Multilingual and cosmopolitan encounters in the Transleithanian part of the Habsburg Empire (1867-1918)

Abstract

The Transleithanian part, i.e. the Hungarian kingdom of the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy recognized a multilingual language regime in which fourteen language were used. The Law on the Equality of the Nationalities XLIV/1868 guaranteed that all the nationality languages had a formal status, although Hungarian was implemented as the official language of the state. The introduction a transnational, cosmopolitan lingua francas, like German and Hungarian shaped the identity of nationality groups, especially of those who had enjoyed bi- or multilingual education. In order to understand what the role of these mediation elites, i.e. cosmopolitan nationalists were in the struggle for power in the Hungarian kingdom a flower figuration model provides more insight than a bipolar model that has been used in the traditional historiography of the region.