Origins of Revolution
The Hungarian Diet (English: Parliament) had not convened since 1811.
In 1825, Emperor Francis II convened the Diet in response to growing concerns amongst the Hungarian nobility about taxes and the diminishing economy, after the Napoleonic wars. This – and the reaction to the hot-headed reforms of Joseph II – started what is known as the Reform Period (Hungarian: reformkor). But the Nobles still retained their privileges of paying no taxes and not giving the vote to the masses. It was in this time that Hungarian became an official language instead of Latin as had been used formally before.
The influential Hungarian politician Count István Széchenyi recognized the need to bring the country up-to-date. The Hungarian Parliament was summoned once again in 1825 to handle financial needs. A Liberal Party emerged in the Diet, which put its attention on providing for the peasantry. Lajos Kossuth, a famous journalist of the time, emerged as the leader of the lower house of Parliament.
Kossuth's aspiration was to build a modern democratic, liberal state with a constitution, ensuring civil equality. The people supported him in this modernisation, even though the Habsburg monarchs obstructed all important liberal laws about their civil and political rights and the economic reforms. Many reformers (like Lajos Kossuth, Mihály Táncsics) were imprisoned by the authorities.
Read more about this topic: Hungarian Revolution Of 1848
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