Simeonov, S. Списъкът на Рьослер: унгарската революция и създаването на консулски надзорен режим на Балканите

This article sheds light on the activities of the Austrian consular offices in the Ottoman Balkans in late 1849 – early 1850, when 1469 refugees from the Hungarian Revolution settled in Shumen. On their heels was Emanuel von Rössler, the newly appointed Austrian vice-consul in Rousse, who saw in the rebel movements an opportunity to distinguish himself before the authorities in Vienna and to give his office regional importance. His plans gravitated around three ideas: (1) bringing in refugees as informers or for deportation; (2) fomenting dissent among the refugees and undermining Lajos Kossuth’s authority; (3) compiling a list of all disreputable individuals who posed a threat to the Austrian Empire. The article examines Rössler’s efforts to surveil, control, and exploit the Hungarian revolutionary emigrants as a cornerstone of a modern consular surveillance regime in the Balkans, which laid the foundation of future imperial and inter-imperial networks of communication, commerce, and migration control.

consuls, Hungarian Revolution, Balkans, Ottoman Empire, migration, modernity

Primary Sources

Доклади и телеграми на Австро-Унгарското вицеконсулство в Русчук (Русе) до МВНР на Австро-Унгария (1849). In: КМФ 03, оп. 360, а.е. 6. At: ЦДА, София

Zákonník zemský a Věstník vládní pro korunní zem Moravskou/Landesgesetz- und Verordnungsblatt für das Kronland Mähren. 1851. Brünn: Franz Gastl

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