Vol. XXXVI · 2005
The Friends of Progress
Learned Societies and the Public Sphere in the Transylvanian Reform Era

Zsuzsanna Török

Get Adobe Acrobat. Download full article (218 Kb PDF) [subscribers only]

This essay addresses the political role of nationally defined scholarship in multiethnic milieus. The focus is on Transylvania, one of the marginal provinces of the Habsburg Empire without stable, state-funded institutions of higher learning and research. The time frame is the Hungarian Vormärz, known as the Reform Era, which extended from the 1830s until the revolution of 1848 and was a pivotal moment in the maturation of the national perspective in scholarship and politics, challenging the traditional order of the composite monarchy. The liberal and national impetus of the period was manifest in the foundation of numerous regional voluntary associations intended to serve the public good, and further education, scholarship, and "national improvement."