ACTA HISTORICA - A MTA TÖRTÉNETTUDOMÁNYI FOLYÓIRATA TOM. 14 (1968)
14. kötet / 1-2. sz. - ETUDES - R. VÁRKONYI: The Impact of Scientific Thinking on Hungarian Historiography about the Middle of the 19th Century
2 A. R. Várkonyi thinking had any impact on Hungarian historiography. Their answer practically ruled out even the theme from the history of Hungarian historiography by rather summary judgment. It was stated that in Hungary historiography and historical thinking had not been infected by contemporary scientific ideas: though slightly touched by waves of this extensive current, they remained immune against fatal influences. However, the scientific holding-power of this statement appears to be extremely casual. For instance, Gyula Szekfű, the most outstanding representative of Dilthey's Hungarian followers, refers to Ferenc Salamon (1825 — 1892) as one of the most eminent historians of the 19th century . . . "whose work" he writes "on the period of Turkish rule in particular radiates wide political experience and profound wisdom." Yet it was actually in the Preface of this work, "Hungary in the Period of the Turkish Occupation", that Salamon revealed how he had come to use methods borrowed from the exact sciences. "Whatever order or method I applied in studying the material" he wrote "the data alone only suggested that, behold, there is an exceptional subject under earthly conditions which completely lacks order and every kind of law! Earlier, when studying mathematics ... at least I had the advantage of being convinced by clear examples that order and law prevailed in nature everywhere and in everything: it is due to our own weakness alone if we fail to discover them. In my embarrassment as a historian I had to turn to my earlier acquired conviction, and so I embarked upon a venture which I regarded only myself as an adventurous attempt." Salamon's confession in itself is, however, no more than an interesting curiosity. Moreover, a long list of similar quotations would still be insufficient to disprove Szekfű and his circle's statements concerning the fundamental character of Hungarian historiography. Hungarian bourgeois historiography of the 19th century was in general marked by philosophic paucity, and directed by struggles among political parties; it left behind only huge collections of data — was the verdict. Is it not an adventurously unnecessary proposition to search here for the faintest traces of a scientific conception, to take pains over scattered fragments which even when fitted together may remain negligibly insignificant against the counter-arguments of Dilthey's Hungarian adherents? Contrary to scientific thinking, the Hungarian followers of Dilthey put forward the notions of "sober Hungarian spirit" and "national idealism." "The historians of this age", says Bálint Hóman, "were protected from every exaggeration of a scientific conception of history by their attitude to history and by their sense of history derived from the permanent company of documents." However, notions are opposed to each other too much sharply. His tendency becomes perfectly clear when we consider how these historians of ideas interpreted the notion of a scientific conception of history. They regarded it as a way of thinking which had Acta Historica Academiae Scientiarnni Hungaricae 11, 1968