The Lawful Revolution: Louis Kossuth and the Hungarians, 1848-1849. By I. Deak. New York: Columbia University Press, 1979. xxiv, 415 pp. +16 pp. plates. $22.50.
In Slavic Review Vol. ?No. ?(1980?) pp.668-669.

Louis Kossuth, the formidable leader of the Hungarian revolution and war of independence in 1848-49, became a symbol for numerous causes in the past century and a half. The people of the Hungarian plains practically deified him as their liberator; the contemporary English and American citizen celebrated him as a messenger of freedom; Magyar politicians of various hues expropriated him as their first flag bearer; and the Hungarian governments in this century institutionalized him while at the same time their oppositions confronted them in the name of Kossuth. On the other side, Romanians, Slovaks, Croats, and Serbs have often viewed Kossuth as the embodiment of anything despicable in Magyardom. Post-Versailles Western historians frequently painted him as the evil genius of Hungarian anti--Semitism, chauvinism, and racism. But Kossuth was the forerunner of neither Lenin nor Hitler. He was a flesh and blood, liberal-nationalist, nineteenth-century politician.

From the pen of Istvan Deak emerges the handsome, arrogant, conceited, overly polite, virile, elegant, realistic, utopian, energetic but, at times, somewhat weak and irreso-lute leader, a man who had little private life because he was constantly preoccupied with politics. He is described also as a brilliant lawyer, journalist, and finance minister, a child of the Enlightenment and of a romantic age, who gave hope to the oppressed, stimulated the modernization of his country, and provoked national revolutions for and against Magyar-dom. No wonder the students of Columbia University selected The Lawful Revolution for their annual award; the approach of Priscilla Robertson and Barbara Tuchman has great attraction to both history buffs and scholars. But Deak is more a historian than a writer of entertaining biography.

The Lawful Revolution is primarily a superb scholarly synthesis of Hungary's revolu-tion of 1848. Much has been written east and west of Vienna on this ever popular topic. However, Hungarian historians since the 1960s, with their positivist-analytical and gener-ally undogmatic method (in particular within the Institute of Historical Sciences), and North American historians interested in Easl Ccntral Europe, with their supranational, critical-analytical approach that is often sympathetic to Marxist history, have produced both plentiful new basic works and an atmosphere of common scholarly purpose for Deak's masterful new synthesis.

What inspired the strange title of this work was the Hungarian independence achieved with royal consent in the spring of 1848. Most of the revolutionary economic and social legislation of the April diet (parliament) survived the national revolution, which was built on shaky feudal economic foundations. This survival was also due to the similarity of Kossuth's and Prince Metternich's socioeconomic programs. Deak demolishes the myth of a court plot in Vienna; the Habsburgs were saved by loyalty and legality and not by armies or the mistakes of Kossuth. Mistakes were plentiful; the worst ethnic conflict of the Danubian basin was provoked, and opportunities for compromise were missed. Although the war of inde-pendence was lost, most revolutionary gains endured.

On the topic of revolutionaly terror, some questions can be raised about Deak's conclusions. Deak repeatedly denies Kossuth's and his courts' involvement. According to the records of the Pest military courts between September 1848 and August 1849, 277 persons were condemned to death and subsequently executed (Hungarian National Archives- AL D 37 3789/8207). Only a detailed examination of court records and a precise definition of the term "revolutionary terror" will clarify the matter.

There are some outstanding features of Deak's study. Short biographical studies bring to life the Romanian guerrilla fighter lancu, the controversial Mme. Kossuth, the Polish general Dembinski, and Prime Minister Szemere. The secondary role of the Hungarian political left and the peasantry is correctly noted, along with the heroism of some Serbs, Jews, and other minorities caught in the turmoil. Deak finds the Hungarian position on the question of state debts indefensible, but defends the last-minute emancipation of Jews and the nationality law as honest liberal enactments. He also defends Windischgrätz's military strategy and recognizes the hated Haynau's military talents. Deak's objectivity, his concise presentation of all controversial issues with a precise solution offered, his original research in military-economic history, and a splendid style accentuate the significance of this publication.

The Lawful Revolution will become everyone's history of 1848 and the best Kossuth biography on both sides of the Atlantic. A Hungarian edition of the book will soon be published in Budapest.

PETER 1. H IDAS - Dawson College, Montreal