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Bloxam, Matthew Holbeche, 1805-1888

"Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists"

But the Austro-Hungarian monarchy is not a nation, not
even an artificial nation of this kind. Its elements are not bound
together in the same way as the three elements of the Swiss
Confederation. It does indeed contain one whole nation in the form of
the Magyars: we might say that it contains two, if we reckon the Czechs
for a distinct nation. Of its other elements, we may for the moment set
aside those parts of Germany which are so strangely united with the
crowns of Hungary and Dalmatia. In those parts of the monarchy which
come within the more strictly Eastern lands--the _Roman_ and the
_Rouman_,--we may so distinguish the Romance-speaking inhabitants of
Dalmatia and the Romance-speaking inhabitants of Transsilvania. The Slav
of the north and of the south, the Magyar conqueror, the Saxon
immigrant, all abide as distinct races. That the Ottoman is not to be
added to our list in Hungary, while he is to be added in lands farther
south, is simply because he has been driven out of Hungary, while he is
allowed to abide in lands farther south. No point is more important to
insist on now than the fact that the Ottoman once held the greater part
of Hungary by exactly the same right, the right of the strongest, as
that by which he still holds Macedonia and Epeiros.


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