Abstract

This article investigates the translations of radical texts in Hungary in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. It offers a survey of French political texts rendered into Latin and Hungarian, and follows the historic exploration through discussing the work of three Hungarian Jacobins put to trial for their participation in the Hungarian Jacobin movement: János Laczkovics, Ferenc Szentmarjay, and Ferenc Verseghy. It argues that their work as translators went hand in hand with their political activism. Through mapping out the use of the local vernacular and the political language of Latin in the process, it calls for developing new trends in research in historical transnationalism and multilingualism in the field of textual production.