The Habsburg Monarchy 1815–1918

Abstract

Nagyvárad (Oradea), where he was invited to stage one of his plays in Romanian and later in Hungarian, is presented in this inspiring chapter as a model of how a few ‘well-intentioned people [. . .] could ignore or suspend ethnic and religious differences’ (p. 146). According to Nemes, it was Vulcan’s emotional ‘attachment to his beloved “Bihor Land”’ that helped him shift so easily between the disparate cultural milieux of Budapest and Bucharest, and act ‘as a “translator” between the two cultures’ (p. 149). The central characters of the four remaining chapters hailed from the Hungarian gentry or minor nobility, with the exception of the poet and military officer Count József Gvadányi, ‘the aristocrat’ born in Borsod County of illustrious Italian lineage. Each of the vignettes calls into question old clichés about the blinkered, parochial nature of the Magyar county nobility, reflecting instead the innovative economic and educational role of this class in Hungary’s modernization. Of all the character sketches, the most familiar is that of Pál Vásárhelyi, ‘the engineer’ from Szepes County who established modern river management in Hungary. He ‘proposed to remake northeastern Hungary in dramatic fashion’ by regulating the river Tisza (p. 89), so limiting flooding along its banks and improving connections with outlying areas. The only two women whose biographies feature in this eclectic volume are ‘the teacher’ Klára Lövei, a pioneer in women’s education who came from Máramaros County, and ‘the writer’ Margit Kaffka, the first professional female poet and novelist of Hungarian literature. Kaffka, chiefly remembered for her searing autobiographical novel about life as a provincial noblewoman, displayed a ‘fierce local pride’ despite her marked ambivalence towards her home county of Szatmár (p. 218). Most of the individuals portrayed in Another Hungary, like Kaffka, made their careers in the city; they all ‘received strength from working in the provinces’ (p. 234). Overall, this is a well-researched, imaginatively written piece of micro-history, which vividly challenges outdated notions of people and places in nineteenth-century rural Hungary. Arguably, the link between the eight chosen figures is somewhat tenuous, but the chronologically arranged biographies are skilfully woven together. Whether or not this small sample of historical characters selected from different periods of the ‘long nineteenth century’ is fully representative of the social, ethnic and cultural make-up of the diverse north-eastern border region, the group portrait that emerges is nuanced and sophisticated. The reader will find Another Hungary a useful yet intriguing study of modernity and nationalism on the Hungarian periphery of the Habsburg lands.