„Mintha gyöngy szemeket viselnék lábaimon”. Politikai eszmetörténet és életrajzírás kapcsolatai a Szemere-ügy kapcsán
“As Though I Wore Pearls on my Feet”: The Relationship between the History of Political Thinking and Biography in the Szemere-Case

Summary/Abstract: A major shortcoming in the history of early modern political philosophy in Hungary is the lack of political reflection on an abstract level and the low impact of theory on political canon. Due to these factors even existing theoretical works fail to enter the collective memory of the political community. One of the possible solutions for this problem is to bring the history of political philosophy closer to contemporary social and political practices and explore the layers of the political thinking of the day through a contextual interpretation of the texts of the quotidian. Both the limitations of generalisation and the necessary contingencies of narration must be considered in this type of examination of the history of political philosophy. Embedded in a biographical framework, the analysis of the Szemere case is an attempt to offer exactly this type of analysis of the history of politology. Placed in the context of early modern political thinking in Hungary, the study examines the documents of a secondary episode in the wave of repression following the Jacobin trials. The defence testimonies of a member of the gentry initially charged with treason offer an insight into the various layers of this political thinking, as well as the influence of legal hermeneutics, Stoic ethics, the tenets of forma regiminis, classic republicanism, Hungarian poetic traditions and a fundamentally conservative image of enlightenment.

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