A provision of the Hungarian constitution, adopted in 2011, has renamed the state. The name changed from the Republic of Hungary to Hungary, while the form of the state has remained “republic”. The purpose of this study is to explore the meaning, significance, and several consequences of this provision. The analysis consists of three main parts. The first one gives a general overview of the functions of the names of states. It claims that not only names but also changing or modifying names of states—taking place either by name-giving or by shaping convention—can serve certain functions. The second part focuses on the historical and constitutional details of renaming the Hungarian state, and summarizes the legal context that provided the framework for the 2011 renaming. The third part outlines the arguments for the change, takes a look at the official justification and actual reasons, and reveals some of the consequences of the name change in the past decade. The main contention of the paper is that the renaming of the Hungarian state that took place in 2011 lacked any overt and reasonable justification, and is best explained as an expression of anti-republican sentiment, which indicated, and partly paved the way for the transition into a kind of an authoritarian regime. Finally, the study raises a possible interpretation of the renaming of the Hungarian state in 2011, the point of which is that it adumbrated many later changes in public law and political systems.

General questions of name of the state are rarely discussed in the literature of public law, political science or legal theory, its terminology is neglected, and in its current state, it is a source of many misunderstandings. Pointed out these terminological problems this study proposes a theoretical framework for the naming system of states which takes into accounts the public law components of names. Among these components the significance of four factors are emphasized: the form of state (form of government), the structure, or organization of state, the role of seemingly neutral terms (for example, the words “commonwealth” or “state”), and, on the contrary, the role of politically, religiously or ethnically bound terms (such as “democratic”, “people's”, “Arab” or “Islamic”) in the names of states. After clarifying the difference between the terms country name and state name (state title), this study shows that there are cases when the state name (state title) function as country name, and when the country name fulfills the communicative function of the state title.

The official stateform of Hungary between 1920 and 1944 was „monarchy”. Since she did not have a king for a long time, however, it is often interpreted, even in academic analyses, in a way that it was, in fact, a kingdom with an unspecified monarch, viz without a king that could have been determined. At the level of stateforms, this ambivalent situation of a „kingless kingdom” is expressed by the category „monarchy without a king”. Some legal scholars consider this category to be one of the particular variants of monarchy, while others argue that it might be conceived at a certain point on the scale between the two main types of stateforms, namely between monarchy and republic. This paper analyzes the origin of the term „monarchy without a king”, its meaning in public law and its interpretation within the framework of Hungarian legal history. In the latter respect, it raises the questions whether the term can be used to define and characterize the Hungarian stateform in the Horthy era, and if so, what specific meaning it conveys.

This paper examines the excellent Hungarian legal philosopher, Felix Somló's theories on the state and politics. It claims that Somló had three theories of state. The first could be reconstructed from the sociological allusions and hints of his first book, titled Állami beavatkozás és individualismus [State intervention and individualism] (1903). His second theory of state was based on legal concepts exposes in a Neo-Kantian fashion, and it has been explicated in his Juristische Grundlehre [Basic Legal Concepts and Ideas] (1917). His third theory of state is an unfinished theory prepared in his unpublished Állambölcseleti jegyzetek [Notes for a Philosophy of State] (1919/20). The core idea of the first theory is regulation (which was considered by Somló as interference); the central concept of the second theory is the so called 'Rechtsmacht' [legal might], which was coined by Somló; whereas the third theory revolves around the possibility of so called eternal truth of history of ideas.