"Being a democrat means, primarily, not to be afraid..."
(István Bibó)
István Bibó (1911-1979) was one of the greatest Hungarian thinkers in the 20th century. It is not an easy task to define his field of interest. Was he a historian or a legal scientist, political thinker, maybe a politician? He was all and none. In his early works he was interested mostly in legal sciences. Between 1935 - 1944 he wrote a series of essays concerned with jurisprudence. Objects of these predicted the direction he would turn to after the second world war. In 1935 he published an essay entitled: Coercion, Law and Liberty (Kényszer, jog, szabadság). In this work the young legal scientist investigated the relation between these three factors. At last he concluded that Coercion and Liberty do not exclude each other, moreover they exist in a complementary relation: Coercion can not eliminate or destroy liberty because one is under very strict pressure or coerced to do something, is not deprived totally from the modicum of Liberty. However, liberty is an inner experience, and a human being never loses the chance of choosing between possibilities, not even under pressure. Law, according to the thought-train of this essay is the "objectivation" of liberty and coercion at the same time. On one hand law is based on a consensus of the given society, because the theoretical beginning of introducing a law-system is unimaginable without a preliminary tacit recognition: one can not survive unless some kind of social rules exist ensuring the possibility of peaceful life. This thought-train is well-known from the theories of Law of Nature, and this is not by chance because Bibó's former prof. Barna Horváth and prof. Gyula Moór had influenced him in this field to a great extent. On the other hand law is a source of coercion - Bibó warned the reader - because it necessitates the presence of a political power, which creates law-abiding people.
It is noteworthy how suspicious Bibó was of political power. Undoubtedly his point of view was influenced by his personal experiences but here there is more than meets the eye at first sight. He borrowed the opinion of Saint Augustine, who emphasized that political power is essentially connected with the Original Sin, or more precisely political power is the consequence of Original Sin, i.e. man's first disobedience to God. This assertion exercised a great influence upon Bibó's theory of power, we can evaluate it is one of the starting points of his social philosophy to be discussed later.
We can distinguish a second phase in Bibó's intellectual development from a long well-researched essay, during the second world war. Entitled: "On European Balance and Peace" (Az európai egyensúlyról és békérõl [It has never been in print in his lifetime but remained a manuscript]). He finished this work in 1942-43, and we can regard this essay as a very important step in the evolution of his thought because here he placed the Central and Eastern-European development into a European framework and besides he gave a detailed concept of "political hysteria".
The period after the war between 1945-48, to the coming of communist regime was the climax of his life both as a thinker and as a politician. After the war he joined the Peasants' Party and was working in the Ministry of Interior as a clerk. During this period his most important essays came to print: The Crisis of Hungarian Democracy (A magyar demokrácia válsága) 1945, The Distress of the Eastern European Small States (A kelet-európai kisállamok nyomorúsága) 1946, The Jewish Question in Hungary After 1944 (Zsidókérdés Magyarországon 1944 után) 1948, and Distorted Hungarian Character the Deadlocks of Hungarian History (Eltorzult magyar alkat, zsákutcás magyar történelem) 1948. Once in circle of friends being in a self-ironical and bitter mood he jokingly said, if dies, the inscription on his grave would be the next: "István Bibó was living between 1945 and 1948".
In 1949 the Hungarian Communist Party came to power. In the communist era he was prevented from publishing his works. He had to resign from his university tenure held at the University of Szeged. In 1956 in the coalition government of the Revolution he held the position of the state ministers. For his activities performed during the revolution the court of the Kádár-regime sentenced him to life imprisonment in 1957. Because of the Amnesty of 1963 he was released from prison. From 1963 to his death (in 1979) he was working as a librarian in the Library of the Office of Statistics. In this 'inner emigration' he wrote some essays which we have to regard as very important ones. These are: The Paralyses of International Institutions and the Remedies (A nemzetközi államközösség bénultsága és annak orvosságai) 1967-70, and Reflections on the Social Development of Europe (Az európai társadalomfejlõdés értelme) 1971. Until his death these works remained in manuscripts. He died in 1979.
In my paper I am going to study the following issues of Bibó's social philosophy: 1. the concept of social development, 2. the concept of nation, 3. the concept of 'political hysteria' as one of the essential issues.
The concept of social development: all his life Bibó was refusing the deterministic philosophies of history which deprive human beings of the chance of freedom setting up an ultimate goal to which history is inevitably nearing. This is the kind of philosophy which was rejected as historicism by Karl Popper as well. Bibó's detailed opinion referring to the problems of social development can be found in his essay published under the title "Reflections on the Social Development of Europe" 19711. Here he explained that if the history of humankind had produced signs of any development it was only in two civilizations: 1. in European civilization, 2. in Chinese civilization. But we have to put the question: what does the concept of social or historical development mean in Bibó's philosophy?
"The theoretical model which proposes that world history is a series of class struggles, or the one which claims that it is the implementation of God's plan to save mankind, or the which ascribes everything to the accumulation of material goods - not one of these can be proved or disproved in and of itself. One may bring up endless examples to support and an equal number to disprove any of them2."
The theoretical models mentioned above, in Bibó's opinion are derivation of the well-known Christian myth of salvation. These explanations suppose a former golden age, an initial idealistic condition at the beginning of humankind's history. Moreover - added Bibó - these theories are secularized versions of original religious myths, including Rousseau's myth on natural state or Marx's one on primary communalism. Bibó was very skeptical about the so called 'laws of history'. That is why he called Rousseau's and Marx's theoretical models myths. In these conceptions - he argued - the end of history is a quasi-religious condition, because Rousseau's perfect liberty or perfect state founded by the "Lawgiver" and Marx's communism are very similar to the Christian concept of salvation, they suppose a final stage of human history which lies beyond history. At this point we must ask a question: how did Bibó formulate the concept of social or historical development? His answer to this question was the following: if there is any development in the history of mankind it must be the fulfillment of the liberty of mankind in the process of human history. When Bibó compared different historical ages, he set up a scale of values between them according to the "quantity of liberty" they could realize. It was his deep conviction that only two civilizations have produced relatively successful endeavours to increase the liberty of society. But - he did not explain the whys - Chinese civilization had run into a dead end, so the only really developing civilization is the European one which - undeniably with painful detours - has produced genuine development. Bibó was aware that he would be accused of Eurocentrism. But he refused this accusation and claimed that 20th century is the scene of spreading of European and American civilization. If we want to understand the terrible events of our century - including two world wars - we must focus our attention on European history.
At first sight and from a generalized point of view European civilization is the only one which developed the institutions of liberty. These are the next ones: parliamentarian democracy based on general suffrage and multi-party system, separations of branches of power, that of legislation, execution and judicial system. Moreover genuine democracy unimaginable without basic human and civil rights, that is freedom of conscience, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, free press etc. The definition of István Bibó seems to be a commonplace. But therefore declaring this hastility let us take two facts into consideration: 1. the definition explained by Bibó in the age of communism needed great moral courage, because the ideology of the so called "popular democracy" definitely rejected the basic institutions of the aforementioned genuine democracy, 2. this definition is not the conclusion of Bibó's investigation, but it was his intellectual starting-point, which provided for him the necessary criteria for making distinction between places and times according to the concept of social development. European history is a scene of fulfilling a 'liberty program', and liberty in this case means liberty of the individual. Bibó's conception on liberty was very far from the Hegelian-Marxian one, because liberty for him did not mean the recognition of necessity or he did not think like Hegel that which really exist is reasonable and which is reasonable that really exists. Liberty for him was the remarkable and unique achievement of European civilization embodied in the above mentioned institutions. On arriving to this point, we must consider the main characteristics of European civilization which made it a unique phenomenon in history. Before touching this problem we must take a detour to an anthropological explanation that lies at the roots of Bibó's social philosophy. How did Bibó define the anthropological structure of human beings?
"I shall start with the existentialist thesis that man is the only living being aware of its mortality. The appearance of this consciousness is as likely to have caused disequilibrium in human souls as to have brought about wonderful opportunities. I am thinking back to that moment of history, long before even the most primitive human state, when man first must have realized and become conscious of the fact that he would die, and thereby formed a conscious image of his own existence to the degree that - as far as we know - no other living being is able to do. In other words: he ate from the Tree of Knowledge3."
But what were the consequences of this ancient recognition to human history? Here Bibó gave a lay interpretation of the fall of man. Bibó explained that here the Bible gives a mythical explanation for the psychological structure of human beings. So we are interested in the consequences of the awareness of death of human beings in connection with establish a society:
"Knowing that one will die brings about the possibility of an entirely new spiritual malady, which is likely to be at the ultimate root of both politics and religion: the consciousness of fear...when a living ...like man knows of its own mortality, he will reach the point of being afraid of his own thoughts. Thus fear appears in a life as a separate external entity. It is on this basis that man consciously realizes the dangers with which the external world threatens him: deadly peril, natural forces, accidents and catastrophes. At the same time, he soon undergoes another significant experience characteristic of communal man, the recognition that the most intense sources of fear are other humans. It is another man that is able to arouse the greatest fear in me... If I wish to feel powerful and strong, in spite of the threats poised against me and the fear of death tormenting me, the best method for achieving this appears to be forcing my fellow humans to obey my will. Conversely, being forced to endure the power of others can accentuate my inherent sense of fear. This gives rise to the need for humans to be unencumbered by the coercion of others, to be liberated from fearing the power of others, that is to be free. Here I am positing the basic thought of the whole concept to be discussed later. It is important to recognize that hoping to escape the sense of fear by seizing ower and coercing others is a false method.. In other words. I am being misled if I attempt to escape my fears by increasing power, coercion, and force over others. Precisely the opposite is true: I can free myself from fear by neither being subject to the oppressive coercion of my fellow humans nor by holding any of them under my oppressive coercion4."
This long quotation was necessary to reveal Bibó's basic tenets which gave him a convenient starting point to built his theory. The notion of fear was very important in Bibó's political theory as well. But we touch this point later.
I have previously mentioned that Bibó gave a privilegious status to Europe. According to his opinion Europe was the continent where a social development has taken place. It is the result of a coincidence of different factors Bibó enumerated: 1. the role of Graeco-Roman "organizing-administrative practicality 5 ", which ensured the necessary patterns for social organizing in later periods, 2. Christian spirituality, which tamed the barbarism of the Middle Ages, 3. the separation of powers, which was put into practice in the 17-18th centuries. Now let us consider the above mentioned factors in detail.
The role of Graeco-Roman "organizing-administrative practicality": The achievement which was produced by the Greeks in Athens, and which is mentioned now as Greek democracy was a very important one, Bibó emphasized. It was the Greek's invention that a society can create laws for itself. Why can we evaluate this development as a historical one? It is because in Asia in former historical periods the laws of society were considered as something originating from Heaven. In Egypt, or in the Empires of Mesopotamia, as well in China and India political power was legitimated by God or Gods. The King or Emperor was "sacrosanctus" that is holy and inviolable, and the underlings could not be involved political power. This was the conception and practice of political power built up from top to down. The society considered the gods as the sources and confirmators of the monarcha's ruling. In this political structure the idea of society creating laws or changing laws was simply unimaginable. Naturally there were riots and palace revolts against the rulers world-order prescribed by gods. In other words, in ancient Asia the order of politics was part of the order of the Universe. Consequently who revolted against the ruler, revolted against gods and committed a blasphemy. The subject could not call the rulers to account for their political activities. The rulers were responsible for their ruling only to gods and not to the society. The consequence of this phenomenon was a terrible one: revolts and uprisings were not imbued with social criticism and the sense of social responsibility, and due to this fact they destroyed but did not build. There was not an image of a better future and the main consequence of this fact was that these people's uprisings did not conclude in building up a society more equitable conditions, but they merely resulted in changing of dynasties or persons. At this point Bibó mentions ancient China as the exception to the rule 6. According to his opinion the great peasant-uprisings blown out against the tyranny were full of the intention to make a better society and they called the emperors and mandarins to account for the unjust and tyrannical political methods. And the ruling elite took full responsibility for their activity. It was due - according to Bibó - to the Confucian ethical system7, which strongly emphasized the governmental responsibility, and first of all considered the ruling over society as a special kind of duty. So it imbued the whole society with the sense of social responsibility. I think Bibó's favourable opinion about ancient China was influenced by Max Weber's works.
Thus the novelty of Greek social organizing is a striking one at first sight. The Greeks invented the constitution created by the society. Bibó emphasized, their most essential invention was to create citizens who elected their political leaders and were able to remove them from their posts if they had not fulfilled their hopes. This political practice appeared in Aristotle's political theory about "politeia" Aristotle's political philosophy held a primary importance because of its contribution to later political developments in the Middle Ages and Late Middle Ages. Following Bibó's argumentation the other contribution of Antiquity to European political theory was the achievement of Roman legal sciences and Roman legal scientists who had elaborated - among others - the theory of people's sovereignty, in which the source of power was the people that had previously transferred it to the emperor. Of course, they did not draw the logical conclusion of the theory, because in their argumentation the transfer of sovereignty, if it had happened earlier - could not be abolished. But the Roman experiment had ceased and the "Middle Eastern sacral phenomenon of God-Emperors" entered the European scene.
The Middle Ages and Christian spirituality. However, we must mention, that Bibó was a Christian or more precisely a Protestant thinker, but not in an explicit manner. His Christian mentality can be detected at the roots of his theory, namely when he analyses the personality and role of Jesus Christ. As we will see it, he found a connection between the personality of Jesus and the - above already touched - problem of fear:
"...he uttered extraordinary significant, almost unforgettably simple sentences - and made equally unmatched exemplary gestures - concerning the power of gentleness, the vanity of anger and the interrelationship and harmfulness of anger, life-and-death struggle and killing. He had an uncanny ability to find words and gesture which made people - ready to hate, lash out, judge, accuse or perform the many other unfortunate manifestations of human fear - hang down their heads, realizing the futility of such behaviour...He spoke of faith as the child-like trust in the hidden potentials of the human soul, and the ability to mobilize these potentials. His most significant observations, however, are those concerning the power of gentleness...His gestures (e.g. "If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also") are not the gestures of a feeble man: on the contrary they belong among those disarming gestures in the face of which senseless aggression suddenly realizes its own senselessness 8 ".
It may seem to be a rather naive theory, but we must realize its importance in Bibó's philosophy: it reflects, what a great emphasis was given by him to personal choices. In this context he drew our attention to the behaviour which can stop the prevailing of coercion and fear in our lives. And he was continually emphasizing - as we have seen it - the devasting effects of fear in the sphere of politics. At least, what the greatest importance of Christ's example-giving gesture according to Bibó? First of all - Bibó argued - Christ had awakened the sense of moral responsibility and dutifully moral behaviour in his followers. As I have mentioned above, Bibó in his theory evaluated Saint Augustine's intellectual achievement as one of the most important ones in the history of European political thought. First of all he pointed out that the theory of power elaborated by the bishop of Hippo gave a decisive impetus to medieval political philosophy. At last, what did Bibó emphasize in this case? He considered Augustine's train of thought on the origin of political power which was laid down in his monumental work of De civitate Die basically important. Spread out in his essays, Bibó several times cited the next thought of Saint Augustine: "Remota itaque iustitia quid sunt regna, nisi parva regna? quia et ipsa latrocinia quid sunt, nisi parva regna 9" (What anything else are kingdoms than large companies of brigands if they are lacking any justice? And what anything else are companies of brigands than little kingdoms") And the justice of a given kingdom depends on the personal behaviour and moral attitude of the ruling political elite in the society. Bibó very often referred Augustine's thought on ruling, i.e. the practicing of political power as a moral duty in the service of society. Bibó evaluated this thought as a basic tenet in Augustine's theory 10.
Saint Augustine's political theory could influence the medieval political development because of its special characteristics. However in the Middle Ages the political structures were based on the system of feudal vassalage. The feudal lords and his vassals were bound together with the chains of fealty. The vassals were given a piece of land by their liege lords, but the essence of this relation was a contractual relation between them which imposed them mutual duties. If one of them had violated the rules of this contract, he had committed the vice of infidelity (infidelitas), and the contract became invalid. The state structures were based on this relationship of reciprocal system of duty and fidelity. In the Early Middle Ages the kings could rule their kingdoms only through the feudal vassalage, lacking money and skilled bureaucracy and a professional army. The role of Christian priesthood and monks had a vital importance all through age:
"This resulted in European Christian feudalism becoming much more than the tightly knit servile hierarchy of fiefdom between armed rulers and armed subordinates, or the one-sided submission of serfs to lords. The clergy started (following the cluniac reforms) to use the spreading of literacy for the organizing of society by writing a multitude of charters and certificates of privilege. It also tried to imbue a great variety - practically all - of social relationship with a sense of professionalism and reciprocity. The theorists among them developed ideal types, such as that of the Good Ruler, the Good Lord, the Good Knight, the Good Burgher, and the Tiller of the Soil. To be sure, the allocation of work and leisure time was inequitable, but the clergy tried to place each into some reciprocal relationship with the others, tried to define their roles in such manner so that each gave and received something, and organized each of them so that even the lowest-ranking of them retained a modicum of self-respect 11."
Maybe Bibó gives here an idealized image of European feudalism, but we must admit, that the latest researches in this field supported the main points of his evaluation. First of all we can refer to H. Löwe's excellent book: Von Cassiodor zu Dante. Here the German scientist outlined an image of the European Middle Ages very similar to Bibó's one. Löwe essentially considered the role of medieval clergy in Europe like Bibó did. He pointed out that the priests and monks who were living in the royal courts and castles of feudal lords writing biographies of saints and great kings, gave examples and patterns of moral behaviors for the feudal elite. So the clergy contributed to a large extent for developing the virtues of ethics of chivalry. Löwe mentioned in his book Regino von Prüm who had lived in the turn of the 9.-10th centuries and was the abbot of a monastery Prüm in Germany. Regino von Prüm wrote a world-chronicle in which he emphasized the importance of the next moral values: 1. magnitudo animi (generosity), here Regino adopted the notion of antiquity;
2. duritia (severity); 3. constantia (perseverance); 4. audacia (audacity). Referring to this question Löwe pointed out that these moral values had essentially been founded the character of Frankish chivalry 12.
Another mediaevalist in his paper summarized Cathwulf's concept on royal justice:13 1. veritas in regis regalibus (righteous behaviour dealing in royal affairs); 2. patientia in omni negotio (patience in his all activities); 3. largitas in muneribus (munificence giving presents); 4. persuadibilitas in verbis (persuasiveness); 5. mallorum correptio et districtio (to punish and isolate the wicked persons); 6. bonorum elevatio et exaltatio (to protect and ascend the good persons); 7. levitas tributi in populo (to decrease the taxes of people); 8. aequitas iudicii inter divitem et pauperem (aequity of judging between the poor and the rich).
However we must see that István Bibó had been influenced by István Hajnal (1892-1956) who was one of the most significant Hungarian historians. István Hajnal dealt mostly with the history of literacy. He led a polemics with Max Weber's theory. Hajnal debated the primary importance of intellectual factors in the development of history. Weber in his book, which influenced European intellectuals to a great extent, in "The Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism" explained, that in Europe the Protestant ethics was the primary cause of rising capitalism. Weber, for example, considered the Protestant sects as archetypes of capitalist behaviour. In contrast with Weber's theory Hajnal stated outright that an intellectual factor can not be considered as a mover of social changes or development. In spite of Weber's opinion he emphasized on hand the importance of literacy in the development of European Middle Ages. Hajnal pointed out, that literacy had transformed the whole structure of European societies in the Middle Ages. According to the Hungarian historians literacy had rationalized the social background of Mediaeval Europe and gave a chance to the rise of capitalist behaviour. As a result of spreading literacy the social conditions developed into more calculable than they had been earlier. The progenitor of this development - suggested Hajnal -was the Mediaeval artisanship. The craftsmen founded guilds, which were based on book-keeping. And book-keeping is always unimaginable without literacy. The jurists played important roles in this development because they provided the indispensable legal techniques for guilds and trade companies. So - if we want to summarize in a nutshell Hajnal's conclusion - the ultimate moving factor was in the work of the everyday life of "ordinary people" in the development of Mediaeval Europe. Because this work of everyday life transformed the society from down to top through making social relations more calculable and rational.
After taking this short detour let us return to Bibó! It is undeniable that Bibó's image of the Middle Ages had been highly influenced by István Hajnal. Earlier I mentioned Bibó's explanation about Mediaeval clergy, who "started... to use the spreading of literacy for the organizing of society by writing a multitude of charters and certificates of privilege". This explanation shows a striking resemblance with Hajnal's theory. Besides this Bibó - also after Hajnal - emphasized the vital importance of the Mediaeval craftsmanship and burgher's social activities.
At last - as a conclusion of the Middle Ages - in Western Europe the burgher and craftsmen and their mentalities overrule the feudal nobility and its feudal mentality. He always emphasized, that nobility, and its representative figures, the king and the warrior represented an aggressive combating life-style. In contrast with them the craftsmen, the burgher led a peaceful creative way of life. So the rising of the "capitalist age" - Bibó disliked this phrase - meant "the triumph of the life-style of men, who create with care 14" (a mûgonddal alkotó ember életformájának gyõzelme) over the feudal nobility, who was living a shiftless life and enjoyed his power positions.
Jenõ Szûcs, the Hungarian historian rightly pointed out15 that in Bibó's theory the Middle Ages were basically important periods because they created the "small circles of liberties", i.e. the social system which was based on a multitude of local privileges. So in medieval society horizontal social structures had developed to the detriment of vertical social structures and this fact gave a chance at the end of the Middle Ages for synthetizing of the small local liberties (libertates) into the Liberty of a whole society. Certainly it was a long painful process with frequent detours. But it resulted in a society which was built up from down to top. This society could control political power in an institutionalized manner by the help of diets of estates. The estates successfully controlled the king. He had to share the power with the estates. In the age of the bourgeois revolutions these diets of estates developed into genuine parliaments.
This was a moment when the different regions of Europe began to develop divergently. Approximately from the 16.-17th centuries there were three such regions in Europe: 1. the region of Western Europe; 2. the region of Central-Europe (including the kingdom of Poles, the kingdom of Czech, and the kingdom of Hungarians); 3. Eastern-Europe (the countries which are east to the forementioned three countries). This classification was elaborated by Jenõ Szûcs, but it is undeniable that this exists in Bibó's theory, but in an implicit manner: he frequently mentioned Poland, and Bohemia as Eastern European countries. In spite of this fact he was always emphasizing, that these three countries had produced a social development, which was very unlike Russia, or the Balkan countries. However, Bibó connected the phenomenon of divergent European development to the problems of the formation of nations.
II. The problems of the formation of nations: this problem is one of the most important ones in Bibó's philosophy. First of all let us take a look at his concept of "nation":
"A nation is a social community larger than earlier, more primitive communities; it is political in that it aspires to well-defined territory, organized so that national consciousness is shared by most if not all of the community. Common history, language and economic interests are often cited as criteria in the definition of a nation16."
Before explaining the definition I should mention that the earlier touched problem of European social development is deeply connected with the problem of nations formation. It was Bibó's strong conviction that European social progress - which had started in the Middle Ages - included two elements: 1. the increasing of the amount of liberty; 2. the process of nations formation. He definitely rejected the Marxian viewpoint according to which nations had only emerged in the age of bourgeois revolutions. In his opinion nations are not bourgeois institutions: conversely, they have had quite a long history.:
"The nation, as the characteristic unit of Europe, is the product of nearly 1500 years of development. It is a commonly held superficial view that the borders of European states, along with the national boundaries, have been in constant flux for the past 1500 years, and this flux has been influenced by no other force of constancy or inner logic than that of power. This view overlooks the fact that, beyond border shifts and thoroughly intertwined feudal relationship - and aside from the critical periods of formation, local changes and divisions that took place during the 5th, 6th, 10th, 15th, 16th and 19th-20th centuries - the national framework of Europe has evidenced remarkable constancy and great durability 17."
This opinion held by Bibó, implies - among others - that the linguistic factor has not played an important role in the formation of nations. If we accept his explanation, we must agree with him. Had we taken a public opinion poll at a university in the Middle Ages about the students' criteria of national belonging, we surely would not have found among the responses such ones which would have preferred the importance of mother tongue.
The roots of "The distress of East European small states" have been extending to the problem of the formation of nations. Western European countries leaving the Middle Ages "were becoming more robust and effective realities", the Central European Germany and a Southern one - Italy - "were becoming more ephemeral, indiscernible and symbolic", and the small Eastern ones - Poland, Bohemia and Hungary - were diminishing or they lost their independent statehood, and had to join the Hapsburg Empire.
The problem which I want to discuss here: what kind of causes can influence the historic fate of nations? Are there historical laws, which regulate historical development? We have slightly touched this problem already - see page 6. - and have mentioned, that Bibó was averse to the idea of historical laws, which exist independently from individual volitions and endavoure. Bibó did not believe in the existence of these so called historical laws.
"Human development does not always have necessary stages. Society develops only when it takes a step along a rational course, and this does not necessarily happen. There is no natural law which says that human societies must progress from slavery to feudalism, from feudalism to capitalism, and so forth. Mankind has undertaken experiments aimed at the rational development of social organization...Wherever there is such an experimentation, it makes sense to talk about social progress, and even of revolution...Thus we are not talking about necessary developments but about great collective efforts which are undertaken by some cultures and not by others, endeavors that are subject to failure. We lack the luxury of being able to posit as natural law the rules of correct and steady social progress18."
This train of thought has at least two consequences: 1. if the laws of history do not exist we can not predict future historical processes; 2. if the laws of history do not exist, the history of a society - besides the existing outer factors - depends on each individual's actions in the given society. This conclusion can be confirmed by Bibó's own lines: "Even if we could conceive of such kind of law, this would not relieve us of responsibility, for even great projects of correct social organization can fail, lead to dead ends and turn - as in modern times - toward the total destruction of mankind 19."
The problem of prediction: this issue gives us a chance to make comparison between Bibó's theory and Karl Popper's social philosophy. Neither Bibó nor Popper accepts the historical laws as "explaining idea" for historical processes. Naturally, Popper's starting point was very different from Bibó's one. According to Popper's conviction: to accept the existence of historical laws means to commit the vice of historicism. Generally speaking, historicism is the opposition of rationalism. It is based on tradition and emotion instead of being based on mind. The historicists - explains Popper in "Poverty of Historicism" - eliminate the great difference between trend and law:
"But it will be said, the existence of trends or tendencies in social change can hardly be questioned: every statician can calculate such trends...But trends are not laws. A statement asserting the existence of a trend is existential, not universal (A universal law, on the other hand, does not assert existence; on the contrary...it asserts the impossibility of something or other). And a statement asserting the existence of a trend at a certain time and place would be a singular historical statement, not a universal law20."
This train of thought in Popper's oeuvre is connected with the notions of closed and open societies. What do these concepts mean in Popper's social philosophy? Roughly speaking, these are the methods by which a community, a nation solves its problems which it has to face. In Popper's explanation open society is such kind of a problem-solving method which is based on rationality and individual abilities. In contrast with this, the concept of closed society means a strategy of communal action which is rested on collective efforts and denies concept of individuality and rationality.
Talking about "society", Bibó makes a distinction between societies according to their problem - solving strategies. If we take a look at Bibó's concept of nation once more we can see that his notion is very similar to Popper's one. In "The Distress of East European Small States" he writes about the three countries -Bohemia, Poland and Hungary - as "problem-solving" communities. He makes a distinction between two ways a nation may go when facing its problems: 1. a method which is based on democracy: here democracy is the complex of the "techniques of freedom" which ensures the individuals' human and civic rights; 2. a method which is based on tyranny: here collectivism is the dominant factor. Collectivism suppresses the individuals. Western-Europe was an archetype of ongoing and organic development for Bibó. He pointed out several times, that in England, especially in the Scandinavian countries and the German Lowlands democracy had grown out from the system of mediaeval privileges in an organic manner. Moreover in the Western European region the "programme of a nation" and "the programme of liberty" have closely been connected. At the end of the Middle Ages the sense of being of a nation greatly extended to the whole of the society, and the third estate "took over the national framework". But the liberation of individuals from the bonds of feudalism was indispensable to the formation of modern nations:
"There is substantially one requirement for the harmonious and straightforward political development of a modern European community, and it for the interests of the community and the cause of freedom to be one and the same. In other words, what is needed - at the revolutionary moment when individuals due to great revolutionary upheavals become liberated from the psychological pressure of forces dominating them "by the grace of God" - is the clear and concrete realization that the liberation of individuals also means the liberation, opening, and internal enrichment of the entire community 21."
In this quotation Bibó is speaking of "revolutionary upheavals". How can this explanation fit in with the theory of the conception of ongoing and organic developments? As I have already mentioned Bibó preferred evolutional changes to revolutionary changes, but he did not exclude the later ones22. Nevertheless Bibó believed that the best method for solving social problems is the politics of gradual changes, in other words: "social planning". And here lies the other similarity between Bibó's theory and Popper's social philosophy. It is a well-known fact, how important the concept of piecemeal social engineering was in Popper's theory:
"I shall use the term "piecemeal social engineering" to describe the practical application of the results of piecemeal technology...Just as the main task of the physical engineer is to design machines and to remodel and service them, the task of piecemeal social engineer is to design social institutions, and to reconstruct and run those already in existence. The term "social institution" is used here in a very broad sense, to include bodies of a private and of a public character. Thus I shall use it to describe a business, whether it is a small shop or an insurance company, and, likewise a school, or an "educational system", or a police force, or a Church, or a law court23."
Popper here makes an opposition between "'piecemeal social engineering" and the utopian engineering. The latter method was a characteristic of historicism in his opinion. Popper's "piecemeal social engineering" and Bibó's "rational planning" mean practically the same: a kind of state-intervention. This attitude was quite characteristic among social theories after the Second World War.
What happens if a nation can not resolve its fatal problems? We saw earlier that a nation essentially has two major problems which it has to face all through its existence: 1. the problem of nation's formation; 2. the liberation of the nation's individuals, in other words, "the cause of freedom". As we have already seen, Bibó strongly emphasized the inseparability of these problems. And what happens i.e. something disturbs the connection between them? Bibó gives the following answer:
"Democracy and nationalism have shared roots that are deeply interconnected, and any disequilibrium in this interconnection can lead to serious problems. This is what happened in Central and Eastern Europe where taking over the national communities and liberation of individuals were not connected. On the contrary, the nations of these regions experienced historical periods that seemed to prove that the fall of old political and societal authorities and the thoroughgoing acceptance of democracy expose the national community to serious risks and even catastrophes. Such upheavals gave birth to the most fearsome monstrosity in modern Europe's political development: anti-democratic nationalism24".
However mysterious their quotation may seem, if we recollect Bibó's very train of thought - we here already discussed - i.e. the differences between the development of Eastern and Western countries, during the late Middle Ages. In Western Europe the nations during this process were passing through an inner democratization: this is what was drafted by Bibó as "the triumph of lifestyle of man who creates with care" over the lifestyle of aggressive and shiftless feudal nobility. In the Middle Ages the consciousness of nation was possessed by the noble elites. And the democratization in this context means, that at the end of the Middle Ages the consciousness of nations was taken over by the third estate, besides this, the former and outlived elites were replaced by a new and creative one. As a consequence of this many-sided development in Western European countries the reality of the nations was unquestionable. There was nobody who wanted to question the existence of one or other nation. Consequently the emphasizing of existence of nation was totally meaningless. To be English, French or Dutch was becoming a totally natural and accustomed feeling so nobody had to overemphasize it:
"Ninety percent of the people there are not consciously French or English, just as they are not consciously fathers, husbands, members of the bourgeois or proletariat or men: only at critical moments are they sharply conscious of their place and their duty on earth25."
But in Eastern Europe the situation has been very different from the Western European one. Here the small states lost their independence and had to face the danger of "nation's death" - as the Romantic poets expressed it in the 19th century. The existence as nations was continually in danger here: and this situation produced the terrible phenomenon of antidemocratic and aggressive nationalism. We must remark here that Bibó sometimes used the concept of patriotism instead of the concept of nationalism. He did so because he wanted to avoid the negative connotations of the concept of nationalism. And when he did not do so, and used the concept of nationalism in a positive meaning without aggressive overtones, he added: democratic nationalism, which in this case held the same meaning as patriotism.
However such distorted Eastern and Central European historical development has ossified the aggressive feudal and intolerant feelings: the continuous threatening of national frameworks has stopped the inner democratization of the societies in these countries. Let us consider the position of the three Eastern European countries - in question. Poland: this country was a regional great power until the 17th century. But in the 18th century was weakening and ridden by outer enemies and inner anarchy. The process of continuous weakening resulted in three partitions of Poland, in 1772 the Hapsburg Empire, 1792 Russia and 1795 by Prussia, and at least Poland lost its sovereignty. It became an independent state only after 1918. Bohemia: during the Middle Ages it was a kingdom being part of the Holy Roman Empire, and its king was among the seven princes who had right to elect the German kings. However, Bohemia had an inner autonomy because it had autonomous constitutionalism based on estates. The Czech estates were ruling independently the country sharing their rule with the king. This favourable position ended in the Thirty Years War. In the battle of the White Mountain the Bohemian Estate's army was defeated by imperial armies, and after 1620 Bohemia had to merge into the Hapsburg Empire. The Hapsburg emperors ruled the country-avoiding the legal constitutional way - with absolutistic methods. Practically, the country regained its independent statehood only after the First World War. Hungary in the 16th century split into three parts: 1. the Regal Hungary, which was ruled by the Hapsburg Emperors, who obtained the title of Hungarian King. The condition of this part was very similar to Bohemia's one: the Hungarian Estates enjoyed a significant inner autonomy, the king had to rule together with the estates; 2. The part of the country which was occupied by the Turks and totally merged into the Turkish Empire; and 3. Transsylvania: who changed into a vassalage principality and it depended on the Turkish Empire. Nevertheless, it could perform its domestic affairs relatively independently because the Turks did not want to be involved in the affair. The Sultan appointed the prince of Transsylvania and demanded annual taxes. Nevertheless the constitutionalism based on estates existed during the whole period.
At the late 17th century the Turkish conquerors were repelled by the armies of anti-Turkish coalition, the Holy League and the three parts of the country were unified under the rule of the Hapsburg Dynasty. After the Rákóczi-led War of Independence (1703-1711) the Hapsburgs restored the constitution of the estates. In 1848-49 a new War of Independence broke out. It was a bourgois revolution as well. It failed in 1849, and after the Austrian Dynasty made a compromise, and it was due to this fact that the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy was born. In 1920, after the First World War Hungary regained its total independence but because of the Trianon Peace Treaty which was imposed on it by the victorious powers lost two thirds of its territory and the half of its population, and from a multi-lingual country diminished a little mono-lingual country.
However the history of the three countries produced very similar characteristics: their development did not take place in an ongoing and organic manner. They tried to unify their multi-lingual state frameworks with democratic implements: Poland tried to do so in the constitution on 1791, Czechoslovakia between 1920-1938, and Hungary in the revolution and war of independence of 1848-49. But all three of them failed, and due to this fact they drew a very misleading conclusion from the events: The democratic methods were not able to solve their problems and they would not be able in the future either. Moreover these countries convinced themselves that the democratic methods would blow up their national frameworks.
This train of thought which I have tried to reproduce here can be found in "The Distress of East European Small States", which was written by Bibó in 1946. But how did Bibó define the roots of this misery? He wrote:
"When it comes to the confusion in Eastern and South-eastern Europe, it is misleading to refer to the fall of the Hapsburg monarchy as one of its main causes. On the contrary it was the monarchy's existence that contributed to that confusion. We should not devote much time to its fall, because the Hapsburg, occasional and hybrid state conglomerate, lacking inner cohesiveness, could not have been a factor in Central and Eastern Europe's stabilization, even under more fortunate circumstances26."
There has been a debate among Hungarian historians about the role of the Hapsburg Empire in this region. Many historians believe that especially in the period of Austro-Hungarian Monarchy this region enjoyed a remarkable flowering, which is unmatched in this region until this day. Many historians refuse Bibó's negative evaluation: in their opinion the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 was the best realizable solution for the Hungarian nation. Bibó's evaluation was unlike that in a striking manner: he stated that the Austro-Hungarian Compromise was the beginning of the century-long dead-lock for the nation. According to Bibó's theory this compromise was founded on mutual fears. Austria was full of fears about its major power status: it believed that this position could not be maintained without Hungarian assistance. Hungarians were full of fears about the maintenance of Historical Great Hungary's territorial integrity. The Hungarian political elites felt that Europe deserted the Hungarian nation in the war of independence of 1848/49 when it had to struggle with Austro-Russian armies. And it was an other experience that the national minorities of Hungary had not supported the revolution and was of independence, just opposite they against it. These events gave birth to a false conclusion for the Hungarian political elites: after the abortive Revolution and War of Independence they thought if the minorities got the civic and human rights declared in the revolution they would blow up the Historical Great Hungary, the "Empire of Saint Stephen". So the Hungarian elite was not able to cope with the fact that the multi-lingual "Hungarian Empire" could not be maintained for a long time. So instead of the reshaping of the empire into a federation of nations they made a compromise with the Hapsburg dynasty. But - as we have seen - this compromise was not based on mutual advantages and hopes, but mutual fears. In this case a compromise which seemed to be very advantageous at the given moment proved very harmful for the country in the long run. The signing of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise's documents in 1867 was the beginning of the Hungarian dead-lock.
But Bibó strongly emphasized that Hungary was not the only country of the region which had run into dead locks: "it is easy to outline the characteristics shared by the development of Eastern Europe's three historical nations. Since the end of the 18th century, each of these nations has been facing the task of becoming a nation or, to be more exact, regaining nationhood. Each in its own time - Poland between 1772 and 1794, Hungary between 1825 and 1848, and Bohemia between 1919 and 1938 - reacted to the movement of European democracy and patriotism with such energy that they filled their Western European contemporaries with the greatest hopes. However, all three of these nations came to face to face with their inability to invest certain of their inherited historical territories - to which they emotionally attached - with a unified national consciousness, due to the multi-lingual nature of the inhabitants of these regions. For a while, each of them persevered in the vain hope that the adhesive force of democracy and freedom would unite the population gravitating in various directions. In each instance this hope was nurtured by the great example of developments in France, where the momentous experience of the Revolution was so successful in having non-French-speaking minorities join in the unified national consciousness... it was natural that their faith in the amalgamating power of democracy proved to be vain, and what followed were wholesale partition of Poland, the 1849 defeat of the Hungarian War of Independence, and Czechoslovakia's 1938-39 catastrophe27."
And that's the crux of Bibó's theory: the concept of historical deadlocks. In his monumental work, which was written in 1942-43 and bore the title: "On European Balance and Peace", he investigated the preconditions of the post-was peace making. In this voluminous treatise he looked through the history of Europe and concluded that the two world wars were due mostly to the unbalanced development and historical dead ends of Germany. But, how Bibó interpret the concept of historical deadlocks? For the understanding of this notion we must briefly return to the concept of nation in Bibó's theory. We have discussed that "nation" primarily was a problem-solving society for him. But what happens if a nation is not able to solve the problem that it has to face? This situation for Bibó seemed to be very analogous to an individual's situation, who is unable to solve his or her problems successfully. As it was described by him, an unsolvable problem or situation can cause a shock to the individual, who tries to forget the shock and tries to expel this very painful experience to his or her subconsciousness. The individual who has undergone such an experience is building up a false explanation for his or her failure and follows a strategy of operations which is based on this false explanation. So the individual step by step gets engaged in his/her self-created false world because he/she is unable to face the reality of the existing world and the really existing problems of this world. It is clear, that this type of behaviour leads to a catastrophe, when the pile of unsolved problems of really existing world crumbles down and buries under itself the individual. However the individual here has lost his/her way and run into a deadlock. Bibó suggested that human societies being problem-solving ones are in very similar position to human beings. Naturally Bibó did not think that a nation is a super-individual which develops an independent individuality and which has merged into itself the individuals. Bibó simply thought that there are similarities between behaviours of communities and individuals and this fact gives a possibility for the application of fruitful analogies.
This problem has an another aspect. Continuing the analogy between a nation and an individual, Bibó reminds us that similarly to an individual a society can produce a hysteria facing problems which seem to be unsolvable. This malady is terrible for a nation, because it distorts the mentality and the structures of the given society. In Bibó's description Germany is the classical country for political hysterias. He explained this opinion in the above mentioned work "On European Balance and Peace". But, at last, what does the concept of political hysteria mean in Bibó's philosophy?
He defined this concept in "On European Balance and Peace" as well 28: 1. the society which suffered a shock rejects the really existing world and its problems; 2. the society because to be incapable for solving its problems; 3. the society builds up an illusory world in which acting does not meet the requirements of the really existing world; 4. the nation's self-evaluation becomes uncertain; 5. the reactions of such a nation to the outer world's challenges are irrealistic and exaggerated. As we have already mentioned the main cause of different political hysterias is a shock which pushed the given society to wrong direction of development.
Why did Bibó mention Germany as a typical instance when he wrote about political hysterias and historical deadlocks? He precisely enumerated the historical deadlocks of Germany: according to his opinion this country had passed through five historical deadlocks: 1. the deadlock of the Holy Roman Empire: here Bibó described that the heaviest historical burden of Germany was the system of territorial principalities which involved a hiperaristocratic social structure and gave rise to the dwarf German tyrants with their dwarf miniabsolutism; 2. the deadlock of the German Confederation (1815-1848): this solution was not able to resolve the problem of German national unity, and besides the system of territorial principality remained intact;
3. the deadlock of the German Empire (1870-1918): during this period the pseudo-unity of Germany was born. Bibó designated this unity a pseudo-unity because in his opinion the German Reich of 1870 was really an enlarged Prussia because the Prussians simple occupied the other German little states; 4. the deadlock of Weimar Republic: it was the result of Versailles Peace Treaty which according to Bibó humiliated the Germans and prevented them to realize the German unity which would have been based on democratic political methods; 5. the deadlock of Hitler's Third Reich: the political hysteria of fascism pushed Germany - and whole Europe - to the Second World War. When Bibó studied the causes of these deadlocks, he found outer factors which involved political hysterias in Germany. The first factor which caused a shock to Germany was the rising of Napoleon's French Empire. The result of this challenge as a response was Prussian militarism. It created for itself the image of France as the...enemy for Germans. It was the Erbfeind-complex which had poisoned the German - French relationship for one and a half century. The deadlock of the German Second Reich between 1870-1918 was the consequence of Prussian militarism. The most dangerous side-effect of it was the glorification of military strength in the German nation's consciousness: after 1870 the Germans were inclined to believe in the almightiness of military force. Bibó warned us that behind the ostentation of military power there laid a hidden inferiority-complex. The Germans did not trust their own strength and they compensated this psychological fact with overemphasizing their power. Bibó compared German imperialism with British imperialism and pointed out that the British used their strength when it seemed to be necessary but never took it into consideration as an almighty instrument for every problem:
"German imperialism and German sense of power is...typically a phenomenon which is designated by psychology as the overcompensation of weakness29."
The second shock for Germany was the post-war Versailles-Treaty-System which humiliated Germany but did not eradicate German imperialism and militarism and prevented the German democratic unity. Bibó did not deny the German responsibility for the First World War, but denied that the whole German nation was responsible for the war. In his opinion the peacemaker victorious great powers - USA, Great Britain and France - made a very serious mistake when declared the concept of collective guiltiness and applied it to Germany. Why did Bibó think so? To sum up his opinion: at the beginning of the 20th century the German nation was not an adult and ripe democracy, so the Germans could not liberate themselves from the political power which had got legitimation "from God's grace", so they could not elect and control their political leaders30. In Bibó's opinion the post-war situation gave a significant chance for the birth of a democratic Germany, but the victorious nations failed this chance. The mutilation of Germany by Versailles Peace treaty gravely burdened the democracy of Weimar Republic.
We must not forget that these trains of thought were written by Bibó in 1942-43. He tried to analyze the causes of Central and Eastern European distorted historical development because this development had led to the two world wars. As we have seen Germany and the small Eastern European nations were the subjects of this historical misery. The consequences of this development proved fatal for all Europe. The turnover of inner disequilibrium in these countries - first of all in Germany, and in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary - had demolished the balance of powers in Europe as well as concluded in world wars.
Let me remind you of the Eastern European small states - i.e. Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary now (We can do it because it seems that Germany's historical deadlock had ended in 1945 and 1990, and the unified democratic Germany has become a reality.). I mentioned earlier that in Bibó's theory the distortion of Eastern European historical development was the consequence of a multi-factorial process. The intertwining of ethical borders in this region was one of the main causes which played role here:
"...the national borders of Central and Eastern Europe became fluid. While in Western and Northern Europe the historical status quo preserved its own significance for borders, the borders of reborn states in Central and Eastern Europe either completely disappeared under the impact of historical troubles (such as in the Balkans) or, even if they remained valid to our day (as in the case of Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia) their cohesive force has been weakened. In the latter case the problem was not that the linguistic borders were too irregular and did not follow geographic or economic precepts, but that the historical emotion of these nations - as most of them had historical consciousness -were attached to differing, and usually larger, territories than the one occupied by people speaking their language. Here, just as everywhere in the world, national sentiments not only bind together a certain group of people, but also bind them to a certain territorial unit containing localities, sacred cities and historical relics31."
We must not forget that these lines were written in 1946, but some aspects of Bibó's opinion seem to be relevant these days as well. I think here first of all phenomenon of linguistic nationalism. It was described by Bibó as a specific Eastern European phenomenon. I mentioned earlier that in Bibó's opinion mother tongue generally is not a nation-making factor. But Central and Eastern Europe is an exceptional case, because here mother tongue has been playing a very important role. Here the language frequently had to substitute other cohesive, nation-making factors. This situation emerged in late 18th century. For instance in Hungary language-cultivation and appreciation of language appeared under king Joseph II. (1780-90) who was the archetype of the enlightened absolutistic ruler. He planned to introduce German language as the official language in Hungary. He was not a nationalist of course, but an extreme rationalist: he believed that German as official language would be an ideal solution to every subject. But this measure aroused the spirit of patriotism among the Hungarian nobility, which societal stratum before this had used Latin as official language. The language-cultivation movement was inspired by German examples, first of all Herder and other German thinkers. From this point to be a Hungarian meant to speak Hungarian. It was a very important change because until early 19th century to be a Hungarian meant to be the subject of the Hungarian king and to live in "Saint Stephen's Empire".
Of course these events did not leave the minorities who were living in Historical Great Hungary intact: the Serbians, Rumanians, Croatians and Slovaks began to develop their own national-consciousness. Among these minorities - emulating by Hungarian example - the language-cultivation took place as well: most of them now developed their own literacy. So the cohesive force of historical framework of Historical Great Hungary weakened to a great extent. This fact was revealed in the Revolution and War of Independence in 1848-49, when the majority of national minorities supported the Hapsburg court against the Hungarian Revolutionary Government. The Austro-Hungarian Compromise in 1867 was not satisfactory for the ethnic minorities. In spite of the fact that after 1867 the Hungarian parliament created a Language Act which was the most liberal in contemporaneous Europe: it ensured the mother tongues in local administration and county-administration. In the country there were established secondary schools which used mother tongues as educational language. But this was unsatisfactory for the ethnic minorities of Historical Greater Hungary because they - due to the natural logic of nation formation - were developing different feelings of national consciousness and they gravitated to unification with their language-fellows who were living near the borders of Historical Greater Hungary. So - according to Bibó - the Trianon Peace treaty - which was imposed on Hungary after the First World War - really expressed the existing tendency of nation-formation.
Nevertheless, from the point of view of Hungary it was a shock and caused Hungarian political hysteria, i.e. revisionism (1920-1945).
"On the one hand this led to a series of domestic crises causing the rise of darkest reaction to political power in Hungary; on the other hand it gave rise to the widely held belief that the entire partition of Hungary was due to brutal force and the hypocrisy of the victorious allies, precluding any distinction between the timely detachment of non-Hungarian-speaking regions -ready for separation - and the irrational and unjust severance of areas inhabited by Hungarians. As a result, the political conscience of Hungary could not break away from the vision of a historical Greater Hungary and increasingly assumed the position that Europe was indebted to Hungary for a great injustice32."
A similar process took place in Czechoslovakia between 1920-1938. After the Munich Pact of 1938 this country underwent to similar shock as Hungary did in 1920, and Poland did in 1795.
What was the content of the hysterias of small Eastern European countries? First of all the prevailing of fears and anxieties in political life: they began pathologically being terrified of loosing their national identity and of their nation's death. Linguistic nationalism, sense of national mission and intolerance were simply the reactions to these feelings. They could not become genuine democrats because of their fears:
"In a paralysing state of fear which asserts that freedom's progress endangers the interests of the nation, one cannot take full advantage of the benefits offered by democracy. Being a democrat means, primarily, not to be afraid; not to be afraid of those who have differing opinions, speak different languages, or belong to other races:.. The countries of Central and Eastern Europe were afraid because they were not fully developed mature democracies, and they could not become fully developed mature democracies because they were afraid33."
We must not believe naturally that Bibó held Central and Eastern Europe an inherently barbaric region: the reverse is true. He strongly emphasized, that this region's development is essentially similar to Western Europe's development: the historical deadlocks and political hysterias were due mostly to outer factors: let us think of the existence of the Hapsburg Empire which was hampering the process of nation formation during centuries. Declaring this fact Bibó did not want to relieve the responsibilities of these nations for linguistic nationalism and chovinism, contrary: he wrote in an ironical manner on this phenomena:
"When asked why they wanted to dominate others against the other's wishes and why they wished to appear better than they were, they would cite archeological finds, folk songs, folk art motives, loan-words, winged altars or the influence of their books and institutions: All to demonstrate that, if not for their munificence, some other ethnic group would still eke out a living under the most uncivilized circumstances34."
Summarizing Bibó's opinion this region's only chance is to apply democratic methods for solving its ethnic problems: to use force results inevitably in new deadlocks. Bibó's conclusion harmonizes with József Attila's opinion, which was declared in one of his most beautiful verses: "By the Danube":
(Translated by Vernon Watkins)
Created: 25. November 1998 by Pluhár Emese