Budapest in the Slovak, Czech and Polish historical consciousness

The Central European Image of Budapest

Budapest in the Slovak, Czech and Polish historical consciousness

Terra Recognita Foundation – for a Central European dialogue 1

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“The biggest Slovak city” – recalling of Budapest of the Dualism era

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Budapest is not unknown to today’s Slovak, Czech and Polish audiences.

However, most of the commonly known sights, stories, and cultural achievements of the city are part of the global image of Budapest, presenting the same urban landscape to anyone who travels here. Nevertheless, for Slovak, Czech and Polish travellers or those interested, the city hides more: all three nations have their own closer connection to the Hungarian capital. This also takes shape in the historical consciousness: in the history books of the Visegrád nations, in their historical accounts, or through some memorial sites within the Hungarian capital which have a particularly unique connection to Central European countries, a specific picture of Slovakian, Czech and Polish Budapest can be drawn.

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“The biggest Slovak city” – recalling of Budapest of the Dualism era „The biggest Slovak city” – it is a frequently recurring bon-mot which today’s Slovaks allude when speaking about the Hungarian capital city of Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. The deployment of this label seems to be righteous: according to the censuses, Budapest was home to more Slovaks than the northern small towns at the foot of the Carpathians. The reason for this was continuous immigration: there was great poverty in the northern areas of the historical Kingdom of Hungary, it was more difficult to find work, so many people emigrated from here - not only to Budapest, but also abroad, to America. While in the decades before the First World War the population generally showed a strong increase within the Monarchy, the population in the northeastern counties decreased in many places. A significant part of those who emigrated from here tried their luck in Budapest.

The traces of immigration to Budapest have remained in public and historical memory to this day. One such clue is that in Slovak public discourse, Budapest is often referred to as having been built by Slovaks - since a good number of those who moved in worked on construction sites.

“Just as the Slovaks helped build Budapest at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, today we often witness hearing the tasty Hungarian words of Southern Slovakian ethnic regions on construction sites in Bratislava.”

Igor Matovič, Prime Minister of Slovakia, at the official commemoration event of the 100th anniversary of the Treaty of Trianon, held in the Bratislava Castle, 2 June 2022

The other voice within the Slovak historical memory is the somewhat bitter voice of lamentation over the Slovak loss in number of population: those moved to the capital city, were supposed to loose their cultural ties towards the mountainous Slovak hinterland, as changing their language and identity to Hungarian. However Slovak inhabitants in the capital were 4

Map of Slovak lands, with imaginative borders, in the journal of Slovaks issued in Prague, 1908. As it can be seen, the borders of an imaginative Slovakia were north to today state borders, while not forgetting Slovaks living in Pest county: their settlements are also marked as territories belong to the Slovak ethnic world.

concentrated in the district VIII. and IX. (Franzstadt, Jozefstadt), these communities were not vivid, strong and cohesive enough for sustaining a minority culture within the boosting metropolis. Nevertheless, it seems unfair to consider all this as the effect of the Hungarian nation-building policy, as some Slovak historians have been inclined to do; metropolitan assimilation was facilitated primarily by very strong natural processes.

Beside the memory of assimilation, Budapest (before 1873: Pest-Buda) is often recalled as a pulsing metropolis of modernisation, channelling some developmental effects from the West towards the Slovak lands. The city, with its rapidly developing infrastructure, wealth and intellectual potential, became an important Slovak centre and served as the cradle of organisations and initiatives of Slovak intellectuals, literati and audience who settled here for a short or longer period. To give just a few examples, the first Slovak humour magazine was issued first in Pest-Buda. The first 5

Slovak cookbook was also published in Budapest, written by Ján Babilon who served in the capital city. The first Slovak theatre was also established in Pest-Buda. Even Imre Madách, a famous Hungarian author originating from the northern territories of the kingdom, mentioned in his letters that he visited this Slovak theatre. Ján Kollár, a Lutheran pastor who wrote the most characteristic, most large-scale Slovak national epic, also lived in Pest-Buda, although submerging into a permanent contention and conflict with the German-Hungarian milieu which dominated the city at that time. He felt he was a stranger and tended to keep a distance deliberately from its nationalist atmosphere, which was regarded as threatening his Slovak identity.

Despite experiencing a kind of marginalisation and the shadowy side of inter-ethnic contentions before 1848, the Slovak community of Pest-Buda – or, after the official unification of the sister cities in 1873: Budapest – was imbued with an atmosphere of expectation, or at least of desire, that reconciliation with the Hungarians would be possible. Many of the figures of this trend, and their activities – calling by historians as the “new Slovak school” – are associated with Budapest. One of the most influential figures of this idea was Jan Nepomuk Bobula, who worked as an architect in the capital city. This aspiration of Slovak-Hungarian reconciliation, however, ultimately proved to be hollow, as the Hungarian policy was increasingly directed towards the dismantling and disintegration of Slovak institutions. Therefore, the trend of Slovak politics and culture shifted towards the idea of alignment with the

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Sculpture of king Matthias on the corner of the blockhouse on Rákóczi street – it was the “emblem” of the Café Mátyás, the favourite meeting place of local Slovaks. Not only students but travellers, travelling sellers also like to visit this place.

Czech and other Slavic. This also reduced, though did not completely suppress, the vibrancy of Slovak life in Pest. A typical example is the relocation of the editorial offices of the first Slovak daily newspaper, which was also established in Pest, to Skalica.

Despite the growing cultural distance between Hungarians and Slovaks, Budapest did not cease to exist a cultural destination of Slovak intelligentsia. They conducted their university studies here, having their own cafés to meet and enjoy the night. Both their favourite cafés and the hotel where they used to stay were located along the Kerepesi street – today: Rákóczi street – between the Keleti Train Station and the Astoria. It might not be a coincidence that the Slovak Institute – the cultural institute of the Slovak Republic – has its venue on this street, too, organizing Slovak-related programmes for the capital’s audience.

The cafés of Pest, with their beautiful furnishings, brilliant lighting, excellent gypsy bands (not ensembles) and the almost oriental habit of sitting for hours on end, had an effect on, or even captivated, more than one Slovak university student. The ‘Munkácska’ and the ‘Mátyáska’ on Rákóczi út were full of decent (not drunken) people until late at night, and this was a sensa7

tional novelty for Slovak youth from small towns in the north, as they could sit around for hours and nights for 12 kroner, especially towards the end of the month. More than once, some of our students were preparing for their state exams in this rush. “According to Emil Stodola, “it is certain that Janko Jesenský was also captivated by this ‘freedom’ and romantic atmosphere of the cafés in Pest. It was there, at the small marble tables, in ‘silent solitude’, that he wrote many of his poems about ‘our villages’, from which ‘hundreds of mountains separate us’. Stodola also linked the liberation of the cafés with the relative freedom of minority language use. “In Kežmarok and Prešov, we as students only dared to speak Slovak in secret (…) Only the plebs were allowed to speak Slovak. In contrast, in Pest we had Slovak student circles, where we were free to discuss in Slovak, where there were various student circle evenings, Romanian, Serbian, Beseda and Sokol of the Czech, which we attended and they attended ours. In the cafés and cheaper bistros we had our own reserved tables where we, of course, spoke Slovak. ‘ Hotel Metropol

Budapest during the World War II – asylum of Polish Comparing to the Slovak remembrance on Budapest, the Hungarian capital takes an unambiguously popular place within the Polish public memory: Polish resistance against the Fascist and Soviet attempts of occupying Poland could find particularly precious allies in Budapest. The remembrance of these “alliances” made the image of Budapest colourful and appealing in the eyes of Poles in the long run.

After the outbreak of the World War II, many Polish refugees had to flee the country. It is estimated that some 140,000 Polish passed through Hungary during the entire war period. For most of them it was just a transit country and they continued to travel to Great Britain, France or the Middle East. However, many Poles stayed in Hungary for the entire war – their number is estimated to be around 15,000. Many of them lived in Budapest.

Helping Polish refugees would not have been possible without the support of Hungarian politicians, in particular Prime Minister Pál Teleki, or Interior Minister Ferenc Keresztes-Fischer, who announced just a dozen days after the start of the German invasion against Poland in 1939 that Polish refugees could find asylum in Hungary. One cannot also underestimate the role of Dr. József Antall – father of the first Prime Minister of the Republic of Hungary after the fall of Communism – who established the Refugee Office within a department of the Interior Ministry, which worked closely with Poles living in Budapest.

Katyn Martir’s Park – this public square was recently renamed in honour of the Polish victims of World War II

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This is how Polish refugees recalled their arrival in Hungary: “Along the way we saw many heart-grabbing scenes. Here was a Hungarian soldier leading an old woman under her arm and carrying her belongings, probably all her possessions. A second one had two toddlers in his arms, while another carried a young woman’s suitcase. There were more Hungarians offering cigarettes, fruits and wine.”

After the Poles were already on Hungarian territory, they were sent first to special camps and then (initially) mainly to Budapest. This is where mainly young Poles, or civil servants, found refuge. Barbara Czerwińska, who spent the entire war period in Budapest and worked at the aforementioned Office for Refugees, recalled this way:

“I was captivated by the great cordiality of the Hungarians, who greeted us on the way, treated us with wine, grapes, plums, bread.”

Revolution on the streets

The Hungarian uprising in October 1956 and its Polish memory The 1956 uprising represents one of the greatest traumas in 20th-century history of Hungary. It resulted in the deaths of more than 2,500 people and injured some 13,000. The uprising is also directly linked to Polish history, as it was strikes by Polish students that inspired Hungarians to stand up to the struggle. A rally in support of the Polish protests was organized in October 1956, initially gathering 20,000 people. The protest took place at the Józef Bem monument. It was no coincidence that the gathering took place precisely at the monument to the Polish hero of the 1948-1949 Hungarian uprising, the adjutant, known by Hungarians as “Father Bem” [Bem apó].

“Almost all Polish students participated in this demonstration. We arrived at the Bem monument. (...) Some people went further to the St. Margaret’s Bridge, to the Parliament” – recalled Polish students who were on scholarships in Budapest at the time. The demonstration grew very quickly and 200,000 people were already taking part.

Many Polish accounts mention the toppling of Stalin’s monument, which was located on the Heroes’ Square. Writer Wikor Woroszylski reported the event this way: “I walk through the square where they knocked him off his pedestal on the first day of the revolution. More precisely, they cut it with 10

acetylene at knee height. What remains is a one-of-a-kind monument: a pair of huge shoes on a high pedestal. From the right upper still sticks out a filigree wreath - inviting a new eager to slip into these shoes, while the one to whom they formerly belonged has been moved a few streets away from the square of his name and pressed onto the pavement. A deafening echo echoes with the steady thud. The brass giant turns into a pile of shapeless shards. Everyone wants a piece of Stalin as a souvenir.”

Edward Liszewski, then a fifth-year student at Budapest Technical University, wrote: “Only the shoes were left of the entire monument. People laughed that they left shoes because they were Hungarian. A barricade was made of the rest of the monument, but a miserable barricade it was, because everyone wanted a souvenir and chipped off a piece for themselves. In the end, not much was left of it”.

In Budapest, besides the Polish students, there was also a group of journalists who reported all the events to the Poles in real time.

Interestingly, even the Polish propaganda press covered the events in Budapest quite reliably. A series of articles entitled Situation in Hungary [Sytuacja na Węgrzech] appeared regularly in Trybuna Ludu.

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“We started singing the Polish anthem. There was a small group of us, but we wanted to show our solidarity with Hungary. Then the Hungarians shook our hands, patted us. I have never felt closer to Hungarians than at that moment.”

Revolution on the streets

Polish journalists portrayed a city that was at a dramatic moment in its history. Journalist Marian Bielicki described his first day in Budapest this way: “We are driving through a city deafened by pain, through a city that looks like a chessboard cut by lines demarcating the range of possession of the warring parties, through a city where war is being waged. (...) Someone from the technical delegation returning to the country on our plane asks in amazement. »Why did you come here? There’s a war in Budapest, you’d better go back.« Our embassy driver adds, »They are shooting everywhere. You drive into the city through three lines of fire.«” He stressed that despite the tragedy, there was a sense of freedom in the air: “From the windows and balconies there are hanging banners swollen with damp autumn mists. White-green-red and black.

The colors of the nation and the colors of mourning. A symbol of freedom and a symbol of the death it took to ransom the right to freedom.”

These days, Both Poles and Hungarians felt especially important to show support for each other: 12

Edward Liszewski.

Andrzej Braun, a Polish writer and reporter, wrote in the newspaper Nowa Kultura: “And in Poland there could have been a Hungary... We were a hair’s breadth away from bloodshed, from thousands of dead and wounded.”

October 1956 was also a time when Poles became very involved in helping struggling Hungarians. Wiktor Woroszylski, the aboce-quoted Polish novelist and poet, came to Budapest in late October with a shipment of medicine and blood. A valuable source of accounts from the fighting Budapest is his Hungarian Diary [Dziennik węgierski]. He was not able to publish it in Poland because of censorship, and only managed to publish it later in Paris and only after some time in his native country. It is considered by many to be the most important Polish testimony to the Hungarian revolution.

Upon arriving in the city, Polish journalists found a horrifying picture.

In his diary, Wiktor Woroszylski depicts the dark city during the fighting as follows:

“A dark, empty street. About a few dozen meters away from us majors black hulks of tanks. (...) again a long, empty street, but brighter and wider. On the corners plaques with the name scratched out. This is one of the main streets of Budapest - Andrássy Street. The scratched letters made up the name of Joseph Stalin. We walk, not quite sure of the direction. We rarely meet passersby, but from time to time we are passed in a rattling rush by tightly cluttered armored cars.”

Along with the blood transport, Zygmunt Rzeżuchowski also arrived in Budapest, describing the event as follows: On October 24, maybe 25, I went to the editor’s office and found out that there was an opportunity to 13

go to Budapest. There were planes flying with blood from Poland. (...) They arranged passports for us in one day and I flew on October 27 together with a shipment of medicine. There was little room on the plane, the pilots let me sit with them. As we taxied over Budapest airport, the control tower rang out, “Long live Poland, long live Warsaw!” Since Wiktor Woroszylski knew the city well, he was able to point out how much it had changed during the fighting and the contrast between what it looked like before: Here is the stately main entrance - I remember it from years ago. (...) Right at the entrance, in the hall, French delegates were selling impressionist albums to have money to go home. Further down were the stairs, where elegant officers and uniformed activists repeatedly checked entry cards. Eventually one reached the multi-story meeting hall, surrounded by numerous galleries (...)

Now the main entrance was closed and deaf.

The story of the 1956 uprising came full circle in 1989, when again Polish events inspired Hungarians to take action and eventually led to the fall of communism.

Revolution on the streets

However, before the fall of the Iron Curtain, Polish-Hungarian relations continued to be cherished during the communist era. Interestingly, some of the most important relations at the time were especially those related to... trade. In the 1980s, the so-called “lengyel piac”, (Polish marketplace), operated successfully in Hungary. Many accounts have survived of trips to Hungary by Poles, who usually came to Budapest to sell products there - from leather goods to electronics. They gathered mainly on Váci Street and in the square in front of Keleti Station.

This theme has also been reflected in Polish pop culture. The “Polish marketplace” is was perfectly reflected in the 2021 Polish film called Soup out of nothing [Zupa nic], directed by Kinga Dębska. One of its main plots involves a young couple’s trip to Budapest to trade, where they attempted to sell “shoddy goods” from Poland.

Budapest also does not cease to inspire contemporary artists. For example, a novel by the renowned Polish writer Krzysztof Varga Sonnenberg is set in this city. But other books of contemporary Polish writers are also inspired by the Hungarian capital, like the 2011 detective story We’ll Meet in Matrózcsárda by Jerzy Edigey, or Łukasz Błaszczyk’s 2019 Farewell to Budapest.

And what about Czechs?...

Since this brief leaflet intends to give an insight what recollections Visegrád nations have about Budapest, it would be unreasonable to omit the Czechs.

However, beside the really colourful images what Poles and Slovaks tend to draw about Budapest in their minds, the Hungarian capital city does not seem such influential from a Czech perspective. Regarding the mutual interest towards each others’ capital city, we can assume a kind of asymmetry: Prague proves to be more attractive for Hungarians than Budapest appeals Czechs.

Despite the conclusion that Budapest occupies a modest place within the Czech historical remembrance, it does not mean that there has not been a history of “Czech-Budapest relations”. During the era of Dualism,

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Background images: 1. Memorial plaque of Ján Nepomuk Bobula; 2. Picture from the first Slovak cookbook

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