Echoes of the Transylvanian Question. Mazzini and the Discussions between Romanians and Hungarians in the International Press (1851)

After the revolutions of 1848–49, the Transylvanian question remained a controversial topic and the subject of harsh discussions between Romanian and Hungarian exiles in the cultural context of most important European capitals. The essay addresses the role of Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Mazzini in attempting to create a European democratic revolutionary coalition. Mazzini tried to mediate between the positions of the Romanians, represented by Dumitru Brătianu, and those of the Hungarians, represented by Irányi Dániel. This attempt failed. The conflicting points of view essentially envisaged two different ideas of nation: on the one hand the historical nation of the Hungarians, on the other the ethnic nation of the Romanians. These ideas were not a newness. What was new, however, was the improved energy they had received. On the part of the Romanians, in fact, the evolution of their ideas on the question of nationalities in Danubian Europe had been stimulated by the influence of Mazzini. While Dumitru Brătianu joined the European Democratic Central Committee founded by Mazzini in London in 1850, the relationship between Mazzini and Kossuth was difficult: they had too many different opinions and they were never able to establish a true collaboration. The episode recalled in the essay proves the existence of transnational networks among European democratic revolutionaries in the mid-nineteenth century. They, moreover, reveal the circulation of ideas and projects across a broad cultural geographic space that included British, French, Italian, Romanian and Hungarian political and intellectual élites.