Philip Barker

Supervisors: Dr. Daniel Abondolo, Professor Martyn Rady

Present status: PhD Research Student, Post-graduate Teaching Assistant

Working title of thesis: The Development of Hungarian Political Vocabulary and the Birth of the Ancient Constitution 1790-91 .

Research: My research traces the emergence of new Hungarian political vocabularies as calls were made from the late eighteenth century to replace Latin with the vernacular as the official language of state. Focusing in particular upon the diet of 1790-91, I chart the era's main political discourses (“republicanism”, “enlightened absolutism”, “politeness”, “patriotic scholarship” and “linguistic nationalism”), and place particular emphasis upon the emergent concept of the “ancient constitution”. This “ancient” constitution was not a codified body of laws as exemplified in America and France. It was rather an abstract vision of how the country’s feudal laws and customs constituted a historically-derived, organic entity: timeworn and stable, monarchs were obliged to maintain its integrity. With no constitutional text adopted at the 1790-91 diet, the Hungarian “ancient constitution” became a byword for a customary vision of law, one that served as an expression of both feudal domination and “national” resistance to Habsburg centralisation..