The Sun.
London, England, 1860-03-15 00:00:00

HUNG AP T: NE WS P
•
A letter from Pesth, dated M
t is really astonishing to see
zrian Government understand th(fe
subjects, and especially of the Ht•
Prince Schwarzenberg, Count
now Baron, Bach, resolved to bre
with the established rights of the differeit p, _
the Austrian monarchy, and to 'weld Hungary.,
Croatia, and Transylvania—which in 1804, at the
creation of the Austrian empire were formerly
excepted from it, and continued to remain only in a
personal union with the other provinces—into a
new, one and indivisible realm, they really believed
that as soon as the Hungarian movement would
be put down by force of arms, all the inhabitants
who speak the German language, or are of German
descent, would become the supporters of the new-
fangled centralised system of administration.
Having for many years given the largest circula-
tion to the fabrication that the Hungarian op-
presses the German, the Croat, and the Wallachian,
the Austrian officials at last believed the calumny'
invented by themselves, and were therefore puzzled
to see that neither the Slavonic nor the German
population, neither Croat nor -Wallachian, were
content with the abolition of the Hungarian con-
stitutions, with the Austrian officials, and with the
new territorial divisions, and that the complete
uniformity of the Austrian code, superseding not
only the Hungarian but likewise the German
common law, which in the Saxon land of
Transylvania, in some districts in the county
Szepey, in all the German towns had
peaceably flourished under the Hungarian consti-
tution, was looked upon as a gigantic injustice.
Surprised by such a result, and seeing especially that
the Germans in Hungary make everywhere comment
cause with the Hungarians, they try now to create
an animosity between the different populations of
Hungary, and to rekindle the extinguished fires of
national hatred which did them such excellent ser-
vice in 1818 and 1819. A warm lithographed
appeal to the patriotic feelings of the German in-
habitants of Hungary has lately been extensively
circulated ; it is anonymous, and comes by post to
every man of note or influence who bears a German
name ; the papers are prohibited to print or to men-
tion it, but the Government officials are busy in
spreading it. The author is M. Witt, who calls
himself Von Dorring—in 1819 a German conspira-
tor, in 1821 a carbonaro, for eight years a political
prisoner, and since a paid member of the Austrian
police, lately entrusted with the editorship of the
semi-official Donau Zeitung. He advances the theory
that descent constitutes nationality, that to give up
the ancestral language is akin to the crime of parri-
cide, and that Germany has therefore the right of
claiming the allegiance of her sons even after cen-
turies of emigration in any foreign country. He
upbraids the Germans of-Hungary. for wearing the
Hungarian costume, for speaking the Hufigarian
language, and for dancing the Hungarian.
dance. He reminds them that Hungary can-
not maintain a separate existence and must
be crushed either by Russia or by Germany, and
therefore invites the Germans to assist rather
the Austrian Government in this work, the'
by their opposition to postpone the crushing
process to a time when Russia will perform it.
This appeal had no influence whatever on the Ger-
imns ; they receive it with laughter mixed with
indignation. Many of them have for centuries past
become so identified with Hungary that nothing
but their name is German ; others find it rather bold
of M. Witt to advocate a theory according to which
not only Mr. Buchanan, the President of the United
States, owes still his allegiance to Scotland, and
accordingly to Queen Victoria, but which actually
makes the Emperor Francis Joseph of Lorraine a
Frenchman. The German poets, Chamisso and 1)e
La Motto Fouque, are, of course, guilty of a crime
akin to parricide, and Necker and Guizot have be-
trayed Switzerland by becoming Frenchmen. The
English nation ought to look closely, upon the
Bermes, and the Lussians upon the Nesselrodes
and Adlersbers, lest they should betray, as they are
bound to do by M. Witt's reasoning, their present
country to their real Fatherland. It is scarcely
worth while to waste time in refuting this absurd
circular, which betrays the ignorance and political
childhood of the man to whom the semi-official
organ of the Government is entrusted. But since
I see that the German press in general is apt to
misunderstand the principle of nationality, and to
restrict it to persons speaking the same language,
and being of the same descent, it is not un-
necessary to say a few words on this ques-
tion. Nationality means neither community
of laiie°uage nor a common origin, or else the
United States and England would be one and
the same nationality, and Switzerland would have
no nationality whatever ; the Alsatians would feel
themselves Germans not French, and the Channel-
Islanders, Frenchmen not English. In Hungary
we understand the principle of nationality as com-
prising the identity of interests and community of
history and of institutions, within a clearly-defined,
well-bounded territory, making it necessary to all
the inhabitants to stand by one another, or to be
conquered by foreigners, who have interests dif-
ferent from ourselves; who do not care for consti-
tutional government ; whose centre of gravity does
not fall within our country ; who do not respect
our traditions, our historical development, our
standing in universal history. Thus was nationality
understood with us for all the centuries past. Our
nobility is not of exclusive Magyar descent ; we
have Germans, and Serbs, and Italians, and Wal-
lachians, and Poles, and Slovacks, among them.
In 1849, when all Europe believed that our war
was an exclusively Magyar movement, our Minis-
ter of Finance, M. Dessek, was a Croat; the
Minister of Justice, M. Vunkovich, a Serb ; the
commander of the Transylvanian army, General
Bem, a Pole ; and among the thirteen generals mur-
dered by the Austrians at Arad we find a Count
Leiningen and Baron PCltenberg, Generals Lanner
and Aulich, of German descent, and Daeaianich,
a Serb ; but all of them as good Hungarian
patriots as the Kiss, Dessewffys, Kazinczys, Nagy,
Sandors, Vecseys, &c., who sanctioned the gallows
by their martyrdom. All the country, from the
Castle of laveny to the Red Tower, and from the
Carpathians to the Adriatic, is called fatherland
by the Magyar and the Slovach, the Serb and Croat,
the Wallachian and German, living between these
landmarks ; it :is their home on the Danube as
well as on the Save, on the Transylvanian Car-
pathians as on the seacoast of the Quarnero. It is
for this whole country and not for a portion of it,
that the Croat Zrinyis and Juarnichs, the Serb
Zinizsys, the Magyar Binthorys and Zapolyns, the
Hunyedys and Batthyanyis shed their blood—their
names are sacred to the Croat as well as to the
Mae7;ar. Even when the bigotry and narrow-
minded policy of the Austrian house led to the tem-
porary separation of Transylvania, the Princes of
that province always listened to the grievances of
their Hungarian brethren, and seven times within
a century came to the aid of their oppressed fellow-
patriots, made war for the rights of Hungary
against the Austrian despots, and never sheathed
their swords before the Emperor promised to re-
spect the constitution and religious liberty of all
Hungary. The bonds which unite Hungary,
Croatia, and Transylvania, with all their inhabi-
tants, have been cemented by a common history
for eight centuries, and even now prove more effi-
cient than the promises from Vienna and the agita-
tilia fostered by the Jellachichs, Mayerhofers, sad
Urhans.