LOUIS KOSSUTH IN THE CONTEMPORARY SERB HISTORIOGRAPHY

Abstract

In the contemporary Serb historiography dealing with the 1848-1849 revolution and the historic events that followed, there are only limited number of academic articles dedicated exclusively to Louis Kossuth and his life. Kossuth is mostly presented in the Serbian historiography in a wider historic context or indirectly. Although he played an important role during the revolution and later when he developed the idea of cooperation of small peoples of the Central and Southeast Europe, monographs on Louis Kossuth as a historic figure are virtually non-existent in the Serbian historiography. The purpose of this article is to introduce writings of our historians about Kossuth by presenting events in which Kossuth played an important historic role. The 1848-1849 revolution, which was characterized not only by fighting against the archaic feudal system, but also by fighting for national emancipation, represents one of the crucial historic events in the history of the Habsburg Monarchy. Revolutionaries in Hungary lead by Kossuth started anti-Habsburg movement aiming to full independence of Hungary. However, the movement strongly objected that any national and political rights be given to minority peoples, as this would, in their opinion, result in the breakdown of the Hungarian state. Instead of recruiting minority peoples of the Monarchy to fight against reactionary politics of Vienna, Hungarians under Kossuth at head condemned and rejected all of their requests, which made them turn to Vienna. This is a reason why there was no agreement between Hungarians and minority peoples during the 1848-1849 movement. After the breakdown of the revolution, Kossuth withdrew to emigration and started to revise his politics. He came to the conclusion that Hungarians, who were in a rather difficult position, could oppose Habsburg Monarchy and other great powers only if they and other small peoples of the Central and the Southeast Europe establish a confederation. Hungarians in Hungary condemned his plans accusing him of breaking Hungarian territorial integrity, while other peoples were not satisfied with the offer and did not accept the plans. After the AustroHungarian Compromise of 1867, Kossuth continued to warn of catastrophic consequences of compromise with Habsburgs. Kossuth addressed the public for the last time during the Great Easter Crisis and in his speech he harshly criticized occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina being convinced that this would result in the war.