Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-sxzjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-20T03:34:36.470Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Marketing Industrialism and Dualism in Liberal Hungary: Expositions, 1842–1896

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2015

Extract

The expositions staged by Hungarian liberals in the nineteenth century—the modest Pest industrial fairs of the 1840s; the agricultural hibitions of the counterrevolutionary 1850s; the Pest agricultural exhibition in 1865; the three provincial industrial exhibitions of the 1870s in Kecskemét, Szeged, and Székesfehérvár; the successful national exhibition in Budapest in 1885; and the lavish Millennium Exhibition of 1896—conformed to the wider European and American pattern of expositions. Between 1876 and 1916 some one hundred million Americans attended expositions; over 20 percent of the U.S. population attended Philadelphia's Centennial Exposition of 1876. Over forty-eight million people passed through the turnstiles of the Paris Exposition of 1900. The three million who attended the 1896 Hungarian Millennium Exhibition were well aware that they were participating in a distinct rite of industrial civilization. Although the Hungarian numbers were far smaller, it is wrong to assume that the Hungarian nationl fairs were copycat undertakings.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Rydell, Robert W., All the World's a Fair: Visions of Empire at American International Expositions, 1876–1916 (Chicago, 1984), 2;Google ScholarJohn, Allwood, The Great Exhibitions (London, 1977);Google ScholarMandell, Richard D., Paris 1900: The Great World's Fair (Toronto, 1967).Google Scholar The Millennium Exhibition hosted 2,978,027 paid visitors, although actual attendance was probably significantly higher.

2 István, Hermann, Die Gedankenwelt von Georg Lukács (Budapest, 1978),24.Google Scholar

3 For example, Paul, Greenhalgh, Ephemeral Vistas: The Expositions Universelles, Great Exhibitions, and World's Fairs, 1851–1939 (Manchester, 1988);Google ScholarBurton, Benedict et al. ., The Anthropology of World's Fairs (London and Berkeley, 1983),Google Scholar and Rydell, , All the World's a Fair.Google Scholar

4 For example, Thomas, Richards, The Commodity Culture of Victorian England: Advertising and Spectacle, 1851–1914 (Stanford, Calif., 1990).Google Scholar

5 Gábor, Nyárády, Az első magyar iparműkiállítás (The first Hungarian industrial arts exhibition) (Budapest, 1962), 81.Google ScholarFelix, Milleker, Geschichte der Banater jahrmärkie (Wrschatz, 1927), 1011.Google Scholar For a general discussion, see Roth, Günter D., Messen und Märkte (Munich, 1965).Google Scholar For a sociological study of the distinctive symbiosiś of the fair and pilgrimage, see Bango, JenőF.,Die Wahlfahrt in Ungarn (Vienna, 1978).Google Scholar

6 Domokos, Kosáry and Béla, Németh, A Magyar sajtó története (History of the Hungarian press), vol.2, pt. 1:1848–1867 (Budapest, 1985), 179–94.Google Scholar

7 See László, Molnár, Iparművészeti törekvések a reformkori magyarországon (Industrial arts advances in reform-era Hungary) (Budapest, 1976);Google ScholarIdem., “Das Pester Modeblatt (Pesti divatlap) und das Ungarische Kunstgewerbe,” Annales Sectio Historia11 (1970): 256–68;Google Scholar and Feldmann, G. L., “Die Pester Industrieausstellung im Jahre 1846,” Der Ungar, Aug. 25,1846.Google Scholar

8 See Götz, Mavius, Dénes von Pázmándy der Jüngere 1816–1856. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Parlamentarismus in Ungarn (Munich, 1986).Google Scholar

9 Moriz [ór], Gelléri, Der Ungarische Landes-Industrieverein 1842–1912 (Budapest, 1912), 12,Google Scholar and Mór, Gelléri, A kiállitások története, fejlődés és rendszeresité(A history of exhibitions, their development and organization) (Budapest, 1885), 79150;Google ScholarFeldmann, , “Die Pester Industrieausstellung,” Der Ungar, Aug. 25, Sept. 2,8, and 12,1846; “Das erste Volksfest in Pesth,” Der Ungar, June 22 and 25,1845.Google Scholar

10 On Széchenyi's treatise On Credit and his role as a reformer,Google Scholarsee George, Barany, Stephen Széchenyi and the Awakening of Hungarian Nationalism, 1791–1841 (Princeton, N.J., 1968).Google Scholar

11 György, Spira, “Polg´ri forradalom” (The Bourgeois Revolution), in Magyarország története, 1848–1890 (History of Hungary), ed. Endre, Kovács (Budapest, 1979), 1:72;Google ScholarLászló, Deme, The Radical left in the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 (New York, 1976), 25.Google Scholar

12 Spira, , “The Bourgeois Revolution,” 73.Google ScholarSee also Josef, Polisensky, Aristocrats and the Crowd in the Revolutionary Year 1848: A Contribution to the History of Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Austria (Albany, N.Y., 1980), 124.Google Scholar One week later there was a major panic in Baden spread by rumors; see Carevali, Ralph C., “The ‘False French Alarm’: Revolutionary Panic in Baden, 1848,” Central European History 18 (1985): 119–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Kossuth, in the Lower House (Mar. 19, 1848), Kossuth Lajos összes munkái (Lajos Kossuth's collected works), 11:675,Google Scholar cited in István, Deák, The Lawful Revolution: Louis Kossuth and the Hungarians, 1848–1849 (New York, 1979), 85.Google Scholar On the recruiting rally in Kecskemét, seeLajos, Kossuth to Dénés Pázmándy, Oct. 1,1848, in Lajos Kossuth, Írások és beszédek 1848–1849-böl, 176.Google Scholar

14 On the nationalist role of the National Agricultural Association, see Arpád Balás von, Sipek, Kurzer Abriss der Geschichte der Ungarischen Landwirtschaft (Budapest, 1897).Google Scholar

15 Wiener, Martin J., English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial Spirit, 1850–1980 (Cambridge, 1981).Google Scholar The counterview has the Crystal Palace as “ a monument to consumption, the first of its kind, a place where the combined mythologies of consumerism appeared in concentrated form”; Richards, , Commodity Culture, 3.Google Scholar On the problem of Hungarian backwardness, see Andrew, János, The Politics of Backwardness in Hungary, 1825–1945 (Princeton, N.J., 1982).Google Scholar

16 Good, David F., The Economic Rise of the Habsburg Empire, 1750–1914 (Berkeley, Calif., 1984), 140–41.Google Scholar

17 Pester, Lloyd, May 5,1857;Google ScholarIstván, Széchenyi, Ein Blick auf den anonymen “Rückblick” welcher für einen vertrauten Kreis, in verhältnissmässig wenigen Exemplaren im Monate October 1857, in Wien, erschienen (London, 1859).Google Scholar For other royal tours in the 1850s, see, for example, Richard, Wortman, “Rule by Sentiment: Alexander II's Journeys through the Russian Empire,” American Historical Review 95, no.3 (06 1990): 745–71.Google Scholar

18 Pester Lloyd, May 13, 1857.Google Scholar

19 Pester Lloyd, June 24, 1857.Google Scholar

20 Pesti napló, Apr. 9, 1862.Google Scholar

21 Pester Lloyd, July 10,12, and 13, 1862.Google Scholar

22 Pester Lloyd, Jan. 21, 1862; Feb. 23, 1862. The Hungarian Agrarian Society held an exhibit of the objects to be sent to the London Exhibition, Mar. 9, 1862. See also Pester Lloyd, Mar. 16, 1862; June 26, 1862; July 2, 1862; July 10, 1862; July 13, 1862; May 1–3, 1862; July 16–18, 1862.Google Scholar

23 Ferenc, Toldy to Mihály, Horváth, June 4, 1865, in Horváth Mihály, 1809–1878, ed. Sándor, Márki (Budapest, 1917), 295.Google Scholar

24 Formal invitation presented by Count, Csiráky,in Pester Lloyd, June 6,1865Google Scholar

25 Pester Lloyd, June, 4 1865. On the hundred-man committee, see Pester, Lloyd, June, 3 1865.Google Scholar

26 Pester Lloyd, June, 6 1865.Google Scholar

27 Pester Lloyd, June 4,1865.Google Scholar

28 Vasárnapi újság, July 16,1865, 359.Google ScholarEduard von, Wertheimer, Graf Julius Andrássy. Sein Leben und seine Zeit (Stuttgart, 1910), 1:174.Google Scholar

29 Pester Lloyd, June 7,1865.Google Scholar

30 Bürgerfreund, Aug. 1869.Google Scholar

31 Jutta, Pemsel, Die Wiener Weltausstellung von 1873 (Vienna, 1989).Google Scholar

32 Pesti napló, Sept. 2, 1872.Google Scholar

33 Pesti napló, Sept. 3, 1872.Google Scholar

34 See Tamás, Hofer, “Peasant Culture and Urban Culture in the Period of Modernization: Delineation of a Problem Area Based on Data from Hungary,” in The Peasant and the City in Eastern Europe: Interpenetrating Structures, ed. Irene Portis, Winner and Winner, Thomas G. (Cambridge, Mass., 1984).Google Scholar

35 Pesti napló, Sept. 3,1872.Google Scholar

36 Pemsel, , Die Wiener Weltausstellung, 77.Google Scholar On the presentation of Viennese liberalism in the architecture of the Ringstraße and on the vulnerability of Viennese liberalism after 1873, see Schorske, Carl E., Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture (New York, 1981).Google Scholar

37 Pemsel, , Die Wiener Weltausstellung, 17, 47.Google Scholar

38 Ibid., 77.

39 Neue Politische Journal, July 19, 1876.Google Scholar

40 Neue Politische Journal, Aug. 20 and 26, 1876.Google Scholar

41 Neue Politische Journal, Aug. 20, 1876.Google ScholarSee John, Komlos, The Habsburg Monarchy as a Customs Union: Economic Development in Austria-Hungary in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton, N.J., 1983).Google Scholar

42 Neue Politische Journal, May 19, 1879.Google Scholar

43 Neue Politische Journal, Aug. 21, 1876; Magyar napló, Aug. 22, 1876;Google ScholarHon, Aug. 22, 1876.Google Scholar

44 Neue Politische Journal, May 16, 1879.Google Scholar

45 Neue Politische Journal, May 18, 1879.Google Scholar

46 See Good, Economic Rise, 86–95.Google Scholar

47 Eddie, Scott M., “The Changing Pattern of Land Ownership in Hungary, 1867–1914,” Economic History Review 20 (1967): 304, 309;Google ScholarIdem., “Agriculture as a Source of Supply: Conjectures from the History of Hungary, 1870–1913,” in Economic Development in the Habsburg Monarchy in the Nineteenth Century, ed. John, Komlos (Boulder, Colo., 1983), 101–4.Google ScholarSee also Hans, Rosenberg, Grosse Depression und Bismarckzeit (Berlin, 1967).Google Scholar

48 Neue Politische Journal, May 20, 1879.Google Scholar

49 Neue Politische Journal, May 25, 1879.Google Scholar

50 Neue Politische Journal, May 18, 1879.Google Scholar

51 Mór, Geltéri, Budapest a kiállitás alatt fővárosi kalauz is tájékoztató mindenki számára (Atlas to Budapest for everyone during the time of the exhibition) (Budapest, 1885), 96;Google ScholarFerenc, Heltai,“A budapesti országos általános kiállitás, in Az “Athanaeum” nagy képes naptára az 1885-dik évre (The Athanaeum's large picture calendar of 1885), ed. Concha, Károly (Budapest, 1885), 60.Google Scholar

52 Neues Politisches Volksblatt, Sept. 27–30, 1883.Google Scholar

53 Mór, Gelléri, Matlekovits Sándor, élete és működése (Sándor Matlekovits, his life and work) (Budapest, 1908);Google ScholarFerenc, Heltai, “Dr. Matlekovits Sándor,” in “Athanaeum ” naptára, ed. Károly, ,6366.Google Scholar

54 Heltai, , “Dr. Matlekovits Sándor,” 63.Google Scholar

55 Judit, Kubinsky, Politikai antiszemitizmus magyarországon (1875–1890) (Political anti-Semitism in Hungary [1875–1890]) (Budapest, 1976);Google ScholarAndrew, Handler, Blood Libel at Tiszaeszlar (New York., 1980);Google ScholarMcCagg, William O., Jewish Notables and Geniuses in Modern Hungary (New York, 1972).Google Scholar

56 Avoiding deficits “is the fundamental thing,” instructed Crown Prince, Rudolf; Budapesti hirlap, Feb. 6, 1885.Google Scholar Deficits were the problem at the Vienna electric exhibition, also. Final cost overruns were not substantial for either the capital's exhibit or the National Exhibition; Károly, Gerlóczy, Zárjelentése (Closing statement)(Budapest, 1896), 25.Google Scholar

57 Neues Politisches Volksblatt, Feb. 15, 1885.Google Scholar

58 Magyar korona, May 3, 1885.Google Scholar

59 Good, Economic Rise, 139.

60 Der Bauunternehmer Ausstellung Zeitung, Feb. 15, 1885.Google Scholar

61 Neues Politisches Volksblatt, Feb. 23, 1885.Google Scholar

62 Der Bauunternehmer Ausstellung Zeitung, Apr. 12, 1885.Google Scholar

63 Times (London), Sept. 29, 1885.Google Scholar

64 “A kiforditott föváros” (The capital turned inside out), Pesti napló, Aug. 20, 1885.Google Scholar

65 Gelléri, , Budapest a kiállitás alatt fővárosi kalauz, 49.Google Scholar

66 Edmund, Steinacker, Budapest, together with an appendix on the National Hungarian Exhibition of 1885 at Budapest with a Ground Plan of the Exhibition (London, 1885);Google ScholarMagyar korona, Feb. 16, 1885.Google ScholarA tour guide published in Hungarian and German with a lengthy hotel listing was Hugó, Ilosvai, Magyarország és az ezredéves ünnepély (Hungary and the thousand-year celebration) (Budapest,1896).Google Scholar

67 Magyar korona, May 2,1885.Google ScholarSee also Catherine, Albrecht, “Pride in Production: The Jubilee Exhibition of 1891 and Economic Competition between Czechs and Germans in Bohemia,” Austrian History Yearbook 24 (1993): 105.Google Scholar

68 Neue Freie Presse, May 2, 1885.Google Scholar

69 Neues Politisches Volksblatt, Feb. 23, 1885.Google Scholar

70 Ország-Világ, Sept. 19, 1885.Google Scholar

71 Neue Freie Presse, May 1, 1885.Google Scholar

72 Alajos, Bucsánsky, Nagy képes naptára az 1896 évre (Large picture calendar for 1896) (Budapest, 1896), 2.Google ScholarSee also András, Gerő, Heroeś Square, Budapest: Hungarýs History in Stone and Bronze (Budapest, 1990).Google Scholar

73 “The founding of a nation is celebrated best if the country has been able to advance its culture, economy, and constitutional situation.” To this end the government allocated over fl. 3,000,000 for construction of the industrial arts museum and planned an industrial arts school in Budapest and four hundred new primary schools; Országos Levéltár (OL) (National Archives), K26, ME (Ministerelnőkség), Milleneumi ünnepségekkel kapcsolatos ügyek (Millennium related issues), packet 332, no. 524,1895, Decree of Ministry of Religion and Public Education and March 17, 1896, legislative proposal by Prime Minister Dezső Bánffy. The Vajdahunyád Castle would also become the National Museum of Agriculture.

74 Smith, F.Hopkinson, “The Hungarian Millennium,” Harper's New Monthly Magazine 95(New York and London (0611 1897): 402.Google ScholarSee also Richard Harding, Davis, “The Millennial Celebration at Budapest,” in A Year from a Reporter's Note-book (New York, 1903), 6699.Google Scholar

75 Smith, , “Hungarian Millennium,” 399–400.Google Scholar

76 Zoltán, Bálint, Die Architektur der Millenniums-Ausstellung (Vienna, 1896), 12.Google Scholar

77 George, Eisen, “The ‘Budapest Option’: The Hungarian Alternative to the First Modern Olympic Games,” International Journal of the History of Sport 8, no.1 (1991): 124–32;Google ScholarDavid, Young, The Modern Olympics: A Struggle for Revival (Baltimore, Md., 1996);Google ScholarPierre de, Coubertin, Une Campagne de 21 ans (Paris, 1908), 111.Google Scholar

78 Bálint, , Architektur, 12.Google Scholar

79 Findling, John E., Chicago's Great World's Fairs (Manchester, England, 1994);Google ScholarRobert, Muccigrosso, Celebrating the New World: Chicago's Columbian Exposition of 1893(Chicago, 1993);Google ScholarBurg, David F., Chicago's White City of 1893 (Lexington, Ky., 1976).Google Scholar

80 Bálint, , Architektur, 13, 25.Google Scholar

81 For a description of the architectural conception and building process, seeIgnác, Alpár, Az1000-éeves országos kiállítás (The thousand-year National Exhibition) (Budapest, 1896).Google Scholar

82 Nye, David E., “Electrifying Expositions, 1880–1939,” in Fair Representations: World's Fairs and the Modern World, ed. Robert, Rydell and Gwinn, Nancy E. (Amsterdam, 1994), 140–56.Google Scholar

83 Neue Freie Presse, May 2, 1896.Google Scholar

84 Neue Freie Presse, May 2, 1896; Pester Lloyd, May 2, 1896.Google Scholar

85 “A Penultimate Exhibition,” Saturday Review (London), 05 16, 1896, 470.Google Scholar

86 Smith, , “Hungarian Millennium,” 410, 401.Google Scholar

87 Ibid., 410.

88 Greenhalgh, , Ephemeral Vistas, 20.Google Scholar The Hungarians did participate in Paris 1900. Zsolnay ceramics won Hungarians some acclaim in modern arts and crafts, but their most striking contribution was a replica of the Vajdahunyád Castle on the Avenue des Puissances Éitrangères; Györgyi, Kálmán, “Az iparművészet a párizsi kiállitáson” (Hungarian industrial arts at the Paris exhibition), Magyar iparművéeset, 09. 1900, 209–45.Google Scholar

89 “A Penultimate Exhibition,” Saturday Review (London), 05 16, 1896, 497.Google Scholar

90 Vasárnapi újság, Jan. 19,1896, 45; OL, K26, ME, packet 332, (March 17,1896). Prime Minister Dezső Bánffy recommended Ft. (forints) 803,000 for the building of a millennium monument and Ft. 300,000 for an equestrian statue.Google Scholar

91 Neues Politisches Volksblatt, May 7, 1896.Google Scholar

92 “Der freche Spatz und der geduldige Elephant,” Neue Politische Volksblatt, May 9, 1896. For parliamentary debate on the flag-burning, see Neues Politisches Volksblatt, May 7, 1896.Google Scholar

93 Neues Politisches Volksblatt, May 8, 1896.Google Scholar

94 Stenographische Protokolle über die Sitzungen des Houses der Abgeordneten des österreichischen Reichsrathes im Jahre 1896, Eleventh Session, vol. 20 (Vienna, 1896), 490510. Hungarian Jews, in turn, connected themselves with the thousand-year tradition. Rabbi Sámuel Kohn argued that“of all religions in our nation, ours is the oldest…. Our religion had existed in this land before it became the country of the Magyars, and also accompanied them [the Magyars] when they arrived here and conquered the land with their blood. We, to whose joy this nation has acknowledged the legality of our religion, not only feel but know that we are Magyars. For us the word Israelite…is the adjective of the word Magyar….it signifies a Jewish Magyar”;Google Scholar“Elnöki megnyitó” (Presidential opening address), in Évkönyv (Yearbook), ed. Vilmos, Bacher and József, Bánóczi (Budapest, 1897),78.Google Scholar

95 Miklós, Szabó, Politikai kultúra Magyarországon 1896–1986 (Budapest, 1989).Google Scholar