Presentations by Streams

The study of the global export of European state- and nation-building experiences from a historiographical perspective is essentially limited to the transatlantic world. Little research has examined the aspirations of Eastern European nations and nation-states in a global context. The relevant Hungarian, Czech (Slovak), Polish, etc. ambitions, however, have had a strong influence on the reform movements of many African, Latin American or Asian countries from the mid-19th century to the present.
What is unique about the export of Hungarian nation- and state-building experience is that, it is based on a former empire-building tradition and an empire-building ideology. At the turn of the century, the Hungarian political elite attempted (1896-1918) to formally organize the Kingdom of Hungary into an empire within the framework of the Austro-Hungarian dualist system, and to create an informal empire beyond the borders of the state, based on the ideology of Turanism, in the Balkans and, under fortunate conditions, in Anatolia and Turkic Central Asia. Although this experiment failed, Turanism survived the fall of the Danube Monarchy and created the ideological basis for the export of Hungarian nation- and state-building experiences to Central Asia that continue today.
This interdisciplinary panel aims to demonstrate how some of the engineers of the Hungarian nation and nation-state participated in the nation-building processes of Bosnia and Albania, modern Turkey, Central Asia and Mongolia.