A conversation with Vera Bácskai: Urban history in Hungary

Journal of Urban History

Volumn 25, Issue 4, 1999, Pages 514-535

  Corfield, Penelope J ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0039763629     PISSN: 00961442     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/009614429902500403     Document Type: Review

References (21)

1. Lublinskaya, who was also an expert on medieval palaeography, focused her research on the problems of seventeenth-century French absolutism and on the history of European peasantry in the medieval and early modern period. She published in French and Russian, including editions of documents from the very rich collection of manuscripts in the Leningrad Saltikoff-Schedrin Library.
2. For a survey in English of works written between 1945 and 1980 on themes of Hungarian medieval history, see F. Szakály, "Hungary and Eastern Europe, Research Report No. 1: Up to 1526," in Études historiques Hongroises 1980: publiées a l'occasion du XVe Congrès International des Sciences Historiques par la Commission National des Historiens Hongrois (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1980), 615-52.
3. In Hungary, the term oppidum was until the fifteenth century almost equivalent to the term civitas, both indicating a town. Indeed, many settlements were titled alternately oppidum or civitas. From the fifteenth century onward, however, civitas was used solely to refer to legally chartered towns, while oppidum remained the title of nonchartered seigniorial towns.
4. For a detailed account, see M. Molnár, Budapest 1956: A History of the Hungarian Revolution, trans. J. Ford (London: Allen & Unwin, 1971).
5. In the 1960s, the discussion circle was composed of the few urban historians at work in Hungary at that time, including E. Fügedi and A. Kubinyi (both medievalists), L. Nagy and K. Vörös (both interested in early modern and modern urban history). Later, in the 1980s, Vera Bácskai was president of the Hajnal István Circle, a forum for open discussions, whose young colleagues presented her with a book of essays (1995) in tribute to her support.
6. H. J. (Jim) Dyos (1921-1978), founder of Britain's Urban History Group in 1962 and founding editor of the Urban History Yearbook (now the journal Urban History), was editor of a seminal collection of essays, The Study of Urban History (London: Edward Arnold, 1968).
7. Jim Dyos was a great advocate of walking through the city streets as a stimulus to the historical understanding of towns. Additional note by Corfield: a fascinating and informative town walk, of the sort that Jim Dyos advocated, conducted by a practicing historian is presented by W. J. Fishman in The Streets of East London (London: Duckworth, 1979).
8. Walkers in Budapest can consult a delightful street handbook by A. Török, Budapest: A Critical Guide, 2d ed. (Budapest: Park Books, 1991), which is also available translated into other languages.
9. The Citadel consists of the remains of the old Habsburg fortress, built in 1849 to control the dissident Hungarians and partially dismantled in 1867 when the historic Compromise established the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Near at hand is the prominent Liberation Monument (1947), which commemorates the lifting of the 1944-1945 siege and the Russian soldiers who died in the fighting.
10. A helpful short introduction to the castle and surrounding old town area, with some fine illustrations including some stunning aerial photography, is found in G. Száraz, Buda Castle (Budapest: Corvina Kiadó, 1990); the text is available in both English and Hungarian.
11. The numerous mineral hot springs of the Buda and Pest region, which had been known since Roman times, were much appreciated by the Turks who built a number of famous thermal baths - including in Buda two striking baths with octagonal pools, the Rudas Baths (men only) and the Rác Baths (women only).
12. See, for example, V. Bácskai, "Jewish Wholesale Merchants in Pest in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century," in M. K. Silber, ed., Jews in the Hungarian Economy, 1760-1945 (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, Hebrew University Jerusalem, 1992), 40-52.
13. (table presented) The best source for Budapest population figures is A. Ságvári, ed., Budapest: The History of a Capital (Budapest: Corvina Kiadó, 1973).
14. For an affectionate portrayal of this era, see J. Lukacs, Budapest 1900: A Historical Portrait of a City and Its Culture (London: Weidenfeld, 1988), including a vignette of Budapest's coffeehouse culture, 148-52.
15. Count Széchenyi is described as a "horse-fancying Anglophile, with a passion for innovation" in D. Richardson, ed., Hungary: The Rough Guide (London: Harrap-Columbus, 1989),
16. For his ideas on town planning, see V. Bácskai and L. Nagy, eds., Count Széchenyi's Plans for the Development of Pest (Budapest: Szépirodalnei Kiadó, 1985).
17. As symbol of the changing times, Andrássy utca has been renamed six times during its history, commencing as Sugár (Radial) and then taking in turn the names of Andrássy (after a celebrated nineteenth-century statesman), Stalin (post 1945), Hungarian Youth (in 1956), and the People's Republic (1957-1989), before reverting to Andrássy in 1989, which had remained its popular name within Budapest. See Török, Critical Guide, 103.
18. V. Bácskai, "The Historic Metropolis in Hungary in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries," in J. Purchla, ed., The Historical Metropolis: A Hidden Potential - Proceedings of the International Conference May 1996, held at Cracow (Cracow: International Cultural Centre, 1997), 133-8.
19. Studies of the full historical urban networks of Hungary, including both chartered and seigniorial towns, are available only in Hungarian. A pioneering survey was published by Z. Dávid (1964), followed by studies by S. Gyimesi (1975) and by V. Bácskai and L. Nagy (for details, see below, n. 20). Analyses of the Hungarian urban network in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have been written by P. Beluszky (an urban geographer) and by L. Timár.
20. Most of this recent research in urban history is so far available in Hungarian only, although some studies, mainly conference papers, have been published in collected essays by foreign publishers. The only substantial survey that has been translated into English is that already noted, by Vera Bácskai, Towns and Urban Society in Early Nineteenth-Century Hungary (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1989).
21. V. Bácskai and L. Nagy, Market Areas, Market Centers and Towns in Hungary in 1828 (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1975), 232 pp. (in Hungarian).