The Creation of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy

Recent collection of essays discusses the historical event and the multifarious consequences of the 1867 Compromise (Ausgleich, Settlement), conducted between the Habsburg monarch, Francis Joseph and the Hungarian political ruling class. The whole story has usually been narrated from a plainly Cisleithanian viewpoint. The present volume, the product of Hungarian historians, gives an insight into both the domestic and the international historical discourses about the Dual Monarchy. It also reveals the process of how the 1867 Compromise was conducted, and touches upon several of the key issues brought about by establishing a constitutional dual state in place of the absolutist Habsburg Monarchy. The emphasis is laid not on describing and explaining the path leading to the final and "inevitable" break-up of the Dual Monarchy, but on what actually held it together for half a century. The local outcomes of self-maintaining mechanisms were no less obvious in the Hungarian part of the Dual Monarchy, despite the many manifestations of an overt adversity toward it. The Creation of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy will appeal to historians dealing especially with 19th-century European history, and is also essential reading for university students.

Gábor Gyáni, Professor Emeritus at Research Centre for Humanities Institute of History and Lóránd Eötvös University Budapest, and member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He is social historian with a particular interest in the urban world, mentality history and historical theory.

Introduction. Hungary's Contribution to the Creation of Austro-Hungarian Monarchy Part 1: Experience, Memory and Historiography 1. From Concession to Catastrophe? On the Relationship Between the 1867 Compromise and Trianon 2. The Symbolic World of 1867 3. Nation State Building with "Peaceful Equalizing" and the Hungarian Historical Consciousness 4. Long Swings in the Historiography of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy Part 2: Ideas and Institutions 5. Who is the Father of the Compromise? 6. Between Patriotism and Ethnicity. Hardships of Defining the Modern Concept of a Hungarian Nation at the mid-19th Century 7. Parallel Nation-Building in Transylvania and the Question of the Unification with Hungary prior to 1867 8. The Compromise and the Potentials of the Constitutional Politics in Hungary Part 3: Emancipation and Identity 9. Jewish Emancipation as a Compromise 10. The Influence of the Compromise on the Spirit of Ballhaus-platz. The Formation of the Foreign Affairs Officials' National Identity Part 4: Economic Consequences 11. Spatial Inequalities and Unbalanced Development in Hungary in the Dualist Era 12. Austrian and Hungarian Imperial Ambitions. Race and Cooperation in the Maritime Commerce, 1867-1914