From the Hungarian Plains to the Balkans: János Asztalos’s Revolutionary Exile and the Idea of a Danubian Confederation (1869–1870)

Peykovska, Penka (2026) From the Hungarian Plains to the Balkans: János Asztalos’s Revolutionary Exile and the Idea of a Danubian Confederation (1869–1870). HUNGARIAN HISTORICAL REVIEW: NEW SERIES OF ACTA HISTORICA ACADEMIAE SCIENTIARIUM HUNGARICAE, 15 (2). pp. 326-347. ISSN 2063-8647

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Abstract

The article examines the revolutionary activities of János Asztalos, leader of the 1868 Hungarian peasant movement, during his exile in the Balkans and his efforts to pro­mote a Danubian Confederation. Drawing on archival documents, including Austro-Hungarian consular reports and contemporary press accounts, it reconstructs Asztalos’s initiatives in Vidin, Bucharest, and Constantinople, including the founding of his “Hungarian–Bulgarian Secret Committee” and his attempts to unite Hungarian émigrés, South Slavs, and Romanians in a common struggle against Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian domination. The study situates Asztalos within broader nineteenth-century transnational revolutionary networks, highlighting the circulation of the ideas of Lajos Kossuth and Asztalos’s interaction with émigré movements and local nationalist initiatives. While the committee’s activities were brief and primarily Hungarian in character, they reveal an ambitious attempt to coordinate anti-imperial efforts in the Balkans. Asztalos’s political work, though limited in direct impact, provides valuable insight into the strategies, connections, and ideological exchanges of revolutionary émigrés in Central and Southeastern Europe.

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