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# Changes in Government Policy

In the course of the political crisis that emerged in the late 1890s, the Hungarian government's policy toward national minorities became less and less liberal. The bourgeoisie gained in political influence; the socialist movement was expanding rapidly; and, in a development that brought repercussions abroad, the national minorities showed new and unexpected vigour in asserting their interests. All this served to end the comparative tranquillity that had characterized the 1880s. The last major reforms in the Dualist era responded to the bourgeoisie's concern for its Churches and thus aroused the conservative opposition of the nationalities. The debates in parliament over the relevant bills threatened to disrupt the traditional party alignments, which reflected contending approaches to constitutional issues.

Following the fall of the Wekerle government in 1895, a Transylvanian politician of modest wealth, Baron Dezső Bánffy, became prime minister. An orthodox defender of the 1867 Compromise, he aimed to improve relations between crown and parliament and to counter the political mobilization of the urban and rural working class. However, Bánffy resorted to a new political tactic; in order to placate nationalists who opposed his policy of accommodating Vienna, he openly promoted a more chauvinistic policy towards the minorities. For some fifteen years, this long-time follower of Tisza had dominated political life in northern Transylvania. In 1875, he had been appointed lord lieutenant of {3-695.} Belső-Szolnok County, and, after the administrative reorganization, he held the same function in the counties of Szolnok-Doboka and Beszterce-Naszód; in the process, he learned much about economic affairs, and about the nationality problem as well. By practicing a paternalistic form of repression that combined intolerant Magyarization and police methods, he incurred the hostility of educated Romanians and Saxons, and even Hungarians came to depict him as the 'pasha of Doboka.' In 1890, when Szapáry government reached an accommodation with the Saxons, Bánffy challenged the spirit as well as the letter of the law guaranteeing minority rights; the government tried to appease the minorities by dismissing him from office. Conversely, his appointment, five years later, as prime minister was construed as an attempt to intimidate the minorities. During his long tenure as lord lieutenant, Bánffy became convinced that the most urgent task was to weaken the nationalities' political organizations, bring their cultural institutions and Churches under state supervision, and generally speed up the process of Magyarization — all this without undermining the 1867 Compromise, and thus with the consent of the crown and the Austrian government.

His approach departed from the minority policies pursued by previous governments, which had followed liberal principles and refrained from imposing direct control over the political, cultural, and economic activities of Romanians and Saxons. Although these governments had promoted the Magyarization of schools and of local administration, they made only infrequent attempts to interfere in the activities of the nationalities' own organizations. The established practice was to legislate Magyarization and to avoid repressive measures as far as possible. Bánffy, however, considered that this approach was 'unsystematic and inconsistent' and looked for a more lasting solution. He wanted to deal with the problem in a more institutionalized and bureaucratic fashion. The government, in his view, had to monitor closely the national minorities' cultural and political activities, and to consistently apply nationalistic {3-696.} principles in legislation and administrative practice, as well as in its policies regarding economic, educational, and Church affairs. It was said at the time that Bánffy governed as if the whole country was a county populated by nationalities. In fact, he brought into the realm of national politics a forceful paternalism that hitherto had been largely confined — in accordance with the division of authority peculiar to Dualism — to the application of nationality policy at the county and local levels. In the process, he reinforced the centralizing tendencies that had been inherited from absolutism.

One of Bánffy's first initiatives was to establish, within the prime minister's office, a 'department of nationality affairs.' This agency was charged with supervising the regulatory process, monitoring socialist and minority movements, and developing the guidelines for policy toward the minorities. The department was headed by Sándor Jeszenszky, the onetime prosecutor in the Replica case; his chief political advisor was was Benedek Jancsó, an academic specialist in Romanian history and the Romanian nationality movement. In fact, Bánffy remained personally in charge of what was not so much a Transylvanian department as an office for Romanian affairs.

Bánffy was an artful tactician. He gave permission for a joint congress of the Serb, Slovak, and Romanian nationalities to be convened in Budapest. On 10 August 1895, this assembly adopted a resolution that endorsed Hungary's territorial integrity but also enumerated a number of grievances; it invited political recognition of the country's multinational character and introduction at the county level of autonomous institutions for the nationalities. The congress named a joint coordinating committee but, just as the government anticipated, the efforts at cooperation brought meagre results. The minority leaders occasionally exchanged notes and held meetings, and they voiced some protests against celebrations on the occasion of the Hungarian state's millennium. From the start, Serb politicians were reluctant to engage in activism; in the Romanian {3-697.} party, only one faction favoured an assertive approach; and the police took measures to constrain their eventual, feeble initiatives. The initially promising experiment ended in failure.

The Romanian national movement was debilitated by an internecine dispute that will be related further on. The memorandum trial had momentarily galvanized both the government and the public, but eventually came to be regarded on all sides as a fiasco. In early September 1895, Bánffy invoked this conclusion, as well as the emperor's express wish, to obtain cabinet approval for a pardon for memorandum defendants who were still in prison. In any event, Romanian nationalists were growing weary of lawsuits that 'manufactured martyrs.' The tide turned also in Romania, where the Liberal Party, which exerted a growing influence over the Romanian movement in Transylvania, came to power. Its leader, Sturdza, repudiated his earlier position by formally pledging loyalty to the Austro–Hungarian monarchy in the so-called Iaşi apology of 13 October 1895. He vowed that he would abstain from interfering in the 'internal affairs of neighbouring countries, and in particular of the Austro–Hungarian monarchy': since the monarchy, 'as it stands, is essential for the preservation of equilibrium in Europe' and of Romania's security, it was desirable to put an end to 'all misunderstandings and disputes' between Hungarians and Romanians.[61]61. T. Maiorescu, Istoria contemporană a României (Bucharest, 1917), pp. 332-7; B. Jancsó, A román irredentista mozgalmak, p. 229. Sturdza suspended most of the aid that Bucharest had been 'secretly' providing to Romanian Churches and cultural institutions in Transylvania, and he instructed his favoured group, the Tribunists, to tone down their agitation. Thus Bánffy and Sturdza adopted a somewhat similar, and in some respects cooperative approach to the Romanian movement in Transylvania. This gave rise to a peculiar situation: since Sturdza was susceptible to diplomatic pressures, the Budapest government developed a strong interest in keeping him, the principal trustee of Romanian nationalism, in power.

There is little information about the shifts in Bucharest's support for the Romanian party in Transylvania, but in 1896, the latter's {3-698.} principal backer, the Liga Culturală, suffered a split from which it did not recover for several years. The schism, and the debilitation of Romanian politics in Transylvania, were commonly blamed on Sturdza, who took a comfortable approach to the task of government. Earlier, the Romanian schools and Churches in Transylvania had received considerable aid, amounting to some 150,000–200,000 crowns a year, from Bucharest. Only the Greek Orthodox high school in Brassó and its associated schools continued to receive financial aid, and this only because the proposed cuts — which the administration tried to handle in an unobtrusive manner — became publicly known and grist to the mill of partisan politics. In dealing with Transylvania's Romanians, Bánffy and his associates exploited the information obtained from Sturdza, and thus exposed him to the fury of the opposition parties, which accused him of betraying the minority and tried to engineer his downfall. Bánffy artfully managed to exculpate Sturdza from charges of treason, but, under pressure from the latter and the monarchy's joint foreign ministry, he allowed the Brassó school to continue receiving a foreign subsidy that was patently illegal. It was agreed in principle that the Romanian government would deposit a capital sum in Budapest, and that the annual interest (36,086 crowns) would be allocated by the Hungarian government to the school in Brassó. Sheltered by Church autonomy and supported by both government and opposition in Bucharest, that prestigious secondary school could thus survive; indeed, it scored a victory over the Hungarian government, since the Romanian subsidy freed it from Hungarian state support and thus from effective government supervision. 'Dear Sándor! I think we have been thoroughly outmanoeuvred by the Romanians,' wrote Culture Minister Wlassics to the head of the nationalities department.[62]62. Minutes of 31 January 1899, OL, Miniszterelnökség, 1907. XLI, 1138-1724-1725.

The Bánffy government pursued a double tactic in its attempt to bring schools and the Churches under state supervision. First, it sought to persuade the Churches and municipalities — which had {3-699.} difficulty in covering even the modest emoluments of teachers — to accept the state's financial aid. Fearing for their autonomy, the Romanians tried in various ways to avoid this option. 'Acting voluntarily or under pressure from [Church] authorities, some teachers solemnly declared that they would not lay claim to the prescribed, higher salaries.'[63]63. Report of János Sándor, lord lieutenant of Kis-Küküllő County, 13 April 1896. OL, Miniszterelnökség, 1907. XLI, 1138-1896, 448 res/310. In other places, the local goverment would pretend that it had disbursed the prescribed salaries, although it lacked the means to do so. Bánffy thereupon instructed county administrators to impose a higher 'culture tax' (which in Arad, for instance, amounted to 70–100 percent of the wealth tax), and thereby compel local authorities to accept the government subsidy. In the event, the stratagem backfired, for 'the Church authorities effectively gave up financial responsibility for the schools, leaving the state to collect the necessary funds, and refusing to involve themselves in that task.'[64]64. Ibid.

The Bánffy government planned also to establish an agency that would exercise the royal prerogative of monitoring the assets, finances, and foundations of the two Romanian Churches. 'This is the only way to block the inflow aid from Romania,' wrote Bánffy, 'and simultaneously to bind the Church and clergy, which enjoy great influence among Romanians, more closely to the state and the government.'[65]65. Bánffy's letter to Wlassics, 31 January 1899. OL, Miniszterelnökség. 1907, XLI, 1138; 1898, IV, 569-1699. In the event, he failed to set up even a more modest version of this agency, one that would oversee the application of 'higher state priorities' with respect to the Romanians' Greek Orthodox schools.

The legislation (Act IV, 1898) 'on the names of municipalities and other localities' was typical of the attempts at Magyarization. The act declared that municipalities could only bear a single name, to be determined by the interior ministry; the goal was to ensure that these place-names 'come into general and exclusive use not only in an official context but in the public sphere.' Saxons and Romanians were outraged at the requirement that all levels of government apply only the Hungarian place-name in documents, maps, {3-700.} and signs. They were scarcely mollified by the concession that the minority-language version could be appended in schoolbooks and school documents, and by the fact that private firms, being free to choose the language of business, could also dislay non-Hungarian place-names.

In fact, there was more smoke than fire to Bánffy's forceful polilcy toward national minorities. The latter's political movements had little trouble in surviving the occasional police investigation and other administrative measures. The Saxons were, as ever, unshakeable, and even the Romanian leaders soon recovered from the new wave of harassment. Meanwhile, Bánffy failed to attain his most crucial objective, which was to unite Hungary's ruling class behind his policy of constraining the nationalities and socialists; the conflicts within that class were too sharp to allow for a lasting alliance in support of a policy that was none too promising. In 1899, during the decennial parliamentary review of commercial relations with Austria, the opposition Independence party accused Bánffy of betraying the national interest. This attack, together the the growth of anti-liberal tendencies, compelled Bánffy — the first Transylvanian to serve as prime minister of Hungary — to resign in February 1899. His departure indirectly caused the fall of Sturdza's government as well. An anonymous pamphlet had defended Bánffy's nationalities policy by alleging that his treatment of Transylvanian Romanians enjoyed the tacit support of the Bucharest government and even of King Charles. When it became known that the pamphlet had been penned by Benedek Jancsó, a man close to the prime minister and therefore a reliable source, the Romanian opposition once again accused Sturdza of treason. In April 1899, when street demonstrations in Bucharest led to bloodshed, the Romanian prime minister resigned.

Hungary's new prime minister, Kálmán Széll, did not adopt the methods of his predecessor. A master of negotiation and compromise, he heralded a new era — or more precisely, a return to the {3-701.} cleaner style of government identified with Deák and Eötvös — with the slogan 'rights, law, and justice.' In 1901, after the governing party had won the support of agrarian interests, Széll called free elections. The national minorities, for their part, considered that the time had come to return to parliamentary politics. They were encouraged by the dissolution of Jeszenszky's department for nationalities (a step that owed partly to foreign policy considerations) and the attenuation of petty harassment by the police, as well as by the settlement of the Brassó high school's subsidy problem; the preliminary agreement, reached between Bánffy and Bucharest, was confirmed by both Széll and Romania's new, conservative government.

From the turn of the century onward, the nationalities problem came to be treated less as a police matter and more as a primary, daily concern of the government. Although the latter was increasingly disposed to find a lasting solution, it delayed taking action for several years in order to deal with the growing crisis of the Dualist system. The government did take some initiatives that promised to benefit the Hungarian ethnic community in Transylvania. Plans were drawn up to improve the credit system and expand the cooperative movement in the region, and steps were taken to implement a settlement policy based on socio–ethnic principles. The most significant initiative, already noted in connection with economic development, was the holding of a Székely congress, in 1902, at Tusnád. The meeting, attended by local notables as well as representatives of the government, produced a comprehensive program for economic development in Székelyföld. Later, the Romanians registered a demand for similar government assistance in some of their less prosperous districts.