Over the past generation numerous studies on intermediate governing bodies in Early Modern Europe have tended to undermine traditional “Absolutist” paradigms, and have led increasingly to a reevaluation of the significance of Estates and Diets. In the case of the Habsburg Monarchy during the eighteenth century, recent studies such as those of William Godsey for Lower Austria have shown that even in crown lands where the balance of power increasingly tilted to the crown during the course of the century the Estates continued to play a crucial role, particularly in financial matters. No Diet in all the crown lands, however, could match the political clout of that of the Kingdom of Hungary, which in many ways set the stage for Austro-Hungarian dualism in the next century.
For a body of such significance, work on it in international scholarship has been relatively slim. Hence all scholars of the Habsburg Monarchy should welcome this volume by István Szijártó, whose herculean labors over the past thirty years have been focused intensely on the Hungarian Diets of the eighteenth century. He has written numerous articles in scholarly journals and essay collections over this period and is the author of two large scale studies on the subject. His A diéta: A magyar rendek és az országgyűlés, 1708–1792 (The Diet: The Estates and the Parliament of Hungary, 1708–1792, Budapest, 2006/Keszthely, 2010), was a detailed analysis of the composition, structures, mechanisms, procedures, and personnel of the Hungarian Diet in that century. If the careers of specific individuals played a relatively minor role in this volume, Szijártó's next major study, submitted to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in pursuit of the prestigious title of “Doctor of the Academy” in 2017, Emberek és struktúrák a 18. századi Magyarországon. A politikai elit társadalom- és kultúrtörténeti megközelítésben (People and Structures in 18th century Hungary: The Political Elite in a Social and Cultural Historical Approach) remedied that. This work, expected to be published shortly as A diéta II (The Diet II), is focused primarily on the national and county elites in the decision-making process, relying in part on extensive discourse analysis. In the meantime, Sijártó took the findings of both these voluminous works and distilled them into the concise A 18. századi Magyarország rendi országgyűlése. (The Parliament of 18th-century Hungary, Budapest, 2016). The volume under consideration here is a translation (with some minor revisions) of this shorter work.
In addition to providing basic information and data on the Diet as an institution, Szijártó argues that the entire period from the 1711 Peace of Szatmár to the beginning of the French Revolutionary wars in 1792 was an era of dualism between the crown and the estates. The Diet was less a legislative body than a forum “at which a bargain was struck between the ruler and the country” (177). In the early part of the century, the bicameral body was dominated by the aristocracy in the upper house, but by the end of the period the gentry in the lower house became the dominant political force. Szijártó traces this political development “back to a social process”: the emancipation of the gentry from the large land-owning aristocracy to become “an independent, then dominant political force” (294). This shift in the power relationship was also driven in part by the agenda of the Diets. Initially confessional disputes between the Catholic majority and the Protestant minority dominated the debates, but when these were removed from the diet sessions in 1729, issues of tax increases and the protection of noble privileges became the dominant themes. Szijártó shows how as the century drew to its end it was these “constitutional questions” that dominated the political debates. But as these were regarded matters of principle, they left little room for bargaining and compromise. The “sharpening of divisions” that resulted was reflected not only in the institutional history of the diet and in the political decisions of its deputies “but also at the level of their discourse” (263).
While this is without question an extremely valuable contribution to the international scholarship on the Habsburg Monarchy in the eighteenth century, particularly for non-Hungarian speakers, its scope can only partially reflect the richness of detail in Szijártó's larger Hungarian works. It thus serves well as an introduction but may leave some readers dissatisfied on specific issues addressed in any given Diet. Given the topical approach throughout, the volume certainly would have profited from a more detailed index, which, while relatively thorough on names is desultory on subjects. Finally, an eight-page concluding historiographical essay might better have been integrated into the introduction in line with current international practices.
