The History of European Ideas has published Gábor Gángó’s study on 19^th-century doctrinaire liberalism in Hungary.

The study entitled “Constitutionalism without Democracy: Doctrinaire Liberalism in Hungary, 1840–1885” explores a hitherto unexamined variant of European doctrinaire liberalism. Through the integration of new sources and a revision of the established scholarly consensus, it demonstrates that the Hungarian doctrinaires, Baron József Eötvös (1813–1871), László Szalay (1813–1864), and Ágoston Trefort (1818–1888), followed in the footsteps of the French doctrinaire François Guizot throughout their entire careers, not only in the realm of political theory and practice but also in their historiographical endeavours. Furthermore, they sought, albeit unsuccessfully, to secure Guizot’s attention and recognition. The article also establishes that, after 1867, Ágoston Trefort undertook the self-interpretation of the intellectual and political legacy of Hungarian doctrinairism. Through the reconstruction of this reception of Guizot, it revises the prevailing understanding of the Hungarian doctrinaires: alongside their decades-long and consistent pursuit of constitutionalism and representative government, they opposed the phenomena of political and social democracy with equal consistency. Their stance significantly shaped the Hungarian constitutional framework after 1867.

This research was supported by the National Research, Development and Innovation Office in Hungary [grant number 135638], titled ‘The Tradition of ‘sensus communis’ in Hungarian Thought’ (Principal Investigator: Dr. Béla Mester).

The publication under Open Access was facilitated by the University of Erfurt.