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• Introduction
• 1. Banishing Remains
• 2. The Hole in the Flag
• 3. Nostalgia and the Remains of Everyday Life
• 4. Recovering National Victimhood at the House of Terror
• 5. Secrets, Inheritance, and a Generation's Remains
• 6. A Past Returned, A Future Deferred Conclusion.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

In Remains of Socialism, Maya Nadkarni investigates the changing fates of the socialist past in postsocialist Hungary. She introduces the concept of "remains"-both physical objects and cultural remainders-to analyze all that Hungarians sought to leave behind after the end of state socialism. Spanning more than two decades of postsocialist transformation, Remains of Socialism follows Hungary from the optimism of the early years of transition to its recent right-wing turn toward illiberal democracy. Nadkarni analyzes remains that range from exiled statues of Lenin to the socialist-era "Bambi" soda, and from discredited official histories to the scandalous secrets of the communist regime's informers. She deftly demonstrates that these remains were far more than simply the leftovers of an unwanted past. Ultimately, the struggles to define remains of socialism and settle their fates would represent attempts to determine the future-and to mourn futures that never materialized.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction: Movement, Technology, and Culture in the Making of (Czech) Lives
• 1. Footsteps through the City: Social Justice in Its Multiplicity
• 2. Digital Dwelling: The Everyday Freedoms of Technology Use
• 3. Ballroom Dance and Other Technologies of Sexuality and Desire
• 4. The New Europeans: Twenty-First-Century Families as Sites for Self-Realization
• 5. Making Moods: Food and Drink as Collective Acts of Sustenance, Pleasure, and Dissolution
• 6. Reconnection: Between the Power Lines and the Stars.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Traversing is about our ways of seeing, experiencing, and moving through the world and how they shape the kinds of people we become. Drawing from concepts developed by two phenomenological philosophers, Martin Heidegger and Jan Patocka, and putting them in conversation with ethnographic analysis of the lives of contemporary Czechs, Susanna Trnka examines how embodiment is crucial for understanding our being-in-the-world. In particular, Traversing scrutinizes three kinds of movements we make as embodied actors in the world: how we move through time and space, be it by walking along city streets, gliding across the dance floor, or clicking our way through digital landscapes; how we move toward and away from one another, as erotic partners, family members, or fearful, ethnic "others"; and how we move toward ourselves and the earth we live on. Above all, Traversing focuses on tracing the ways in which the body and motion are fundamental to our lived experience of the world, so we can develop a better understanding of the empirical details of Czech society and what they can reveal to us about the human condition.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

Chi è, come ragiona e come governa l'uomo che ha trasformato il suo paese nel primo laboratorio illiberale dell'Unione Europea? Che cosa ha permesso a un politico di formazione progressista di diventare il simbolo delle destre sovraniste? Viktor Orbán si presenta come leader alternativo per l'Europa e sfida la classe dirigente occidentale sul tema del multiculturalismo. Al tempo stesso, ha costruito e gestisce un sistema corrotto e dai tratti feudali, autoritario ma basato su un ampio consenso popolare
Un sistema oggetto di critiche internazionali ma tollerato e anzi finanziato dall'Unione Europea. La parabola del primo ministro ungherese dagli anni Ottanta a oggi trascende la dimensione biografica del personaggio. La sua storia riflette la crisi generale della rappresentanza democratica e illustra gli errori di prospettiva commessi dalle élites liberali e dalle politiche di Bruxelles, corresponsabili del deragliamento autoritario nell'Europa dell'Est, dove il populismo pragmatico ha un nome e un volto: quello del despota Orbán. [Testo dell'editore]

• General Editors' Preface
• The Chronicle of the Deeds of the Hungarians in European Context (Norbert Kersken)
• Abbreviations
• Abbreviations and signs in text and annotations
• Titles cited in abbreviation
• List of illustrations and tables
• Annotated list of miniatures and medallions
• Editors' Preface
• Chronica De Gestis Hungarorum
• Chronicle of The Deeds of The Hungarians
• Appendix
• Select Bibliography
• Index of Names of Persons, Kindreds and Peoples
• Index of Geographical Names
• Gazetteer for Geographical Names.

• Budapest
• Across the Alföld: The Great Hungarian Plain
• The Banat
• Transylvania.

This book revisits the trajectory of one section of Patrick Leigh Fermor's famous pedestrian excursion from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople. This S.O.E. officer walked into Hungary as a youth of 19 at Easter of 1934 and left Transylvania in August. "A cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond and Graham Greene" as the New York Times obituary put it in 2011, this intrepid traveller published his experiences half a century later. Between the Woods and the Water covers the part of the epic journey on foot from the middle Danube to the Iron Gates. It has been a bestseller since it was first published in 1986. O'Sullivan reveals the identity of the interesting characters in the travelogue, interviewing several of their descendants and meticulously recreating Leigh Fermor's time spent among the Hungarian nobility. Leigh Fermor's recollections of his 1934 contacts are at once a proof of a lifelong attraction for the aristocracy, and a confirmation of his passionate love of history and understanding of the region. Rich with photos and other rare documents on places and persons both from the 1930s and today, the book offers a compelling social and political history of the period and the area. Described by Professor Norman Stone as "a major work of Hungarian social archaeology, " this book provides a portrait of Hungary and Transylvania on the brink of momentous change.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Budapest
• Across the Alföld: The Great Hungarian Plain
• The Banat
• Transylvania.

This book revisits the trajectory of one section of Patrick Leigh Fermor's famous pedestrian excursion from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople. This S.O.E. officer walked into Hungary as a youth of 19 at Easter of 1934 and left Transylvania in August. "A cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond and Graham Greene" as the New York Times obituary put it in 2011, this intrepid traveller published his experiences half a century later. Between the Woods and the Water covers the part of the epic journey on foot from the middle Danube to the Iron Gates. It has been a bestseller since it was first published in 1986. O'Sullivan reveals the identity of the interesting characters in the travelogue, interviewing several of their descendants and meticulously recreating Leigh Fermor's time spent among the Hungarian nobility. Leigh Fermor's recollections of his 1934 contacts are at once a proof of a lifelong attraction for the aristocracy, and a confirmation of his passionate love of history and understanding of the region. Rich with photos and other rare documents on places and persons both from the 1930s and today, the book offers a compelling social and political history of the period and the area. Described by Professor Norman Stone as "a major work of Hungarian social archaeology, " this book provides a portrait of Hungary and Transylvania on the brink of momentous change.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Part I. Violence and revenge, 1942-1948. The 1942 massacre of Novi Sad
• "Disloyalty": the Budapest military trial and the Holocaust
• Revenge: the first postwar trials. Part II. From silencing to site of memory, 1949-1989. Postwar: the long Stalinist decade
• Fascists with a human face? The 1960s novel and film Cold Days
• The victims of mass violence and the end of the communist regime.

"In Remembering Cold Days, von Klimó examines public contentions over the Novi Sad massacre from its inception in 1942 until the final trial in 2011, and reveals how attitudes changed over time toward this war crime and the Holocaust through different political regimes and in Hungarian society. The book also views how the larger European context influenced Hungarian debates, and how Yugoslavia dealt with memories of the massacre." --Back cover.

• Cover; Title page; Copyright page; Contents; Abbreviations; List of Illustrations; Preface; Orsolya Karsay: The Codex of the Illuminated Chronicle; János M. Bak and Ryszard Grzesik: The Text of the ""Chronicle of the deeds of the Hungarians; Ernő Marosi: The Illuminations of the Illuminated Chronicle; György Rácz: The Heraldry of Angevin-age Hungary and its Reflections in the Illuminated Chronicle; Martyn Rady: Attila and the Hun Tradition in Hungarian Medieval Texts; Dániel Bagi: The Dynastic Conflicts of the Eleventh Century in the Illuminated Chronicle

• Kornél Szovák: The Image of the Ideal King in Twelfth-Century Hungary (Remarks on the Legend of St. Ladislas and the Illuminated Chronicle)Balázs Kertész: The Afterlife of the Fourteenth-Century Chronicle Compositions; Credits; Index nominum; Back cover

The present volume of studies-a joint publication with the National Szechenyi Library, Budapest-is the first Subsidium of the Central European Medieval Text series, accompanying CEMT vol. IX on the Illuminated Chronicle, composed in the fourteenth century at the royal court of Louis I of Hungary. The large size of the volume, with the text and its annotations, did not permit the inclusion of a detailed scholarly introduction, unlike other CEMT items, so it is here printed separately. The first essays analyze the text and the illuminations of the Illuminated Chronicle (formerly called the Vienna Chronicle) from literary-historical, art historical and heraldic perspectives. They also summarize the literature on the chronicle for the past two hundred years. Additional studies address the narrative. Since the chronicle starts with the history of the Huns, the imaginary ancestors of the Hungarians, one essay addresses the Attila tradition in Hungarian historiography. Others devote attention to the dynastic struggles of the eleventh century, placing them in the context of amicitia and deditio, and to the image of St. Ladislas I as the "ideal king". The final essays examine the fate of the fourteenth-century chronicle texts over the subsequent centuries, their appearance in legal texts, and their reception abroad.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Mobilizing the nation : from war propaganda to peacetime cultural diplomacy and beyond
• Defining the nation
• Educating international public opinion : cultural institutions and scholarly publications
• Showcasing the nation : the role of tourism
• Becoming audible and visible : radio broadcasting and cinematic production in the service of cultural diplomacy.

The monograph examines the development of interwar Hungarian cultural diplomacy in three areas: academia, the tourist industry, and motion picture and radio production. It is a story of how Hungarian elites perceived--and misperceived--themselves, their surroundings, and their own ability to affect the country's fate amid high hopes and deepseated anxieties about the country's place in a Europe newly reconstructed after World War I. Though the study is rooted in Hungary, it explores the dynamic and contingent relationship between identity construction and transnational cultural and political currents in small EastCentral European nations in the interwar period.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction: The Stalinist leader cult : origins, interpretations, and functions
• Part I. The construction of the cult
• The chronology of cult construction (1925-1953)
• The institutions and agents of cult construction
• "The biography is a very serious issue" : the role of biographies in constructing the Rákosi cult
• "He was created by a thousand years" : nationalism and the leader cult
• "Comrade Rákosi lives with us" : the visual and the spatial aspects of the Rákosi cult
• Part II. Responses to the cult's expansion
• "Love for Comrade Rákosi has become deeper" : the communicative influence of the cult
• "Death to Uncle Rákosi!" : negative perceptions of the cult
• Ignorance is bliss : popular indifference and the shortcomings of communist propaganda
• Part III. The dismantling of the cult
• The "new course" and the decay of the Rákosi cult, 1953-1956
• The collapse of the Rákosi cult.

This book offers a detailed analysis of the construction, reception and eventual decline of the cult of the Hungarian Communist Party Secretary, Mtys Rkosi, one of the most striking examples of orchestrated adulation in the Soviet bloc.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

Il volume raccoglie i testi delle relazioni tenute al congresso internazionale «La Rivoluzione ungherese del 1956 e l'Italia», organizzato dall'Accademia d'Ungheria in Roma. In apertura figurano due saggi incentrati su due aspetti dell'incontro della società italiana con il 1956 ungherese. La seconda sezione del volume indaga le discussioni che si accesero all'interno del Partito comunista italiano e nell'ambiente degli intellettuali di sinistra in seguito alla rivolta d'Ungheria. Nella terza sezione degli atti hanno trovato collocazione due analisi dell'influsso esercitato dalla rivoluzione del 1956 sulle strategie di politica estera del governo italiano e della Santa Sede. I due saggi che chiudono il volume analizzano il posto occupato dalla rivoluzione nella memoria storica e culturale. [Testo dell'editore]

• A rural world, before 1918
• Cultural contact, post 1918
• Minority making, 1920s
• A unique identity, 1930s
• The volk triumphant, Second World War
• Return to minority, 1945-1993.

Tangible Belonging presents a compelling historical and ethnographic study of the German speakers in Hungary, from the late nineteenth to the late twentieth century. Through this tumultuous period in European history, the Hungarian-German leadership tried to organize German-speaking villagers, Hungary tried to integrate (and later expel) them, and Germany courted them. The German speakers themselves, however, kept negotiating and renegotiating their own idiosyncratic sense of what it meant to be German. John C. Swanson's work looks deeply into the enduring sense of tangible belonging that characterized Germanness from the perspective of rural dwellers, as well as the broader phenomenon of "minority making" in twentieth-century Europe. The chapters reveal the experiences of Hungarian Germans through the First World War and the subsequent dissolution of Austria-Hungary; the treatment of the German minority in the newly independent Hungarian Kingdom; the rise of the racial Volksdeutsche movement and Nazi influence before and during the Second World War; the immediate aftermath of the war and the expulsions; the suppression of German identity in Hungary during the Cold War; and the fall of Communism and reinstatement of minority rights in 1993. Throughout, Swanson offers colorful oral histories from residents of the rural Swabian villages to supplement his extensive archival research. As he shows, the definition of being a German in Hungary varies over time and according to individual interpretation, and does not delineate a single national identity. What it meant to be German was continually in flux. In Swanson's broader perspective, defining German identity is ultimately a complex act of cognition reinforced by the tangible environment of objects, activities, and beings. As such, it endures in individual and collective mentalities despite the vicissitudes of time, history, language, and politics.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

Internationalist socialism and ethnic nationalism are usually thought of as polar opposites. But for the millions of men and women who made Social Democracy into twentieth-century Europe's most potent political force, they were often mutually reinforcing. Workers and Nationalism explains this apparent paradox by looking at the history of the Social Democratic workers' movement in Habsburg Austria, which was built on the mobilization of German and Czech workers in the Empire's rapidly industrializing regions of Bohemia, Moravia, and Lower Austria. Jakub Benes takes the history of socialism out of the realm of theoretical and parliamentary debates and into the streets, city squares, pubs, and clubs of a vibrant but precarious multi-ethnic society. He reveals how ordinary workers became increasingly nationalist as they came to believe that they were the genuine representatives of their ethnic national communities. Their successful campaign to democratize parliamentary elections in 1905-1907 accelerated such thinking rapidly. It also split Social Democracy apart by 1911. Then, during the First World War, many Czech and German workers embraced revolutionary radicalism, alienating them from the regime-friendly socialist leadership. Benes's study is the first to show the profound connection between major political events and the rich culture of the Austrian workers' movement, revealing this culture's utopian and quasi-religious tendencies as well as its left populist nationalism. Based on research in eight archives and numerous libraries in Prague, Vienna, and Brno, Workers and Nationalism fundamentally rethinks the relationship between socialism, nationalism, and democracy in modern Europe.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Contents and AbstractsIntroduction chapter abstractThe introduction describes the genesis of the book, establishes the historical questions it addresses, points to the answers to come, and situates this work in the historiography of Central and Eastern Europe. Most importantly, it makes the case for collective biography, which is the most innovative feature of this book. The introduction also defines the main features of northeastern Hungary and stresses what is gained by viewing nineteenth-century history from the vantage point of this poor, remote region. Drawing on Benedict Anderson and Edward Said, it closes with reflections on the "imagined geography" as an analytical framework that captures the mixture of acute observations and bold visions of change offered by the eight men and women examined here.
• 1The Aristocrat chapter abstractThe subject of the first
• chapter is Count Jozsef Gvadanyi, an aristocrat of Italian origins who spent forty years as a cavalry officer before becoming a prolific author in his sixties. Largely forgotten today, Gvadanyi was one of the most popular authors of the 1790s. He churned out biographies, military studies, and long, narrative poems. An analysis of the poetry reveals Gvadanyi to be a careful observer of northeastern Hungary. The count was supportive of upward mobility through education and largely sympathetic to the diverse peoples who lived in the region (although Jews have no place in his literary landscapes). In this way, Gvadanyi's writings begin to construct the "myth of the provinces": namely, the belief that Hungary had great untapped economic potential and that its different peoples lived in relative harmony. Later chapters take apart and add to this myth.
• 2The Merchant chapter abstractThe second chapter drops from the top of the social pyramid to near the bottom, to a Yiddish-speaking Jewish immigrant from Poland. Rafael Kastenbaum came to Hungary as a young man and worked as a merchant and moneylender in northeastern Hungary. Kastenbaum left behind few biographical documents. But when he died, his will showed him to be much wealthier and much more generous than anyone had suspected. A reconstruction of Kastenbaum's life shows the precarious position of Jews in provincial Hungary, just as his will's surprising bequests reveal the era's faith in education and the importance of local political coalitions (in this case the county nobility and Jewish elites) to achieve change.
• 3The Engineer chapter abstractHopes for the dramatic economic transformation of provincial Hungary defined the life of Pal Vasarhelyi. Born into a poor noble family, Vasarhelyi became a water engineer, an occupation with great responsibility but limited social status and low pay. In this capacity Vasarhelyi spent long years on the Danube and Tisza Rivers. His writings encompass technical reports, pamphlets on water measurement, newspaper articles, and published speeches. In unguarded moments, Vasarhelyi let his imagination fly and dreamed of using river regulation to solve the economic, transportation, and social problems that beset the provinces. Vasarhelyi's plans were not fully realized, but they sketch a very different "imagined geography" of Hungary, which centered on the northeastern counties rather than on Budapest.
• 4The Teacher chapter abstractEconomic issues give way to national questions with Klara Loevei, whose noble family had also fallen on hard times. As a woman, she had fewer options than Vasarhelyi. Undaunted, Loevei explored nearly all the career paths open to women of her era (actress, governess, teacher) before becoming in turn a revolutionary, political prisoner, and journalist. Letters, memoirs, and newspaper articles document her remarkable career. These sources can help us understand the roles played by women in provincial society and the importance of education as a means of individual and collective change. Finally, Loevei's pronounced Hungarian national loyalty illuminates what nationalism meant in an ethnically mixed border region.
• 5The Journalist chapter abstractThis chapter also looks at nationalism, but this time from a Romanian point of view. Iosif Vulcan was descended from one of the most prestigious Romanian families in Austria-Hungary. He wrote plays, novels, and poetry-- he championed Romanian-language theater-- and he edited the journal The Family for nearly forty years. Scholars often view him as a Romanian national activist-- this chapter asks what is gained if we see him as a provincial one. An examination of Vulcan's career shows the development of the public sphere (newspapers, books, associations) in the provinces. It also expands the argument (begun in previous chapters) about how nationalism worked on the ground in ethnically and religiously diverse regions.
• 6The Rabbi chapter abstractWhat role did religion play in public life? What about antisemitism? How did Jews respond to pressures to adopt the language and customs of the majority Christian society? Answers to these questions emerge from the life of Rabbi Armin Schnitzer, who grew up in northeastern Hungary but later settled in a small town in western Hungary. Schnitzer published a memoir, as well as speeches, sermons, and newspaper articles. In them we can see how Schnitzer tried to define a Jewish identity that fused Hungarian patriotism, imperial loyalty, and a measure of Zionism. They also show how Schnitzer used the local press, the town council, and networks of friends to respond to statewide crises, including the Tiszaeszlar ritual murder case in the 1880s and the battle over civil marriage in the 1890s. From this perspective, local political institutions appear much more vibrant and viable than is often assumed.
• 7The Tobacconist chapter abstractThis chapter moves into the Hungarian countryside and looks at agriculture, the engine of the economy, albeit one that sometimes raced and sometimes sputtered and stalled. It focuses on Vilmos Daroczi, a Jew who grew up in a small village and eventually made his way to Budapest. Daroczi worked as a tobacco grower, tobacco buyer, and for the last quarter-century of his life, editor of a newspaper devoted to tobacco cultivation. The northeastern counties figured prominently in Daroczi's thinking, as he dreamed of remaking the rural society from which he had emerged. Daroczi's work can help us think about Hungary's place in the global economy, about economic forces remaking the countryside, and about the connections between patriotism and consumption.
• 8The Writer chapter abstractMargit Kaffka grew up just a dozen miles from where Daroczi was born. Yet she did not share his optimism about the countryside. The daughter of yet another poor Hungarian nobleman, Kaffka eked out a living as a teacher and writer, first in a small town and then in Budapest. From there she looked back in anger on the Hungarian provinces. Her great novel Colors and Years (1912) examined the disintegration of the provincial nobility and documented its effects on women. To Kaffka, the provinces' social order was feudal, its Hungarian nationalism hollow, and its local politics corrupt. And yet, her work does offer a path forward that led through - rather than away from - the provinces. In this way, Kaffka retained something of the "myth of the provinces, " even as she insightfully diagnosed its woes.
• Conclusion chapter abstractThe conclusion highlights the common themes that join the lives of these men and women: their mobility, education, political engagement, professional achievements, social networks, and local loyalties. It documents how differently these men and women have been remembered, from the house museum of "the journalist" to the vanished grave of "the merchant." Most importantly, the conclusion answers the questions laid out in the introduction and pursued in the eight body chapters, emphasizing the innovative responses of some men and women to larger historical changes, the complex role played by ideologies in the countryside, and the shifting relationship between center and periphery. It closes with a brief reflection on what is gained by looking at history through a collective biography.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Another Hungary tells the stories of eight remarkable individuals: an aristocrat, merchant, engineer, teacher, journalist, rabbi, tobacconist, and writer. All eight came from the same woebegone corner of prewar Hungary. Their biographies illuminate how the region's residents made sense of economic underdevelopment, ethnic diversity, and relations between Christians and Jews. Taken together, their stories create a unique picture of the troubled history of Eastern Europe, viewed not from the capital cities, but from the small towns and villages. Through these eight lives, Another Hungary investigates the wider processes that remade Eastern Europe in the nineteenth century. It asks: How did people make sense of the dramatic changes, from the advent of the railroad to the outbreak of the First World War? How did they respond to the army of political ideologies that marched through this region: liberalism, socialism, nationalism, antisemitism, and Zionism? To what extent did people in the provinces not just react to, but influence what was happening in the centers of political power? This collective biography confirms that nineteenth-century Hungary was no earthly paradise. But it also shows that the provinces produced men and women with bold ideas on how to change their world.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Contents and AbstractsIntroduction chapter abstractThe introduction describes the genesis of the book, establishes the historical questions it addresses, points to the answers to come, and situates this work in the historiography of Central and Eastern Europe. Most importantly, it makes the case for collective biography, which is the most innovative feature of this book. The introduction also defines the main features of northeastern Hungary and stresses what is gained by viewing nineteenth-century history from the vantage point of this poor, remote region. Drawing on Benedict Anderson and Edward Said, it closes with reflections on the "imagined geography" as an analytical framework that captures the mixture of acute observations and bold visions of change offered by the eight men and women examined here.
• 1The Aristocrat chapter abstractThe subject of the first
• chapter is Count Jozsef Gvadanyi, an aristocrat of Italian origins who spent forty years as a cavalry officer before becoming a prolific author in his sixties. Largely forgotten today, Gvadanyi was one of the most popular authors of the 1790s. He churned out biographies, military studies, and long, narrative poems. An analysis of the poetry reveals Gvadanyi to be a careful observer of northeastern Hungary. The count was supportive of upward mobility through education and largely sympathetic to the diverse peoples who lived in the region (although Jews have no place in his literary landscapes). In this way, Gvadanyi's writings begin to construct the "myth of the provinces": namely, the belief that Hungary had great untapped economic potential and that its different peoples lived in relative harmony. Later chapters take apart and add to this myth.
• 2The Merchant chapter abstractThe second chapter drops from the top of the social pyramid to near the bottom, to a Yiddish-speaking Jewish immigrant from Poland. Rafael Kastenbaum came to Hungary as a young man and worked as a merchant and moneylender in northeastern Hungary. Kastenbaum left behind few biographical documents. But when he died, his will showed him to be much wealthier and much more generous than anyone had suspected. A reconstruction of Kastenbaum's life shows the precarious position of Jews in provincial Hungary, just as his will's surprising bequests reveal the era's faith in education and the importance of local political coalitions (in this case the county nobility and Jewish elites) to achieve change.
• 3The Engineer chapter abstractHopes for the dramatic economic transformation of provincial Hungary defined the life of Pal Vasarhelyi. Born into a poor noble family, Vasarhelyi became a water engineer, an occupation with great responsibility but limited social status and low pay. In this capacity Vasarhelyi spent long years on the Danube and Tisza Rivers. His writings encompass technical reports, pamphlets on water measurement, newspaper articles, and published speeches. In unguarded moments, Vasarhelyi let his imagination fly and dreamed of using river regulation to solve the economic, transportation, and social problems that beset the provinces. Vasarhelyi's plans were not fully realized, but they sketch a very different "imagined geography" of Hungary, which centered on the northeastern counties rather than on Budapest.
• 4The Teacher chapter abstractEconomic issues give way to national questions with Klara Loevei, whose noble family had also fallen on hard times. As a woman, she had fewer options than Vasarhelyi. Undaunted, Loevei explored nearly all the career paths open to women of her era (actress, governess, teacher) before becoming in turn a revolutionary, political prisoner, and journalist. Letters, memoirs, and newspaper articles document her remarkable career. These sources can help us understand the roles played by women in provincial society and the importance of education as a means of individual and collective change. Finally, Loevei's pronounced Hungarian national loyalty illuminates what nationalism meant in an ethnically mixed border region.
• 5The Journalist chapter abstractThis chapter also looks at nationalism, but this time from a Romanian point of view. Iosif Vulcan was descended from one of the most prestigious Romanian families in Austria-Hungary. He wrote plays, novels, and poetry-- he championed Romanian-language theater-- and he edited the journal The Family for nearly forty years. Scholars often view him as a Romanian national activist-- this chapter asks what is gained if we see him as a provincial one. An examination of Vulcan's career shows the development of the public sphere (newspapers, books, associations) in the provinces. It also expands the argument (begun in previous chapters) about how nationalism worked on the ground in ethnically and religiously diverse regions.
• 6The Rabbi chapter abstractWhat role did religion play in public life? What about antisemitism? How did Jews respond to pressures to adopt the language and customs of the majority Christian society? Answers to these questions emerge from the life of Rabbi Armin Schnitzer, who grew up in northeastern Hungary but later settled in a small town in western Hungary. Schnitzer published a memoir, as well as speeches, sermons, and newspaper articles. In them we can see how Schnitzer tried to define a Jewish identity that fused Hungarian patriotism, imperial loyalty, and a measure of Zionism. They also show how Schnitzer used the local press, the town council, and networks of friends to respond to statewide crises, including the Tiszaeszlar ritual murder case in the 1880s and the battle over civil marriage in the 1890s. From this perspective, local political institutions appear much more vibrant and viable than is often assumed.
• 7The Tobacconist chapter abstractThis chapter moves into the Hungarian countryside and looks at agriculture, the engine of the economy, albeit one that sometimes raced and sometimes sputtered and stalled. It focuses on Vilmos Daroczi, a Jew who grew up in a small village and eventually made his way to Budapest. Daroczi worked as a tobacco grower, tobacco buyer, and for the last quarter-century of his life, editor of a newspaper devoted to tobacco cultivation. The northeastern counties figured prominently in Daroczi's thinking, as he dreamed of remaking the rural society from which he had emerged. Daroczi's work can help us think about Hungary's place in the global economy, about economic forces remaking the countryside, and about the connections between patriotism and consumption.
• 8The Writer chapter abstractMargit Kaffka grew up just a dozen miles from where Daroczi was born. Yet she did not share his optimism about the countryside. The daughter of yet another poor Hungarian nobleman, Kaffka eked out a living as a teacher and writer, first in a small town and then in Budapest. From there she looked back in anger on the Hungarian provinces. Her great novel Colors and Years (1912) examined the disintegration of the provincial nobility and documented its effects on women. To Kaffka, the provinces' social order was feudal, its Hungarian nationalism hollow, and its local politics corrupt. And yet, her work does offer a path forward that led through - rather than away from - the provinces. In this way, Kaffka retained something of the "myth of the provinces, " even as she insightfully diagnosed its woes.
• Conclusion chapter abstractThe conclusion highlights the common themes that join the lives of these men and women: their mobility, education, political engagement, professional achievements, social networks, and local loyalties. It documents how differently these men and women have been remembered, from the house museum of "the journalist" to the vanished grave of "the merchant." Most importantly, the conclusion answers the questions laid out in the introduction and pursued in the eight body chapters, emphasizing the innovative responses of some men and women to larger historical changes, the complex role played by ideologies in the countryside, and the shifting relationship between center and periphery. It closes with a brief reflection on what is gained by looking at history through a collective biography.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Another Hungary tells the stories of eight remarkable individuals: an aristocrat, merchant, engineer, teacher, journalist, rabbi, tobacconist, and writer. All eight came from the same woebegone corner of prewar Hungary. Their biographies illuminate how the region's residents made sense of economic underdevelopment, ethnic diversity, and relations between Christians and Jews. Taken together, their stories create a unique picture of the troubled history of Eastern Europe, viewed not from the capital cities, but from the small towns and villages. Through these eight lives, Another Hungary investigates the wider processes that remade Eastern Europe in the nineteenth century. It asks: How did people make sense of the dramatic changes, from the advent of the railroad to the outbreak of the First World War? How did they respond to the army of political ideologies that marched through this region: liberalism, socialism, nationalism, antisemitism, and Zionism? To what extent did people in the provinces not just react to, but influence what was happening in the centers of political power? This collective biography confirms that nineteenth-century Hungary was no earthly paradise. But it also shows that the provinces produced men and women with bold ideas on how to change their world.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)