Városi jelenség volt-e a kávéház Magyarországon a 19. század végén? = Was the Coffee-House an Urban Phenomenon in Hungary at the End of the 19th Century?

Szulovszky, János (2025) Városi jelenség volt-e a kávéház Magyarországon a 19. század végén? = Was the Coffee-House an Urban Phenomenon in Hungary at the End of the 19th Century? TÖRTÉNELMI SZEMLE, 67 (1). pp. 81-104. ISSN 0040-9634

Preview

Text TSZ_2025-1_Szulovszky.pdf - Published Version Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

Until now, authors have treated the coffee-houses as an unquestionable axiom, a typical urban phenomenon. On the basis of data from an industrial and commercial directory published in 1892, the paper shows that in that year, on the one hand, cafés accounted for only 52.8% of the functional urban population, and on the other, almost half of the 208 municipalities with cafés, 45.2%, belonged to villages. While 11 of the 63 counties had no cafés at all, 33 counties had them not only in towns but also in villages. In addition, the presence of village cafés was by no means negligible: in 20 counties, the proportion of village cafés was equal to or greater than 50% of the towns with cafés. In the literature, an interpretation has been formulated which, highlighting and absolutising the possibility of drinking coffee and reading the newspaper among the services of this “unadulteratedly urban (metropolitan), yet at the same time bourgeois institution”, portrays the café as the embodiment of the principles of Protestant ethics and the modern bourgeois literacy. The paper stresses, on the other hand, that it was a much more complex phenomenon, with the possibility of gambling – essentially billiards and cards – being an important element from the outset, and therefore also a place of “unconsciousness”. It was also a place for relaxation, but also for intellectual work, negotiations and various kinds of business. In addition, cafés played an important role in the institutionalisation and perpetuation of prostitution.

Actions (login required)

Edit Item