"Slovenian" Space in Hungary After the Restoration of Constitutional Life. The Characteristics of (Non)democratisation and (Non)pluralisation on the Left Bank of the River Mura (1861-1918)

Abstract

In the following contribution the author analyses the "Slovenian part" of Hungary after the restoration of the constitutional life in the Habsburg Monarchy in the light of democracy and democratisation of society, when nationalism kept increasingly asserting itself in the political life. The author demonstrates that nationalism was far slower to affirm itself among the "Slovenians" on the left bank of the river Mura as among those on the right bank. The link between both banks has existed since the 1860s and was "established" by the Slovenian intellectuals from Carniola and Styria, who were actually only getting to know the people on the other side of Mura. In the time of democratisation, the developments were different in Hungary as in the Austrian part of the Monarchy. If before the turn of the century the Cisleithanian Slovanians acquired certain rights and "transformed" their initial unification policy into a modern plural political party life (in Carniola in the beginning of the 1890s and in Styria after the turn of the century), the "Slovenians" in Hungary have not organised themselves politically until the very dissolution of the double monarchy. Instead they were largely left to the Hungarian national "wave". Only after World War I can we really start talking about the linguistic and cultural unity of the Slovenians from the Prekmurje region with the other Slovenians.