Frontiers of absolutism: Political culture and systems of authority in Hungary, 1683–1723

Brian Andrew Hodson, Purdue University

Abstract

The dissertation examines the creation and expression of authority during the extension of Habsburg administration over the recovered territories of Hungary and Transylvania at the turn of the eighteenth century and relates these processes to the development of absolutism and the closing of the Habsburg-Ottoman frontier in southeastern Europe. The dissertation traces the process by which policy strategies were developed through the cooperation and competition of different institutions, such as the court treasury (Hofkammer) and Court War Council (Hofkriegsrat). At the local level, it analyzes how these policies were actually introduced, contested, and implemented through the interactions between imperial officials and Hungarian subjects and corporate groups. By explaining the means by which the Habsburgs elaborated and implemented absolutist authority in Hungary and Transylvania, this research makes more comprehensible subsequent political and social developments in southeastern Europe. Further, it connects the development of central policies with their realization at the local level and exposes the participation of both the state's agents and its subjects in the creation of authority. Its conclusions expand our understanding of the nature of the state in the early modern period through an elaboration of its development in central and southeastern Europe.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Ingrao, Purdue University.

Subject Area

History|European history

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