Kovács Ferenc et al.: Fardagály és kámvás rokolya. Divat és illem a 19. században (Budapest, 2010)
A 19. századi divatlapok és divatképek
Fashion Periodicals and Fashion Plates or the 19th Century Az irodalmi divatlapok elsősorban a „nővilág” a „szalonok szépei” felé fordulnak, az ő támogatásukat kérik. Elhatárolták magukat a tudományosságtól éppen úgy, mint a politikától. Feladatuknak leginkább a „mulattatást" tartották. Olyan vegyes tartalmú kulturális és szórakoztató orgánumok voltak, amelyek egyszerre töltötték be a családi lap, a néplap és a szépirodalmi folyóirat szerepét. Sokat tettek a társasélet kulturáltságáért, a magyar nyelv terjesztéséért. Hozzájárultak az olvasás népszerűsítéséhez, hirdették a polgárosítás gondolatát. Megismertettek a nyugat-európai példákkal, és lehetőség szerint nevelték is a nőket. Viszonylagos népszerűségük lehetővé tette, hogy az előfizetésekből fenn tudják tartani magukat. Ehhez akkoriban mindössze 500-700, más lapoknál 1200 előfizető is elég volt. Kezdetben a szerkesztők még tiszteletdíjat sem fizettek az íróknak.- .,-V ..-.„©‘-Гаи Divatkép, Regélő, 1843 Fashion Plate. Regélő, 1843 latter supplement was sometimes an equal part of the publication, and on other occasions simply an insert to the main periodical. The appearance of fashion periodicals in Hungary in the 1830s had been readied by the spread of the new fashion of journalism and the cultural changes of the age, such as urbanisation. The preceding decades started the social migration that resulted in an increase in the number of city dwellers and the role of the middle-class public. It was especially in Pest-Buda that a Hungarian, and together with it an increasingly “Hungarianized”, bourgeois group began to form, the “middle class”, who in addition to the aristocracy and lower ranks of the nobility, presented itself as a new reading audience. The literary fashion periodicals turned primarily to the “female world” and the “salon beauties”, seeking their support. They distanced themselves from science and learning as they did from politics also. They viewed their primary function as “amusement”. They were mixed-content cultural and entertainment publications that simultaneously filled the role of family magazine, people’s paper and literary review. They did much to support the cultured nature of social life and the propagation of the Hungarian language. They contributed to the popularisation of reading and advertised the idea of civic development. They introduced western influences and examples, and where possible were educational to women. Their relative popularity enabled them to maintain themselves from their subscription fees. At the time this required only 500-700 subscribers, or perhaps 1200 in the case of a larger publication. In the beginnings, editors didn't even pay writers a royalty. The first fashion periodical in Hungary, then still in German, was the Der Spiegel. It was in existence between 1828 and 1852 and was the first publication in Hungary to include a fashion supplement. The first Hungarian language fashion periodical, the Regélö-Honmüvész (The Storyteller-Homeland Artist), was published from 1833 to 1841. It’s editor, the lawyer Gábor Mátray (Rothkrepf), received publishing permission with the intellectual assistance of the writer Vörösmarthy and the financial help of Earl Lajos Széchenyi, on the condition that he was to keep the periodical totally free from politics. The second part of the double name refers to a companion paper of the same size as the main one. It appeared two times a week and about a third of its subscribers were women. Mátray used the fashion plates as one of the means to generate interest on the part ofwomen. In the interests of these he was even prepared to fight the editor of the Der Spiegel, who turned to the local magistrates asking them to ban the publication of foreign fashion plates in the Regélő, asking that only hebe permitted to publish these and that Mátray make do with Hungarian fashion plates. Mátray didn’t back down and continued to reprint fashion plates taken from foreign periodicals.
