“Let These be our Colonies: Dalmatia, Bosnia, Herzegovina!” Rezső Havass and the Outlook of Hungarian Imperialism at the Turn of the Century

Mátyás Erdélyi
Research Centre for the Humanities
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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 11 Issue 2  (2022): 359-386 DOI 10.38145/2022.2.359

Hungarian imperial thought after the fall of the Habsburg Monarchy became a fantasy of past times, and thus the imperial propaganda of Rezső Havass was long irrelevant by the time of his death in 1927. In spite of this, Havass was called the “wholehearted devotee of Hungarian imperialism” in his obituary, a man who believed in further Hungarian expansion with the faith of prophets and whose goal was to resurrect the imperium of Louis I of Hungary. The present study analyzes the career trajectory of Rezső Havass and his multiple and overlapping identities in order to uncover the different faces of Hungarian imperialism before the Great War. Havass was a “bourgeois citizen,” a “Hungarian fanatic,” “a scholar,” and a “clerk and chairman of business companies,” or in other words, he had an array of identities which made him capable of using historic, legal, political, and economic arguments to aid the advancement of Hungarian imperialism. For Havass, the Hungarian Kingdom was undoubtedly a would-be-colonial empire with well-defined political goals (the colonization of Dalmatia), and his texts mixed and vulgarized elements of the sciences subordinated to political goals. For instance, it is relevant that the empire was a facilitating factor for geographical scholarship in the case of Havass, besides the obvious political leanings. My main research question concerns the modalities of imperial thought in Hungary through the case study of Rezső Havass. What did it consist of? How did it compare to other notions of imperialism and economic expansionism? And how widespread was it in the public sphere in Hungary?

Keywords: Habsburg Monarchy, imperialism, imperial propaganda

Other countries have overseas possessions, colonies, which provide comfortable income for those who cannot succeed at home. Let these be our colonies:
Dalmatia, Bosnia, Herzegovina!1

The idea of the Magyar imperium seemed a fantasy of old times after the dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy, and similarly, the expansionist propaganda of Rezső Havass had become obsolete by the time of his death in 1927. Nonetheless, Havass’ work provides us a broader perspective from which to understand the nature of Magyar imperialism at the turn of the century.2 Though fantasizing about the Magyar imperium became pointless in the interwar period, Havass’ necrology described him as “a sincere devotee of Magyar imperialism”3 who believed in the expansion of the Hungarian Kingdom with the faith of prophets and whose primary aspiration was to reestablish the empire of Louis I of Hungary.4 As the necrology stated, Havass was also a “prolific writer” and a “warm-hearted scientist.” Kálmán Lambrecht, a paleontologist and researcher at the Hungarian Royal Geographical Institute (Magyar Királyi Földtani Intézet), emphasized, by contrast, Havass’ multiple affiliations and ties. Havass was a “bourgeois in the sense of the civis romanus,” “a fanatic Magyar,” “a scientist,” “the creator and promoter of new thoughts,” and also a man who worked in the management of several joint-stock companies.5 Together with his multiple and overlapping identities, Havass’ imperial prophetism, therefore, provides excellent empirical material which sheds light on the nuances and mechanisms of imperial ideology in Hungary in the last decades of the Habsburg Monarchy.

Havass was longtime employed at the First Hungarian General Insurance Company (Első Magyar Általános Biztosító Intézet) as the head of the mathematical department, until his retirement in 1904. He then became a supervisory board member at several joint-stock companies.6 In 1910, he was still the vice president of the Hungarian Geographical Society (Magyar Földrajzi Társaság), vice president of the Elizabeth People’s Academy (Erzsébet Népakadémia, an association to promote public education in Hungary), and an elected member of the National Council of Museums and Libraries (Muzeumok és Könyvtárak Országos Tanácsa).7 In 1902, Havass was awarded the honorary title of royal councilor (királyi tanácsos),8 and he was a long-time member of the legislative committee (törvényhatósági bizottság) in Budapest. Thus, he belonged to the Budapest bourgeoisie at the turn of the century. He was familiar with the contemporary historical, legal, political, and economic fields and he readily applied this expertise in the “practical sciences,” to use a contemporary expression, to help the cause of Magyar imperialism with regard to the question of Dalmatia.

Walter Sauer’s description of Austrian historiography and the Austrian public image concerning the colonial past is true for Transleithania. According to Sauer, there is an alleged abstention from any discussion of colonial intervention, imperialism, and expansionism when considering the common past of Austria-Hungary, in spite of the fact that Austria-Hungary was not an anti-colonial state and numerous attempts to establish formal and informal colonies have been described in the secondary literature.9 Following Sauer’s line of thought, many historians have recently addressed the past of the Habsburg Monarchy as a colonial past, particularly from the perspective of postcolonial theory.10 For instance, Habsburg rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina is no longer interpreted in the contemporary narrative of a “civilizing mission” or a “humanitarian intervention.” Instead, the province is examined as a “colony” of the Habsburg Empire and analyzed in the framework of postcolonial theories, with a focus on both cultural and economic processes.11 In this vein, the present paper looks at the work of Rezső Havass as an explicit part of Hungary’s colonial past: Havass’ objectives were not achieved (and thus remained very much imaginary), but they exemplified the conceptual framework of colonial thinking in Hungary before World War I and demonstrated wide public support for such endeavors.

Rezső Havass was trained as a geographer, but his texts under discussion here are not scientific works. In his propaganda for the re-annexation of Dalmatia, Havass vulgarized scientific arguments and provided kindling for the public image of Magyar colonial prospects. Still, the case of Havass shows that the relationships between science, politics, and empire were not hierarchical or one-way relationships.12 His travelogues retained scientific findings (in geography and history) and turned them into a political means of producing colonial propaganda, but geographical and historical research, for instance, also profited from Hungary’s colonial prospects in the Balkans. In other words, the empire used science as a means of furthering its political goals—one obvious example is the Kronprinzenwerk—yet the sciences also profited from the visions of the empire. In this case, the empire served as a “facilitating” space for researchers: the imperial space provided opportunities for mobility within and outside the empire, and the empire itself provided a large geographical area for research.

The most obvious examples with which to illustrate this relationship are Adolf Strausz and Rezső Havass. Their sphere of scientific activity was inherently connected with the very existence of the Habsburg Monarchy and the Kingdom of Hungary. It is quite illustrative that both suddenly halted their previous scientific and public engagements after the dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy. Adolf Strausz (1853–1944) was a professor at the Oriental Academy of Trade (Keleti Kereskedelmi Akadémia) in Budapest, and he published manifold works on the Balkans from cultural, political, and economic perspectives. The last publication by Strausz before 1914 dealt with the geopolitical situation in the Balkans and the role Turkey should play in restructuring the region.13 After the Great War, however, Strausz ceased his scientific activity in this field and, in the interwar period, he published only one monograph, a work on the history of the Jewish congregation in Rome.14 The dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy represented a sudden rupture in Strausz’s academic career on another level as well. The Oriental Academy of Trade, which provided his livelihood when he taught there as a professor between 1891 and 1918 and provided financial support for his research trips to the Balkans, was closed down and the faculty was dismissed after 1920.15 1918 thus represented a sudden halt in Strausz’s career. The same picture goes for Havass. He published over 100 articles, papers, and essays between 1878 and 1916 but only four titles in the last decade of his life, including three papers in A tenger (The sea) and a commemorative volume on the fiftieth anniversary of the Hungarian Geographical Society.

The main goal of the present paper is to look at the conceptual grounds of Hungary’s colonial objectives through the lens of Havass’ propaganda concerning the reunification of Hungary with Dalmatia. This, of course, entails a change in perspective: I look at Hungary not as a colonial power, which it was not, but as an unsuccessful would-like-to-be colonial state with well identified colonial goals. I am particularly interested in the ways in which different fields of knowledge interacted with one another, transgressed disciplinary frontiers, and were vulgarized by Havass and others. Between the turn of the century and the outbreak of the Great War, colonial ideas and concepts had become an integral part of the public imagination through continuous repetition in the daily press, commemorative books, tourist guides, and even school trips. For Havass, the Hungarian Kingdom represented a colonial empire with well-defined political goals (i.e., the colonization of Dalmatia), and his scholarship mixed elements of the sciences subordinated to political goals (and also an approach to the sciences that followed its own logic). My main research question concerns the modalities of imperial thought in Hungary through the case study of Rezső Havass. What did it consist of? How did it compare to other notions of imperialism and economic expansionism? How widespread was it in the public sphere in Hungary? I approach these questions in three smaller case studies. First, I analyze the components of Havass’s economic expansionism and the place of Dalmatia within it; then, I turn to the most important means of economic expansionism, the railways, and describe how new railways lines were meant to aid the Magyar imperium. Lastly, I analyze the cultural and historic arguments for the re-annexation of Dalmatia.

Economic and Territorial Expansionism

The most quoted article by Rezső Havass is a manifesto entitled “On Magyar imperialism,” which was published in Budapesti Hírlap (Budapest Herald) in 1902.16 Havass argues that the principal goal of Magyar imperialist politics is to revive the power and authority of the Kingdom of Hungary at the time of the Árpád dynasty and the House of Anjou. The most often repeated trope is the importance of reclaiming the territorial integrity, the political power, and the authority of the kingdom as it stood at the time of Louis I. Yet the main issue for the contemporary observer is the country’s economic dependency and under-development vis-à-vis Austria. For Havass, the solution must therefore be economic: no further expansion could be done in the port of Fiume (today Rijeka, Croatia), and there was no other way to nurture the increasing flow of trade and transportation. The Hungarian economy therefore desperately needed to establish other port cities for its economic expansion, and the Hungarian re-annexation of Dalmatia could provide a solution. The coastal cities and ports of Dalmatia were mostly underdeveloped and unexploited, so their integration into Hungary’s trade network might represent the geopolitical foundations for Hungary’s greater economic expansion. In short, these ideas represented Havass’s patriotic mission and his public endeavors aimed at promoting the re-annexation and articulating the necessary geographical, cultural, and historical arguments. To quote Havass,

the advocates of Magyar imperialism do not want to create daydreams in front of the Hungarian nation, rather, they aim to profit from those factors that could be used to bring about the cultural and material improvement of the Magyar nation and to further glorify her, without engaging in adventurous undertakings, based on the legal grounds from the nation’s history, and without weakening the power status of the Monarchy.17

Havass’ stance vis-à-vis the Habsburg Monarchy is very clear: he was not searching for territorial expansion outside the Monarchy but rather was seeking to reconfigure the power balance within the monarchy. The underlying economic strategy involved active economic interventionism and industrial policy in the Balkans, the expansion of railway lines to fit the needs of Hungarian trade and industry, and the introduction of new trade policies more beneficial for Hungarian producers. Havass wrote in detail about the role of the railways, a subject to which I return in the second part of this paper.

Havass evaluated efforts at the trialist reorganization of the Dual Monarchy in view of the above programmatic article, and the dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy was not sought for either in this case. In a lecture at the national assembly of the Hungarian Geographical Society in Nagybecskerek (Zrenjanin, Großbetschkerek, today in Serbia) in 1909, Havass characterized the idea of trialism as a conscious effort to weaken Hungary within and outside the monarchy. With the aid of trialism, the goal of the “Austrians” was to “weaken our national forces” and “annihilate our economic independence.”18 The south-Slav state created in this way would not be sustainable as the third, “dwarf” member of the Habsburg Monarchy. In the case of the south-Slave state, national unity would be also missing, even though national unity was also missing in the case of Hungary, Havass admitted. But Hungarians formed a “cultural nation” (kultúrállam) and were well positioned to solve this problem:

The fact that Hungary geographically forms a closed area and that it has a historical past and also the numerical, material, and intellectual force of ten million Magyars ensure the leadership of the Magyar nation and rule out any competition.19

The second issue is that the planned south-Slav state would be dependent on the neighboring “Magyar Empire” from the perspective of trade and transportation. The south-Slav territories of the Habsburg Monarchy therefore belong to Hungary in a geopolitical sense: “If Bosnia and Herzegovina, which belong to the body of the Magyar Empire, came into the possession of Austria, it would be as absurd as attaching Tirol to Hungary.”20 The arguments against trialism are similar to the motifs for the re-annexation of Dalmatia. The connection between Hungary and the south-Slav states was imagined in a hierarchical way but presumed to be productive for both parties. Although Hungary had a clear economic superiority, Hungarians should share the “fruits of civilization” with the south-Slav region:

For us, who are the stronger, the bigger, it is an obligation to approach the south-Slav region in the spirit of old, traditional Magyar politics. […] We have to bring the very tissue of Magyar culture to the South-Slavs and to the Adriatic coast so that its light could gather the people in the region around us.21

The program was rather phantasmal, as was well expressed in the lack of reactions on the other side of the Leitha and in the apathy of the Hungarian political elite, but this political apathy was in contrast with infrastructural investments and trade policies in the region that attracted close attention from both Vienna and Budapest.

This points to another element in the ideology of imperialism: the civilizing mission of the colonizer and the hierarchical relationship between center and periphery, colony and colonizer. This civilizing mission was well described in the first part of a play, a trilogy by Havass entitled Fényben (In the light):

We should be all one in our singing! The rivers flow together and become a sea, a great, magnificent, and unconquerable sea. Our peoples merge in this way into a magnificent whole. My princess, to remember my visit today, I shall build a tower here which will indicate until the end of times that the Hungarian king was here, as a good friend, who is a builder and giver and not a conqueror who destroys and takes. You shall live according to your old laws and customs, no one should disturb them. But I expect from you to act with brotherly love and loyalty vis-à-vis the Hungarian king and his people.22

 

The benevolent nature of Hungarian rule in Dalmatia—which allegedly resulted in centuries of loyalty to Hungary—was emphasized by other influential figures. The historian Henrik Marczali wrote that “The cities of Dalmatia would never forget the centuries that they lived under Hungarian protection while preserving their absolute freedom.”23 Dalmatians remember these centuries as the “savor of sweet honey.” Havass found seeds for this argument in Lajos Thallóczy’s essays. Thallóczy found out that, in 1783, an anonymous writer sent a memoir to the chancellery arguing that Dalmatia legally belonged to Hungary. Although the chancellery agreed with the conclusions, they hid the memoir because it could have caused diplomatic conflict with Venice.24 Thallóczy was more candid in another publication:

[The cities of Dalmatia] welcomed Austria with joy because they were fed up with Venetian rule. The secret archives of Vienna and documents of the Council of War prove that citizens, the clergy, and the educated did not forget the rule of the “Hungarian crown,” and Austria meant Hungary for them. In Split, the esteemed party turned to the palatine to be able to rejoin the Hungarian crown. It became a considerable campaign, as the Hungarian coat of arms was set up in cities and on islands, priests proclaimed their loyalty to the Hungarian king in the pulpit. Thugut, the minister of foreign affairs at the time, however, prevented the annexation of Dalmatia to Hungary.25

This passage pleased Havass so much that he quoted it countless times in his texts on Dalmatia.26 In terms of the reference to historic rights, Havass was not alone in reclaiming the possession of Dalmatia. In a book about the public law status of Dalmatia, László Dús emphasized that Dalmatia belonged to the Hungarian crown, the main reason being that the Hungarian crown had never renounced its connection with Dalmatia.27

Another pamphlet, entitled “Dalmatia and Hungarian industry and trade,” describes in detail the essence of this Hungarian economic expansionism.28 The point of departure was that the economic stagnation and crisis in Hungary threatened Széchenyi’s prophetic famous contention that, “while many think that there once was a Hungary, I wish to believe that there will yet be a Hungary.” The remainder of the article details the advantages of the enforcement of Act XXX of 1868, which proclaimed the re-annexation of Dalmatia to Hungary.29 Mining, especially asphalt and coal production, had not yet been exploited in the province. Natural resources and infrastructure were available to establish a large-scale aluminum industry. The cement industry had promising potential and could compete with producers in the West. Unexploited natural resources were abundant in the province, such as hydropower (through the exploitation of waterfalls), viniculture, pomology, and fishing, and the local conditions could make tea production possible in the region. Dalmatia was currently at a disadvantage because, according to Havass, the Österreichischer Lloyd neglected the development of trade and transportation on the Adriatic Sea. At the time, there were only four banks and two savings banks in the province, so Hungarian financial institutions could easily establish new branches. Havass’ agenda represented an economic colonialism that proposed to exploit Dalmatia’s resources after re-annexation. This strategy was also intended to improve the economic situation of both parties. According to one of the most quoted arguments against Austrian “rule” in Dalmatia, “Vienna” had failed to care for the province since having acquired it, and it had failed to make significant cultural and infrastructural investments.

The Dalmatian ports offered the most significant potential from the perspectives of economy and trade. There were many reasons behind their growing importance. First, there were 56 cities on the Dalmatian coast, all of them potential ports unexploited by the Dual Monarchy. Second, the Suez Canal had transformed trade routes in general, and from the moment it had opened in 1869, the ports on the Mediterranean Sea became capable of engaging in trade with Asia. The monarchy, however, had failed to profit from its favorable position. In terms of the volume of transportation on the Suez Canal, English, German, French, and Dutch trade all significantly surpassed trade by the Habsburg Monarchy, in spite of the fact that Trieste and Split (Spalató) were more easily accessible. Naturally, “Austrians” refused to give up Dalmatia, because in doing so, they would have completely relinquished to Hungary control of and access to the Balkans. For Havass, the re-annexation of Dalmatia would bring about economic independence for Hungary in the long run, which was much needed after the (future) establishment of an independent customs territory. To sum up, the importance of Dalmatia lay in the abundance of natural resources, potential trade connections and developments, and the fact that Dalmatia could be a potential target for Magyar emigrants.30

The idea of economic expansionism was widespread among Hungarian economists and public figures debating Balkan politics,31 and as historian Gábor Demeter has persuasively argued, “[g]eography was already, before 1914, a promoter of economic and then territorial expansion.”32 In this regard, Havass was a typical exponent of Magyar imperial thought. The concept of economic expansionism relied on various sets of arguments, including legal arguments (such as the reference to Act XXX of 1868), references to historic rights (the conquest of Hungary by the Árpád dynasty and Louis I of Hungary), allusions to geographical cohesion or closeness, economic needs (especially as regards international trade), geopolitical considerations (vis-à-vis Vienna but also Russia, Turkey, and Italy), and cultural and humanitarian appeals. Havass differed from such figures as Dezső Szegh33 and Adolf Strausz34 in the sense that the latter two did not envision territorial expansion as part of economic expansion. The means of expansionism remained strictly economic and cultural: a railway strategy to foster and further Hungarian trade because, now, “our own favorable trade position is utilized by other countries in relation to Eastern trade.”35 Significantly, Strausz was a professor at the Oriental Academy of Trade in Budapest, and he participated in forming the next generation of tradesmen in the Balkans at the turn of the century. Havass could also find an ally in Pál Hoitsy who, as the editor of Vasárnapi Újság (Sunday Newspaper), disseminated different forms of Magyar imperial thought to the greater public. Hoitsy argued that, from the perspective of geography, Hungary, which was pressed between East and West, was forced to pursue expansionist politics ad infinitum. Romania and Serbia had to be occupied to regain Hungary’s old glory and to enable the Magyar nation to assimilate the nationalities within its borders.36

For Havass, the numerical growth of Magyars was closely connected to the economic power of Hungary, and he examined nationalist arguments from this perspective. The lecture entitled “The Slovakization of Upper Hungary” started as follows: “Who could deny that the more numerous its population becomes, the greater the power of the nation will be.”37 Following the lead of József Kőrösy’s similarly entitled study,38 Havass argued that the so-called Slovakization of some of the counties in Upper Hungary (the territory of Slovakia today) was obvious, and the Magyar nation had lost some 100,000 people in Pozsony, Nyitra, Bars, and Hont Counties. Statistical findings indicated the decrease of Magyar population and prompted immediate action. In another article, Havass addressed the phenomenon of “pseudo-Magyarization.” At the turn of the century, the spread of Hungarian as the official language and the language in everyday use took place primarily in cities and towns, as had been emphasized in the 1899 lecture. Havass argued that, in contrast to declarations made by people when the census was taken, “half of the population prefer not to use Hungarian in Budapest.”39 Havass highlighted the situation on the outskirts of the capital: he visited Pomáz, where everyone spoke Serbian and German, although they were all locals. For Havass, it is not “chauvinism to speak up against these conditions, it is rather self-defense.” He contended that, “[i]f the national spirit could permeate society in the capital, there would not be any people speaking foreign languages in Budapest.”

For Havass, the best tool with which to achieve these national goals was economic expansion, and the scientific foundation of this expansion was to come from geography. The Hungarian Geographical Society established the Department of Economic Geography in 1912. The department was intended to promote economic interests from the perspective of geography, and economic interests were to benefit the “national goals” first and foremost.40 For Havass, the “vivacity of the Magyars,” by which he meant the numerical growth of the Hungarian-speaking population, was inseparable from Hungarian economic expansion. In this way, Dalmatia as a potential target of emigration would help maintain the numerical growth of Magyars, because the future colony (Dalmatia) could preserve the migrants for the Magyar nation, in contrast to overseas migrants, who began using different languages and were thus “lost,” as it were, to the Hungarian nation.

The problem with the Tisza government, in the eyes of Havass, was that it failed to control or influence the direction of emigration. In addition, more than 30 years after the Compromise of 1867,41 the government had failed to make friends in the Balkans or among the non-Magyar nationalities in Hungary. Hungarian emigrants were left without guidance and thus were lost to the Magyar cause in the long run. In a rather condescending tone, Havass declared that “they had not even abandoned our Slovaks [tótjainkat] in such a despondent way.”42 The most important issue with the Hungarian ruling elite, however, was that it had neglected the development of the “Magyar imperium.” Past governments had not encouraged the annexation of Bosnia and Herzogovina to the Kingdom of Hungary and had not taken the opportunity to move settlers into Bosnia, especially Székelys. Havass asks a pointed question: “]d]id we work to create a situation in which Bosnians and Herzegovinians would themselves ask to get the advantages of Hungarian citizenship?”43 He concludes his article with an invitation to pursue imperial policies: “Let us raise the flag of Hungarian imperial politics. Let us give the Magyar nation ideals that fit the fight of its soul. Hungary is entitled to have Dalmatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.”44

Two issues must be emphasized concerning the economic expansionism envisioned by Havass. First, the most important difference that distinguished his views from other Magyar ideas was that it involved explicit territorial expansion, namely the incorporation of Dalmatia into Hungary. However, this territorial expansion was imagined within the framework of the Dual Monarchy and via the transformation of the power balance between the two states of the Habsburg Monarchy. Austria, thus, became Hungary’s most important “competitor” and the (only) threat to Hungary’s economic independence. Secondly, Havass mixed up nation and empire in the ideology of economic expansionism. The principal goal was to elevate the standing of the Hungarian crown and Hungarians, but by “Hungarians,” Havass understood mostly people who both spoke Hungarian as a native tongue and allegedly identified as part of the Hungarian nation. For instance, economic development in Hungary should contribute to the growth of the Magyar (Hungarian-speaking) population and not to the growth of other ethnic communities within the territories of the Hungarian crown. The goal was thus to further the growth and prosperity of the Hungarian nation. Yet, the re-annexation of Dalmatia, according to public law, could only take place with Dalmatia as part of Croatia-Dalmatia-Slavonia, thus within the framework of a Magyar empire and not the Kingdom of Hungary. The compromise between Hungary and Croatia in 1868 and specifically the passage that declared Dalmatia’s re-annexation envisaged the re-annexation to the Hungarian empire (as part of Croatia) and not to Hungary proper. The Croatian historian Ferdo Šišić emphasized this idea in his book on the Dalmatian question.45 The Croatian parliament requested several times the re-annexation of Dalmatia, but they always meant re-annexation to Croatia.

Economic Policy Instruments: Railways in the Service of Economic Expansion

The re-annexation of Dalmatia was not on the agenda of the political elite in Vienna or in Budapest, but the construction of railways was discussed and carried out in the province. In practice, Act XLVIII of 1912 regulated the construction of a railway line between Ogulin and Knin46 based on a compromise reached at the common ministerial council and the 1907 financial compromise between the two delegations. The latter stated that the two governments agreed that a railway line was going to be constructed from Rudolfswerth via Möttlingen to Karlovec, and a direct line would be built between Ogulin and Knin. The construction of the latter was to be completed by December 1911. Another important point of the 1907 compromise was that tariff policies would be set in parity between the two states of the Habsburg Monarchy regarding transit traffic to Dalmatia.47 This agreement was welcomed by Havass, but it did not meet with unanimous approval by the Hungarian public. Critics stated that the costs were excessive and the Austrian economy benefitted most from the future direct connections between Vienna and Dalmatia.

For Havass, the railway connection between Dalmatia and Hungary was a means with which to further the economic expansion of Hungary and an utterly necessary step forward: “[i]t is peculiar that other nations make war to take possession of seashores and maritime transportation is used to enhance their economic independence and development: whereas our longing for the sea consists only of rallying cries which sound nice but are never acted upon.”48 Charles Loiseau and Guiseppe Gentilizza49 were quoted to suggest that the destiny of Dalmatia was crucial for the status of Hungary as a great nation. Loiseau, however, was much more critical of the Habsburg mission in the Balkans than he seems in Havass characterization of his ideas. For instance, Loiseau called attention to the abuse of power against non-Magyars in Hungary, in particular concerning parliamentary elections. From his perspective, Hungary could only delay the political rise of Romanians, Slovaks, Serbs, and other national minorities, and the right way of state building would be federalism instead of the proclamation of a unified Hungarian political nation. The conclusion of the article was oracular: “And yet, we need it, the Slav pressure—and they [the Hungarians] know it!”50

On another occasion, Loiseau drew attention to the potential economic and political consequences of Habsburg expansion in the Balkans.51 The Habsburg Monarchy planned to construct a railway line between Sarajevo and Mitrovica that could potentially transform trade networks in the region. This railway line would also help lay the way for the construction of direct line between Vienna and Salonika and badly hurt the economic interests of Italy. Loiseau, here, gave a succinct summary of the civilizing mission:

To bring this barbaric country [Macedonia] a caress of civilization—and why would only one great power have the privilege of doing this good work?—is, first, to open schools. […] It is also to spur economic relations. […] It is to form a new generation of Italians, lay and clerks, to better know the history and language of Schkipetare. […] Finally, it is to help bring about the development of the postal services.52

Loiseau also expressed his opinion concerning Hungary’s customs policies, which in his assessment were imperial and served to further exploitation by Hungary of the import of Serbian pork: “[a]nd on this market, this great power [Hungary] dictates the law through customs tariffs, railway tariffs, and through the exercise of—often unfair—public health regulations.”53 Loiseau himself was thus far from sympathetic to the cause of Austria-Hungary.54

Contrary to Loiseau’s assumption, there was controversy between Austria and Hungary and inside Hungary as well concerning the choice of the railway line through Dalmatia. For instance, the Österreichische Rundschau55 questioned the rationale of building a line between Ogulin and Knin (the so-called Lika line) instead of a line between Novi and Knin (the so-called Una line in Bosnia), because the former heavily favored Hungarian interests and strictly Hungarian tariff policies could be applied on this line. Hungarian experts also criticized the choice of the Lika line. It was a region with limited access to water, and this significantly raised construction costs. The Lika line was 55 kilometers longer and over 100 million Kronen more expensive than the Una line. In their eyes, it was problematic that the Lika line traversed thinly populated and agriculturally unproductive regions, and, finally, it favored Austrian interests by furthering trade via Vienna and Trieste.56

Havass naturally refuted these contentions and pointed out that with the construction of the Una line, Hungary would lose its influence on tariff policies for Dalmatian transportation. The ultimate motive, though, concerned imperialism. First, the Lika line would “bring culture, at last” to Lika-Krbava County in Croatia-Slavonia. Second, “the main goal is after all to connect Budapest and Hungary with the Dalmatian coast.”57 In a significant way, Havass turns to Friedrich Ratzel to support Hungary’s imperial expansionism. The German geographer, nowadays known for laying the foundations of the concept Lebensraum, wrote in Anthropogeographie that, “Umgekehrt es ist verheissungsvoll, wenn ein eingeschlossenes Volk sich eine Lücke in den Gürtel bricht, der es umgibt, oder sonstwie seine Expansionskraft bezeugt.”58 Ratzel took the example of the political rallying cry “Tengerhez magyar, el a tengerhez” (“To the sea Hungarian, to the sea,” originally the title of an 1846 article by Hungarian politician Lajos Kossuth) to prove that such an “expansion power” can have political consequences. At least, the development of the Lika line was, according to Havass, necessary to halt the expansionism of Austrian trade, even at the expense of Hungary’s economic development.

Havass called attention to Austria’s efforts to curtail Hungary’s economic expansion. The planned construction of the “island railway” (this line would combine a steam ferry and railway lines through Istria, Pag, and so forth to Zadar) in Dalmatia would simply be a means of economic expansionism for Austria.59 Austria also aimed, according to Havass, to monopolize maritime trade through the connection between Vienna and Split. The subvention of the Österreichische Lloyd, the establishment of a port on the Istrian coast, next to Fiume, were all part of this strategy.60 Havass would repeat what had been already stated concerning the Lika line:

The railway line to Split must belong to the Hungarian railway jurisdiction and must be a Hungarian line, for it will be profitable, for it bears important political and economic interests, and it can contribute to the protection of Rijeka.61

The investment would yield remarkable profits. The port of Split was closer to the Suez Canal than Trieste, Genova, Marseille, or Hamburg, and thus it could assume an important role in trade with the East. But there were other resources in the region. The waterfalls along the Cetina River could provide industrial electricity, Brač (an Island close to Split) was a major producer of high-quality marble, there was a burgeoning cement industry in Split, as well as a spa, wine exports, and so forth.62 These assets ensured the importance of rail connections between Split and Budapest. Havass’ call did not go unnoticed. A critical review appeared in Vasuti és közlekedési közlöny (Railway and transportation gazette) claiming that it was not economically rational to oppose the construction of the Split-Vienna line. The main goal of the Austrians was to develop Split (and potentially alleviate the traffic going through Trieste) and not to create a competitor for Fiume. Hungarians, rather, should concentrate their efforts on developing Fiume, which could not become a competitor, as it lacked the appropriate infrastructure. The anonymous writer completely dismissed Havass’ contentions as propaganda and proposed a more rational approach:

We have so many things to do, more directly and more urgently, that we don’t have time to wander in a foreign land. We are deeply sorry that Dalmatia is a foreign country, but today, to think about its re-annexation and especially to plan our transportation policies in view of this idea would not be far-sighted or economically rational behavior.63

 

Dezső Szegh, an influential economist and prolific writer on economic expansionism in the Balkans,64 also opposed the establishment of the Lika line in favor of the Una line, as the latter would be shorter, cheaper, more profitable, and more efficient. In addition, the Una line better fit Hungary’s existing trade policies with regards to trade with the East. Szegh proved this statement with references to “objective facts, so to speak, on a mathematical basis.”65

In his response, Havass rejected the notion that the re-annexation of Dalmatia would be a “utopian enchantment” because all parties (including Dalmatians and Croatians) were in favor of this constitutional change. He also reiterated the need to construct the Ogulin-Knin line on the territory of the Hungarian Kingdom and make it a “Magyar” railway.66 In 1908, the Austrians suddenly got interested in Dalmatia, for they feared that Hungary would re-annex it. Like many of his contemporaries, Havass believed that it was Austria that benefitted mostly from the Dual Monarchy. Cisleithania had a positive trade balance vis-à-vis Transleithania and wanted to maintain the economic dependency of Hungary, in his assessment. The goal for Hungary, in contrast, was to free itself from this dependency through enhanced trade relations with the rest of the world. The port of Fiume was not sufficient (with its mere 20 square kilometers). The solution could be found in the ports of Dalmatia and in the training of Magyar sailors who would work for Magyar economic independence and Magyar economic expansion.67

As in the case of cultural belongingness (see below), Havass was not the only public figure to write in favor of the railway line between Ogulin and Knin. For instance, Iván Polgár, a Cistercian monk, historian, and professor at the Cistercian Gymnasium in Székesfehérvár, described the Dalmatian railways as a crucial component of Hungarian railway investments. For Polgár, railway investments should be profitable in the sense that the income generated by new lines would cover the interest on the capital and make further investments possible. The rationale behind the construction of the Ogulin-Knin line (as planned by Act XLVIII of 1912) was to direct the traffic to the lines of the Hungarian State Railways (MÁV) and open up new trade networks for Hungarian products.68 Dalmatia should belong to Hungary by “historical law,”69 yet the construction of railway connections between Hungary and Dalmatia was in the interest of Hungarian economic growth, regardless of whether Dalmatia would be annexed to Hungary as stipulated in Act XXX of 1868 or not.

Culture and History in the Service of Imperialism

One important pillar of Havass’ propaganda was the cultural and historical relations between Dalmatia and Hungary. The richly illustrated monograph, entitled Dalmatia, included all the cultural monuments and memories that illustrated Dalmatia’s earlier attachments to Hungary.70 One such case is the preservation of the remains of Katalin and Margit, daughters of Béla IV of Hungary, at the cathedral in Split. According to the report, “the royal relics were kept in garbage and dirt,” and this was a clear sign of anti-Magyar sentiments in the province. Havass rejected this claim, because the unusual condition of the tomb was due to the refurbishment of the cathedral at the time, and the Dalmatian sense of fraternal attachment to Hungary was unquestionable.71 Havass attempted to prove that Dalmatia and the Magyar nation belonged together culturally by citing cultural-historical examples that were repeated for decades, in some cases even in the interwar period. For Split, it was the royal tomb. For Zadar, the capital of Dalmatia, it was St. Mary’s Church, which had been erected partly by Coloman of Hungary and the conquest of the region by Louis I. For Trogir and Klis, the important event was Béla IV of Hungary’s escape from the Tartar invasion. These historical events served as encouragement for contemporary Hungarians to visit Dalmatia, as explained in 1901 in Vasárnapi Újság,72 and the places were the backdrop for the aforementioned drama Fényben.73 The goal of the trilogy was to draw attention to Hungary’s glorious past so that the present generation could gather strength from this example in the unfortunate age of the interwar period.

The public image of Dalmatia was very similar to what Havass recounted many times, at least from the perspective of school field trips to Dalmatia. Reports of field trips to Dalmatia specifically mentioned visits to attractions in the province that were somehow related to Hungarian culture of history. In the case of Zadar, student groups stopped at St. Mary’s Church and St. Simeon’s Church, and they would observe the Roman-style tower of the former, erected to remember the Coloman’s parade in the city, and the silver casket in the latter, offered to the city by Elizabeth of Bosnia, the wife of Louis I. A Catholic Gymnasium in Budapest issued the following report of the silver reliquary: “Seeing this invaluable piece of rare perfection gives us an understanding of the power, richness, and glory of our country at the time of Louis I.”74

Other mentions include Klis (Clissa), a small village which provided shelter for Béla IV when he fled the Tartar invasion. The teacher reports that on the visit to this stronghold, “we sang the National Anthem and our Kurutz songs with such emotion!”75 Efforts to nurture these “historical reminiscences”76 would continue in Split with visits to the tomb of the daughters of Béla IV in the cathedral and to Trogir, where Béla IV also stayed in 1242. Havass’ drama entitled Dalmáczia (Dalmatia) was also not ignored by the schools. In 1903, several schools reported to have watched the “patriotic drama” at the Urania theater following a request by the pedagogical council.77

Havass’ distinctive imperial agenda was echoed by teachers on the field trips. The stenography teacher at a trade school in Budapest rambled on about the prospects of Magyar foreign trade in his introduction to the report “Magyar world trade. A desire of all true Magyars.” This was followed by a rhetorical question: “But is Magyar world trade not a dream, a reverie or a castle in the air?”78 The answer was a firm no, as demonstrated by the school trip itself. Others gave a more explicit description of Magyar imperialism in Dalmatia. For József Andor (cited above), the goal of the trip to Dalmatia was to show students “the ancient places of the old Magyar empire.”79 The Magyar empire lost its old glory for a reason: “the decline of national virtues and the empowerment of national defects led us to lose this fairy province.”80 What remained of Magyar imperialism in the province was remarkable, however, because the material remnants of Magyar rule in Dalmatia were almost invisible, and we would look for them in vain as “a sign that Magyar rule was not violent and did not leave its mark on anything.”81 A field trip description by the Gymnasium in Trsztena (Trstená), a Slovak town at the northern border between Upper Hungary and Galicia, offered further proof of the benevolent nature of Hungary’s imperial past.

Once the wind was glowing a Hungarian tricolor on Orlando’s Column in front of St. Blaise’s Church. Under the protection of this tricolor, Dubrovnik lived in security, in wealth with privileges, and in peace. And Dubrovnik had its heyday under the protection of this tricolor.82

Other travel reports replicated these tropes without the imperialist voice. The architect János Bobula Jr. described Dubrovnik in 1911 in exactly the same way as Havass spoke about Dalmatia. The portrait of the coastal city started with a reminiscence about Magyar rule in the province. The traveler wondered, while strolling through the alleys of the old town, whether a knight of Béla IV or Ladislaus I of Hungary would come and block his way, and he imagined how Sigismund of Hungary, the Holy Roman Emperor, would watch animals and plants from the window of the monastery, just like visitors in the early twentieth century did.83 But Bobula dismisses these thoughts with a melancholy sigh:

Let’s not pass time with these reminiscences, because we can only get depressed by knowing our weakness. Knowing that we have to tolerate silently that the “pearl of the Adriatic,” which the Árpáds brilliantly put on the Holy Crown of Stephen, is today under foreign rule, without any historic rights.84

Not surprisingly, the most important landmark in the city is the cathedral that contains the relics of St. Stephen. Others were just describing Dalmatia as a touristic destination. A handbook for travelers by Sándor Paulovits, a senior clerk in Tolna County, copied most of the information from Havass’s book on Dalmatia without references to the annexation.85 Lajos Czink, a teacher at a secondary trade school, described Lissa with the necessary references to Coloman of Hungary, Béla IV, and Louis I but without any mention of Dalmatia’s re-annexation.86 Béla Dezső, a Gymnasium teacher, recalled the times of Béla IV but again did not make any contentions concerning how Dalmatia belonged Hungary.87 The linguist Béla Erődi gave a comprehensive summary of Dalmatia’s touristic destinations and only reinforced the idea that it was, now, a foreign country. The remains of Béla IV’s two daughters were mistreated in Split because of “ethnic hatred,” and the bishop refused to transport them to Hungary because the Magyars had not built a direct railway line between Split and Budapest.88

Conclusion

The case of Rezső Havass offers persuasive support for the notion that empire and nation are not binary oppositions in the case of the Habsburg Monarchy89 and they worked together well in Havass’ imperialist ideology. For the Magyar nation, economic expansionism as a form of imperialist politics was a means to develop and sustain Hungarian political and cultural influence. The idea of a Magyar imperium was thus not alien to the thinking of Havass and his contemporaries.90 On the contrary, it was shared and practiced by many. It might have seemed little more than a daydream a century after the dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy, but it was a political program espoused by many around 1900. The imperialist ideology of Havass was present both in discussions about the establishment of new railways (namely in the case of the Ogulin-Knin railway line) and in the reconsideration of Hungary’s trade network and transportation routes. Naturally, it was also present in the image of Dalmatia from a historical and cultural perspective. School trips and tourist guides characterized Dalmatia as a former colony of the Hungarian Kingdom and were guided by the cultural and historic reminders of Hungarian rule in the province. Respected historians like Henrik Marczali and Lajos Thallóczy were equally interested in the distant past of Dalmatia as a source of historical rights for the Hungarian crown. This was, of course, the Magyar perspective. The argument concerning historic rights could support claims to the region both by Cisleithania and by Transleithania, not to mention Italy and Croatia.91 Foreign travel handbooks mentioned Hungarian relics, but they presented a much more nuanced picture of the common past and present. Maude M. Holbach’s travel book only mentions one Hungarian relic, “the marvelous silver-gilt sarcophagus said to contain the body of the Simeon of the Presentation in the Temple” offered by Queen Elisabeth of Hungary to the Church of St. Simeon.92 Another travel report bluntly criticized Hungarians:

It [Dalmatia] also suffers from imperial politics, the absolutely necessary connection of its state railway at Knin with the Austrian system being persistently vetoed by Hungary, which hopes thus to coerce it into supporting the Magyar party in the Diet.93

Hungarians might have been alone in thinking that Dalmatia should belong to their kingdom, but they imagined this settlement in the framework of the Habsburg Monarchy. Havass and others like him harshly criticized “Austria” as the main competitor with and enemy of Hungary’s economic development and the country that did the most to curtail Hungarian independence, yet they remained in the Dualist framework and envisaged only a reconfiguration of the power balance within the monarchy. Robert Musil, in The Man Whitout Qualities, might have written that Austrians were primarily nothing at all and there was no such thing as Austria in the imagination of the peoples of the Habsburg Monarchy. For Hungarians like Havass, “Austria” very much existed, and it was the country that connoted the Habsburg empire. But this empire contained in itself another empire, the Magyar imperium.

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