Budapest, 1946. (2. évfolyam)
9. szám - SZENTKÚTY PÁL: Az első budai könyvkereskedők
BUDAPEST ILLUSTRATED HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL REVIEW PUBLISHED BY THE CITY OF BUDAPEST THE FIRST CENTENARY OF THE MUNICIPAL SAVINGS BANK As its name implies, the Municipal Savings Bank is the bank of the City of Budapest. Its inaugural general meeting was held an hundred years ago, on August 23r d 1846. In this way, the Municipal Savings Bank is the third great financial institute of the capital to have celebrated its one hundredth birthday. Ever since the day of its foundation, the Municipal Savings Bank has faithfully served the credits needs of its customers in addition to protecting their commercial, industrial, financial and economic interests and, in this way, faithfully reflects the many stages through which the financial life of the country during the past century. At the outset, the bank was founded solely for the purpose of meeting the demands of the inhabitants of Buda. At that time time the two twin halves of the Hungarian capital had not been welded into one integral whole and both lead a completely independent administrative life. The importance of decision to set up a financial institute in Buda was all the greater for none had previously existed there while there were already two banks in I'est. Austria, determined to extend her all pervading influence to the economic life of the country as well, made it very defficult for a purely Hungarian bank to be founded and to prosper. But prosper it did thanks to the foresight of its managers. In fact, even the oppression which followed the Freedom Wars of 1848/1849 proved unable to check its expansion. Slowly, the bank extended its scope of activity to the Pest side of the river, took an interest in every form of banking transaction, fused with a number of banks and operaled as independent financial organisation under I he style of United Budapest Municipal Savings Bank until 1927. In that year the Muncipality acquired possession of its stock and. in this way, the bank became the financial institute of the City of Budapest. Until that time, the City had no bank of its own, a circumstance which gave rise to difficulties in the management of its economic existence. Since 1927, the Municipal Savings Bank has handled every financial transaction of the Municipality though it naturally plays a predominant role in the industrial. commercial and financial life of the country. Owing to the havoc caused by the seige of the capital it proved necessary to rebuild the outer structure of the head offices and to carry out considerable reconstruction in the interior of the building as well. The Municipal Savings Banks is one of the pillars on which the reconstruction of the devastated capital reposes. The public utility services and the principal food distributing organisation were set on their feet again thanks to the credit facilities granted by the Municipal Savings Bank to which the population owes a debt of great gratitude for having organised the vitally important system of transport. As Z. Vas, the former Mayor of Budapest observed a year ago, there would have been no greater Budapest without the help of the Municipal Savings Bank. It was the observance of this principle which helped the Municipal Savings Bank to grow from strength to strength and to extend its already wide scale of activities. The present Chairman of Bank is M. József Kővágó, now Mayor of Budapest. The members of the Board are elected from among the parties in the political coalition by the Municipal Council. The Muncipal Savings Banks has already picked up the threads of its many foreign connections and is now in the process of devvedeloping these relations still further. The confidence of the population in the bank is so well founded that it stands in the forefront of those writh the greatest cash deposits. Sándor Lestyán HUNGARIAN FURNITURE Owing to the viccissitudes of the centuries, relics of the Hungarian carpenters' and joiners' trades exit only from the time of the liberation of Buda in 1686. The cupboard and the carved guild chests to which this article is devoted are only second in importance to the fine wood carvings in the library of the Pauline Monastery. The monks of this famous order were skilled in the art of wood-carving and it is almost certain that the finely fluted and decorated book-cases of this library were the fruits of their work. In the early years of the XIX. century, the rapid growth of the (win towns of Buda and r()iehitf e -Oil r ()(iin ti(i(js HOFFMANN FERENC BUDAPEST, IV., GERLÓCZY - UTCA 5 Pest coincided witli the dawn of the nation's industrialisation and. in this manner, with the foundation of the famous Hungarian carpenters' and joiners' trades. The intrinsically Hungarian character of the style of the decorativ»' The shop of Parisian and Hungarian fashionspecialities. Buttons, pearls, clipses, brooches, belts, linen and hosiery. IV. Deák Ferenc st. 17 clephonet 182-017 ЯШШШ
