical perspective, containssolutions for the problems of the present, as well as help to avoid the mistakesmade by our predecessors. Horváth’s programmatic declaration, anarticle entitled “Reflections on the theory of historiography” (1839), wasa word-by-word translation of the first chapter, “Die Aufgabe” fromWachsmuth’s five-volume Europäische Sittengeschichte (European Historyof Manners), which appeared in Leipzig between 1831 and 1837. TheWachsmuth-Horváth article advocated a program based on two fundamentalprinciples. First, historiography should not exclusively discuss thedeeds of the ruling elite, but should also examine the life of unprivilegedpeople:Those books which merely focus on the affairs of the royal court and governmentalbodies in a given country, are similar to a traveller who is willingto visit the highest circles only, and who prefers to get bored in coolmarble rooms instead of having a pleasant time in a cosy cottage. 11This statement recalls Schlözer’s view that history should no longer consistof biographies of kings, chronological notes of war, battles, changes inrule, reports of alliances or revolutions. Similarly, Carlyle’s opinion wasthat Phoenician mariners, Italian masons and Saxon metallurgists weregreater innovators in history than he, who first led his armies over theAlps. Second, Horváth declared that a descriptive historical methodshould be succeeded by a pragmatic/analytical approach, based on theprinciples of Hegelian dialectics. While these norms were fully observedin Horváth’s lifework, at a later stage he became disappointed with theHegelian system, which is obvious from his remark that “some of ourthinkers, having finished their studies at German universities, becamethe apostles of a hair-splitting speculative philosophy, especially of theextremely obscure system of Hegel.” 12In his inaugural lecture at the Kisfaludy Society, “Why is art sounfruitful in our days? Why is historiography abundant in masterpieces?”(1868), Horváth expressed a positive view of the historical writings of hisage. He argued that historiography managed to discover a notion that issuperior to all, i.e., the notion of humanity: “We do not simply write historyany more, but attempt to examine the philosophy of history as well.30