In all that central-European terrain which Derek Beales has made so much his own during the past two decades, we find no more classic example of a dominant personality than Count István (Stephen) Széchenyi. By words and actions, Széchenyi transmuted Hungary and introduced an Age of Reform there which issued in the Revolution of 1848. Or at least – and that is no less important for the biographical concerns of the present volume – he was perceived to have done so. No doubt rapid change would have come anyway; but he catalysed it, and gave it its distinctive configuration. Besides, for Széchenyi himself that perception was crucial: the conviction of his own historic, individual transformatory role drove him to eminence – and to ruin. He was the ‘greatest Hungarian’ as his equally great adversary Kossuth put it; that was so because, as Kossuth added, he had ‘put his finger on the artery of the age and had felt its pulse … [He] became the tongue of his age. This is the secret of his influence.’

Not only is Szechenyi's prominent public career most copiously documented in the contemporary record; we have well-nigh unique access to his private life too. For nearly the whole of that career, 35 years in all, he kept Diaries. In them he reveals, day by day by day, both the spring for his activities, and many of his most intimate thoughts and emotions: Széchenyi as he saw himself; and as he saw others; and as he saw others seeing him, for he registers the praise and especially the criticism.