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The Hungarian nation

from Hungary to Magyarország

Tomasz Kamusella

pp. 645-713

Abstract

This chapter's title is a linguistic pun that needs explanation. Magyarország means "Hungary" in Magyar. But scholars writing in languages that used to be minority ones in the Hungarian section of Austria-Hungary are careful to distinguish between multiethnic historical Hungary and the ethnically Magyar nation-state that emerged after World War I. Obviously, this distinction originated due to the 19th-century insistence on the part of Magyar politicians that the Magyar language should be spoken by all the inhabitants of the multiethnic and multilingual Kingdom of Hungary. But one can find the first recorded instance of conscious distinguishing between Hungaris and Magyaris in the 1778 Latin-language letter of polymath Daniel Cornides (1732–1787) born in Upper Hungary and educated in Preßburg (Csáky 1982: 80).

Publication details

Published in:

Kamusella Tomasz (2009) The politics of language and nationalism in modern central Europe. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.

Pages: 645-713

DOI: 10.1057/9780230583474_9

Full citation:

Kamusella Tomasz (2009) The Hungarian nation: from Hungary to Magyarország, In: The politics of language and nationalism in modern central Europe, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 645–713.