Fathers of Budapest, Daughters of the Countryside: Recontextualizing Cultural Change in Fin-de-Siècle Hungary

Bede, Ábel and Huber, Christoph (2025) Fathers of Budapest, Daughters of the Countryside: Recontextualizing Cultural Change in Fin-de-Siècle Hungary. HUNGARIAN HISTORICAL REVIEW: NEW SERIES OF ACTA HISTORICA ACADEMIAE SCIENTIARIUM HUNGARICAE, 13 (4). pp. 623-654. ISSN 2063-8647 (print); 2063-9961 (online)

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Abstract

There is a historiographical consensus that there was a cultural paradigm shift in the first decade of the twentieth century in Hungary, though its exact characteristics have not been clearly defined. This article will demonstrate that there was a unifying theme in the works and philosophy of the generation that came to cultural relevance around 1905 which transcended ideological boundaries. The members of the new generation had a negative image of Budapest and idealized rural areas and rural communities. This essay will examine newspapers of the period, such as the Catholic Alkotmány (Constitution), the feminist A Nő és a Társadalom (Woman and Society), and the liberal Nyugat (The West) and argue that anti-Budapest sentiments and the idealization of the countryside were present in writings published in all of them. It will also show that novels from the period by Margit Kaffka and Terka Lux all revolve around criticism of Budapest and praise of the rural world.

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