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What do Hungarians celebrate on 15 March?
Today is a national day in Hungary, meaning that most shops are closed and traffic turns upside down in the major cities and Budapest. But what do Hungarians celebrate on 15 March?
The three Hungarian national days
Hungary has three national days, two connected to revolutions and one to the state’s founding. Hungary’s internationally acknowledged national day is 20 August, when all Hungarians in the world celebrate the founding of the Christian Medieval state by Stephen I (997/1000-1038) in 1000. There are two more national days connected to revolutions and freedom fights. 23 October marks the anniversary of the 1956 anti-Soviet revolution, while on 15 March, we celebrate the Hungarian “lawful revolution” of 1848.
In March 1848, Hungary was part of the Habsburg Empire, but Vienna and the court tried to block most efforts to modernise Hungary. They had various reasons to do so, but probably the most important was that the Habsburg emperors wanted to create a unified empire and crush the Hungarian resistance. Meanwhile, the majority of the Hungarian intelligence and nobles wanted a modern, civic, industrialised Hungary that was no longer an underdeveloped feudal state with an uneducated society but a competitive European country.
The end of the Reform Era: changes accelerate
When the Paris Revolution broke out on 27 February, Hungarian reformist leaders knew their time had come. Lajos Kossuth compiled an address to the upper house of the diet, including all demands of the Reform Era (1825-1848), aiming the establishment of a modern, civic Hungary. However, the upper house accepted that document only after the outbreak of the first Vienna revolution on 13 March. But the emperor and Hungarian king, Ferdinand V, was put into bed as if he was ill (he was only intellectually disabled, a fact well-known about him throughout the empire) to win some time.
That is when news from the Pest revolution arrived in Vienna, so the Habsburgs had to accept Kossuth’s address. What’s more, they appointed Count Lajos Batthyány, the first Hungarian prime minister responsible for the Hungarian National Assembly (elected later) and Palatine Archduke Stephen Hungary’s royal commissioner entitled to almost all the royal powers (which means he could accept Hungary’s new, parliament-passed laws). Having the royal approval, the new Batthyány government wrote down several laws, which the emperor accepted on 11 April. The so-called April Laws created a constitutional state with a national assembly, having yearly sittings in Pest and being elected by the citizens of Hungary (they introduced census-based suffrage). Moreover, all royal decrees needed ministerial approval to become laws in Hungary. Consequently, Hungary became a constitutional monarchy where the king ruled but did not govern.
15 March: a milestone on the rough road towards a civic Hungary
The Pest revolution of 15 March played a key part in the above-detailed process. Without the revolution, the Habsburg emperor would not have accepted Kossuth’s address, and Batthyány would have never become a prime minister empowered to develop the April Laws. That is why we celebrate 15 March every year commemorating the brave Hungarians – including the so-called “March Youth” like poet Sándor Petőfi, writer Mór Jókai, lawyer Pál Vasvári and others – who could win in Pest without bloodshed.
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