A Hungarian aristocrat in Civil War America: Count Béla Széchenyi's 1862 study trip to the United States of America

Abstract

The written account of Count Béla Széchenyi's 1862 trip to the United States, published in 1863, represents a unique chapter in Hungarian travel writing on the New World. The author was the first-born son of Count István Széchenyi, an iconic figure of Hungary's Age of Reform in the 1820s to 1840s. Following Hungary's defeat in the 1848–9 Revolution and War of Independence against the Habsburgs, István was locked up in a mental asylum outside Vienna, where he committed suicide in 1860. Unlike his father in the 1820s, Béla was allowed to travel to the United States, and his account clearly reflects the time he lived in and the concerns he entertained. Béla had done his Grand Tour in Germany, England, France and Spain, and was an experienced traveller. He sympathised with the more aristocratic South in the Civil War, although he never visited there. His book focuses on issues of slavery and race (Native Americans and African Americans), American democracy (he presents both the US and the Confederate Constitutions, but does so without any commentary), the character of the Yankee, and American progress. He then offers a detailed agenda for the development of Pest-Buda, but, unlike his father, separates issues of progress and national independence, arguing that the former would inevitably bring about the latter. This unique piece of travel writing combines the imperial view of West European travellers in the new world with the highly personal account of a young aristocrat who has just lost his father, and who was trying to come to terms with his loss. Amerikai utam is clearly censored, but in the absence of relevant documents it is impossible to draw the balance between self- and enforced censorship. This little book represents a transition in the history of Hungarian travel writing on the United States between the Age of Reform (which focused on political agendas, especially issues of democracy) and the Dualist period (1867–1918, which discussed American progress and emigration from Hungary).