Russian invaders crushed the 15 March dream of a civic, constitutional, free and modern Hungary

Each year on 15 March, we commemorate the brave Hungarians who challenged the Habsburg Empire in 1848 and created a constitutional state with a government responsible for the parliament and where the emperor’s decrees could not enter into effect without the approval of a government member. Even though the April Laws created a civic, constitutional state, the Habsburg court was interested in unmaking it. Therefore, they asked for the help of the Russian Empire; sadly, Moscow answered the call.

The dream of 15 March: A civic, constitutional Hungary

The Hungarian nation underwent miracles between 3 March 1848, and 11 April, the approval of the so-called April Laws that created a modern, civic, constitutional state abolishing, among others, serfdom, unifying Transylvania with Hungary and ending feudalism once and for all. The Kingdom of Hungary became a semi-independent state within the Habsburg Empire, with an executive branch answerable to the newly-created legislation body, the Hungarian National Assembly. The Batthyány government hoped that a united and modernised Germany would tear away Austria and all other German-speaking parts of the Habsburg Empire. Thus, the royal family would move to Buda, ruling over the country from its capital and making the Kingdom of Hungary one of the great powers of Central Europe.

However, things unfolded otherwise. The German unification project was unsuccessful, and the royal family cemented its positions in the Western part of the empire after the pacification of the Northern Italian provinces, the rebellious city of Vienna. By December 1848, they were ready to crush the Hungarian revolution. Before, they turned the Romanian and Serbian ethnic minorities against Budapest, just like in Croatia, which attacked Hungary in September but suffered defeat in the Battle of Pákozd.