A cenzúra: gondolatgyilkosság: Táncsics Mihály a sajtószabadságról és a társadalmi nyilvánosságról

This paper analyses the sources, historical and biographical context, and political significance of "Freedom of the press: Views of a prisoner," a very influential book in 1844 by Mihály Táncsics (1799–1884). Táncsics was a radical democratic, left-wing Hungarian writer, teacher, publisher and politician. He played an important role in the anti-Habsburg democratic revolution in 1848 and as the publisher of the first peasant and worker newspapers in Hungary during the 19th century. It was the American constitutional and press system that served as Táncsics’ main inspiration for the demand for unrestricted press freedom. His other sources included authors and core ideas of the Enlightenment (rationality, natural law and social contract theory), progressive Hungarian patriotic reformism of the early 19th century, and utopian socialism. Although Táncsics as a theorist of press freedom became rather influential, the impact of his plebeian press publishing efforts remained limited, due to low literacy rates among peasants and the slow post-feudal development of social structure in Hungary. In general, "people’s Enlightenment" or "deep Enlightenment" (as opposed to elite Enlightenment) could not take place in the country. This historical pattern has longue durée consequences for democratic communication and the chances for democratisation in Hungary.

Keywords: bourgeois public sphere, censorship, people´s Enlightenment, deep Enlightenment, media freedom, plebeian public sphere, press history, print culture, printing, samizdat, tamizdat, democratization