Seite - 334 - 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 Further questions arise to consider how the co-existence of disparate state models affected both components, and, finally, one should ask whether this distinction ismeaningful atall. While an ‘imperialist’ approach should necessarily reckon with the dual characteroftheMonarchy,itstill facesanotherchallenge: ifHungarywasinfact anationalizing(orevenjustawould-benation)state,howthenmightoneextend thescopeoftheanalysisoftheempiretoitshistory?Thus,it ishardlysurprising thathistoricalworkstendtolimittheirfocustoonehalfortheother,oreventake anarrowerapproach.Animperialhistorycouldhardly relyonacomparisonof the twohalves, as itwould immediatelyquestion the imperial framework.Not evenJudson’sbookcouldencompasstheentiretyoftheMonarchy.Histop-down approach – the analyses of how the notion, idea, and practices of the empire saturated regional and local communities fromabove, andhow societieswere transformed by it – falls understandably short of an integrated history.4Ach- ieving such an integrated history is a burdensome task when faced with the challengesofconflictingstructuresandviewpoints;thesechallengesincludethe filteringof the imperial through the ideasofHungarianandroyalwithinHun- gary,theinsistenceofthedominantrhetoricontheseparateHungariannational statehood, as well as the presentation of politics as unitary rather than frag- mented inspaceandalongsocietaldivisions. Onenotableexceptiontothis trendisBennoGammerl’sbookoncitizenship legislation,5whichattemptstocomparetheHabsburgMonarchywiththeBritish Empire. Throughout this effort Gammerl could use Hungary as an object of comparison,withCanadaas itscounterpart, thussuccessfully locating itwithin the imperial framework. Inthis case,however,Gammerlglossesover thepecu- liaritiesofthedualiststructure.Furthermore,Gammerlanalyzestheevolutionof citizenship legislation, a subject that circumvents the problems other works faced insofaras it tacklesa legal institutionthatwasunitarywithinat leastone component element of the empire andnot unevenas themore complex social structuresorpolitics. Inthispaper, IproposeanalternativeapproachtoHungary’sperceptionasa nation-state,alsoasameansofbringingtogethertheanalysesofthetwohalvesof theEmpire. Iwill argue thatHungary alonewasmoreof an imperial structure than it is customarily acknowledged to have been. Especially the handling of center-peripheryrelationswasanalogouswiththepracticeofempires,andtaken together with some crucial characteristics of theHungarian state –most sig- nificantlywithitsmulti-ethnicnature–thesefeaturesenableustospeakhereof 4 Judson,TheHabsburgEmpire (seenote2),p. 1–15,333–384. 5 BennoGammerl, Untertanen, Staatsbürger und andere. DerUmgangmit ethnischerHete- rogenität imBritischenWeltreichund imHabsburgerreich1867–1918,Göttingen2010. GáborEgry334