Hungarian historiography at the beginning of the 19th century was characterized by two different trends: official Habsburg historiography, written mostly in Latin or German, and a more popular tradition in the vernacular which proved most susceptible to Romantic nativism. Its foremost representative was a university professor, István Horvát (1784–1846), whose Rajzolatok  a magyar nép legrégebbi történetéből (“Sketches on the history of the earliest days of Hungarian history”, 1825) created a popular, highly fictionalized template of the remote past. Subjecting the Bible and ancient authors to a (by then outdated) method of etymological speculation, Horvát claimed that the Scythian-descended Hungarians were the ancestors of Greeks, Romans and Carthagians, and as such the most ancient people in the world. Hungarian was spoken in Eden by Adam and Eve.

Despite its complete lack of professional qualities, the work’s patriotic zeal inspired a new generation of historians during the Reform Era (from 1825). Commonly referred to as the National Liberal school, their most outstanding representatives were Mihály Horváth (1809–1878), Ágoston Szalay (1811–1872) and József  Eötvös (1813–1871). Their Romantic Nationalism went hand in hand with the ambition to anchor their work in critically evaluated documentary sources. Intending to write impartial narratives that would bring to life the history of the people-at-large (who for them constituted the core of the national community), they also subverted the old feudal consciousness, which so far had defined Hungarian identity in terms of class privileges. Instead of the nobility’s histoire-bataille, the focus was now on constitutional life, culture and trade. Their work was influenced by the French Romantic-Liberal historians, especially Thierry and Guizot; Macaulay inspired them with his conviction that poetry and historical knowledge were mutually compatible.

Mihály Horváth identified the roots of Hungarian liberties in what he supposed to be the egalitarianism of the nation’s tribal ancestors. In his later, more mature writings – reworkings of his national history of Hungary – he came to reject his obsession with the glorious ancestors and turned his attention to contemporary history, especially to the history of  Hungarian constitutional life. His work was calculated to justify certain liberal demands, such as the support of national industry and emancipation of the peasantry. Horváth’s history of the the peasant revolt of 1514 was a radical and pioneering study focusing on the common people; he identified the roots of conflict in the lack of solidarity between the privileged and non-privileged strata of society.

Linguistic-ethnographic research also played into historical consciousness and into the Romantic foregrounding of the common people and their vernacular. This was especially the case with regard to the disputed question of  the origins of the Hungarians. The ancient belief that the Hungarians of were Turkish origin was challenged in the second half of the century as  evidence mounted for the Finno-Ugric origins of the Hungarian language. Pál Hunfalvy’s Magyarország ethnográfiája (“The ethnography of Hungary”, 1876) was one of the earliest proponents of this new theory. In addition to linguistics, the field of archeology and ethnography also played an important role. Arnold Ipolyi’s Magyar mythologia (“Hungarian mythology”, 1854) was a fundamental study of the ancient religion and rituals of the early Hungarians, laying the foundations for subsequent ethnographic research.

As elsewhere in Europe, the events of 1848, which in Hungary developed into a war of independence, awakened revolutionary zeal in the younger generation. The most talented member of this group, Pál Vasvári (1826–1849), saw Michelet and Cabet as his role models, but he lost his life prematurely in battle, leaving his work unfinished and fragmented. His political-historical pamphlet, Irányeszmék (“Guiding principles”, 1848), argued that the fossilized feudal system in Hungary could only be removed by revolutionary means.

The suppression of the Revolution and War of Independence  represented a caesura. Scholars turned against what they considered the daydreams of Romantic historiography, and saw their mission as being to disabuse the people of revolutionary fancies and to remind them of the necessity of self-reflection. Both József Eötvös in his A XIX század Uralkodó Eszméinek befolyása az államra (“The dominant ideas of the 19th century and their impact on the state”, 1851-54) and  Ágoston Szalay in his “History of Hungary” (1852) claimed that the love of the fatherland should be accompanied by the love of humanity and that historiography of their age had to be characterized by caution and moderation rather than by overt and amateurish enthusiasm.