History/Political Science paper by Lévai, Csaba [withdrawn]
The Comparison of the American (1776) and the Hungarian (1849) Declarations of Independence
Type of Abstract (select):Abstract (max. 250 words):
One can find many interesting similarities between the two documents regarding their composition, langugae and conditions of drafting and approval. Here and now I wish to emphasize only one of them. Jefferson and Kossuth used very similar argumentation and language regarding the "domestic"insurrections" provoked by the kings of Britain and Hungary. The Virginian was talking about the movements of African American slaves to join the British army, while Kossuth was talking about the insurrections of the national minority groups against the Hungarian governemnet. Kossuth new well the final version of the American document, but not the original draft of Jefferson.
Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Csaba Lévai (1964) is an associate professor in the Department of History of the University of Debrecen. He was educated at the University of Debrecen and the Loránd Eötvös University of Budapest. He teaches 18th- and 19th-century history. His research interests are the history of the British colonies in North America and the history of the American Founding period. He has a special interest in the political thought of the American Founding fathers and in the history of slavery in revolutionary North America. Lévai was two times visiting research fellow at the International Center for Jefferson Studies (Monticello), and a visiting research fellow at the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington (Mount Vernon). He was also a visiting Fulbright scholar at the University of Virginia. His publications include a collection of writings by the American Founding Fathers in Hungarian; The Republicanism Debate. A Historiographical Discussion of the Intellectual Background of the American Revolution (L’Harmattan, Budapest, 2003, in Hungarian); American History and Historiography. A Collection of Essays (L’Harmattan, Budapest, 2013, in Hungarian). He also edited Europe and the World in European Historiography (University of Pisa Press, Pisa, 2006, in English), and with Mary Harris Europe and Its Empires (University of Pisa Press, Pisa, 2008, in English). csabalevai@freemail.hu