Page - 345 - in Österreich-Ungarns imperiale Herausforderungen - Nationalismen und Rivalitäten im Habsburgerreich um 1900

© 2020, V&R unipress GmbH, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783847110606 – ISBN E-Lib: 9783737010603 threats toHungarian supremacy in the province: the growing strength of the Romanian national movement, and the very limited success of (Hungarian) modernizationsofar.39Buttheimmediatereasontoestablishaneworganization, the so-calledTransylvanianAlliance,was the victoryof Istv#nTisza’s Party of NationalWorkat theelections in1910. Tisza, probably the most intensely hated figure in late dualist Hungarian politics, returned victoriously after four years outside parliament, where he confined himself when his liberal party was ousted from government – after morethanthirtyyearsinpower–in1905.40Hisvictory in1910,althoughrooted inviolenceandcorruption,leftthefragmentedoppositionwithonlyahandfulof representativesintheparliament.InTransylvania, itmeantthatjustafractionof theregion’sMembersofParliamentopposedTisza,whilebefore1910therewas not one liberal Member of Parliament from the province. More importantly, Tisza’s party seemed tomake abreakthrough at the county level, too. In 1910 theycapturedthesymbolicKolozsv#rcitycongregationthatwaspreviouslyheld by the opposition for decades. The opposition, shattered from the series of failures, tried to find alternative means of mobilization and challenging the government, andregionalismseemedtobeapotentway todo it.41 When the regionalists, who had floated their ideas since 1910 in the press, finally decided to establish their organization, the Transylvanian Alliance, it became a rallying point for Tisza’s opposition. Most of their parliamentary representatives joined the organization (13MPs), alongside with six former MembersofParliamentof theopposition, andonlyoneof thepro-TiszaMem- bersofParliamentswas invited.But theAlliance,managedby Istv#nAp#thy, a professorofbiology(genetics)at theUniversityofKolozsv#r,andaclose friend of CountMih#ly K#rolyis, was not just camouflage for politicians whowere threatenedwithbecoming irrelevant at thenational level.Themain reason for the Alliance’s existence was its members’ conviction that Transylvania faced gravedangers and challenges (in the formof a revivedRomaniannationalism thatwas accompanied by the rapid development of aRomanianmiddle-class, 39 OntheregionalistsseeB#rdi,Azerd8lyi(seenote9);G#borEgry,Regionalizmus,erd8lyis8g, szuprem#cia.AzErd8lyiSzövets8g8sErd8ly jövo˝je, 1913–1918, in:Sz#zadok,147/1 (2013), p. 3–32; Lengyel,Niedergang (see note 9); onRomanians seeHitchins,ANation affirmed (see note 22); Ovidiu Emil Iudean/AlexandruOnojescu, Politics, nationalism, andparlia- mentarism. The Romanian representatives in the Budapest Parliament (1861–1918), in: Transilvanian Review, 22/4 (2013), p. 3–16. Onmodernization see G#bor Egry, Nemzeti v8dg#t vagy szol&dhaszonszerz8s?Az erd8lyi sz#szokp8nzint8zeti rendsezre 8s a nemzeti mozgalom kapcsolata a 19. sz#zadban, 1835–1914, Cs&kszereda 2009; Balaton, A sz8kely akcij.;AliteraryportrayalofTransyvaniafromregionalistperspectiveisprovidedbyMikljs B#nffy,TheTransylvanianTrilogy:TheyWereCounted,NewYork2013. 40 G8zaVermes,Tisza Istv#n,Budapest2001. 41 Egry,Regionalizmus(seenote39),p. 4–7. RegionalElites,NationalistPolitics, LocalAccommodations 345