The Hungarian Language Renewal (1776–1825)

Not only the spread of your name but the happiness of the fatherland and the enlargement as the embellishment of our language may be purposed [by your undertaking]. When Ferenc Kazinczy the (wannabe) dictator of the Hungarian scholarliness wrote those wishes to György Aranka in 1791, the latter had just founded the Society for the Cultivation of the Hungarian language (hun.: Erdélyi magyar nyelvmvelo trsasg) in Cluj, Transylvania. Both scholars were principally united by a similar purpose: The renewal of the Hungarian language, the enlargement of its vocabulary, and the standardisation of its orthography and grammar; shortly: the creation of a scientific and literary Hungarian language. Despite their numerous and different ideas concerning concepts like Hungarian or nation, more and more scholars became part of this Hungarian Language Movement that is mainly called Magyar Nyelvjts; henceforth: Hungarian Language Renewal. The historical background was formed by the shift of the Latin-dominated European Republic of Letters to a new scholarliness, which was guided by the ideals of a modern collective identity, based on the ideas of ethnicity and of a native language. All over Europe, so in Hungary as well, scholars started to write and publish in their native language instead of Latin. Choosing a language of publication was not anymore a matter of reaching other scholars in Europe, but of educating the compatriots. Simultaneously, language became a political issue in Hungary (Magyar Nyelv Kérdése; Hungarian Language Issue). The project researches the main three dimensions of the Hungarian Language Renewal from the end of the Jesuit Order and their baroque-Latin education ideals (1776) until the foundation of the Hungarian Academy of Science (1825) by using different theoretical and methodical approaches, like History of Sociology: 1) Political Dimension: Discussion on a political-administrative level about the usage and installation of Hungarian within the public spheres (e. g. education, administration, policy). 2) Linguistic Dimension: Standardisation of orthography and grammar, collecting and recording of the already existing Hungarian thesaurus, publication of dictionaries, and creation of a new vocabulary to develop a Hungarian scientific and literary language. 3) Literary Dimension: Imitation and translation of antique prose as of modern literature by the inclusion of literary movements of other language spaces, particularly Weimar Classicism. So far, research about Hungarian Language Renewal was restricted to a Hungarian-speaking readership and did scarcely regarde its reciprocity with other comparable Central European movements. This project will be the first attempt to fill this gap of research and to open a yet hardly known language space to an international research community.