Page - 351 - 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 Thepartyswiftly replacedtheformerHungarianpartiesasthepartnerof the Saxonsinthepoliticalpacttheyhad.Szter8nyihappily joinedtheparty, too,not least because it made him a semi-official governmentMember of Parliament instead of being in opposition, without demonstratively abandoning his pre- viouspartyadherence.Hedeclaredhimself tobeamemberof theparty,andhe alsowelcomed the national unity expressed by the party, thatwas to be – ac- cording to him – a model for Hungarians in all Transylvania, and even in Hungaryas awhole.59Szter8nyi’smembershipwasall themore important, be- cause,afterTisza’sfallin1917,heonceagainbecamestatesecretaryand,assuch, alsoan important interlocutor,60muchlikeBern#dyhadbeen forT.rguMures‚. However,contrarytothecenter-peripheryarrangementsinMaramures‚orT.rgu Mures‚, theoneinBras‚ovcouldnotsurvive1918.Whilethekeyfiguresremained inRomania inthiscaseaswell, the localHungarianshadnothing tooffer to the new,RomanianstatewhichwasmoreeagertocompromisewiththeSaxons.The Hungarian Civic Party of Bras‚ov disappeared without announcing its dis- solution,but its leaders resurfaced intheHungarianminoritypartyas its local leaders,61drawing lessons fromtheir earlier experienceswith aminority party regarding theproper,unitaryorganizationofanationalminority. Dissociating thenation-stateand thebottom-upempire? The threecasesabove illustrate thatHungaryaround1900wasnot entirely the unitarynation-state it pretended tobe.The central government informally ex- erted differentiated rule over the peripheries, and in this process, it co-opted local elites or employed imperial figures as interlocutors. Furthermore, these informal rearrangementsof center-periphery relationsweremore thanunique cases, at least in the sense that they illustrate a systemic characteristic ofHun- gary: thepotential fordeviatingfromtheformalrulesofunitaryadministration informally.Itisnotablethattwooutofthesethreecases(Maramures‚andBras‚ov) werepartofadecades-long informalsettlementbetweenregionalelitesandthe central government – betweenMaramures‚ nobility and Saxon leaders. Their reconfirmationorreconfigurationaround1900wasnotjustamerecoincidence, however.Theyweretheresultsofanimperialcontext thatmostcontemporaries understood as a crisis and which generated a series of reform projects and attempts, like A. C. Popovici’s Grossösterreich plans, the centralization ideas 59 Szter8nyi Jjzsef,Azfflj alakulat, in:Brassji Lapok(01.01.1911)274.p. 1. 60 SeeBalatonPetra,Szter8nyiJjzseferd8lyip#lyafut#sa, in:Lev8lt#riKözlem8nyek82(2011), p. 146–170. 61 B8la György, A rom#niaiOrsz#gosMagyar P#rt tört8nete 1922–1938, Eötvös Lor#ndUni- versityBudapest2003. RegionalElites,NationalistPolitics, LocalAccommodations 351