Faurest, Kristin: Ten spaces - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2010)

Fő tér

■ A postcard depicts the Fő tér of a century ago. The lower-righthand comer says "A Jew of Óbuda sendd greetings"

At this time, and up through the 16th century, Óbuda was a commercial- agricultural town without the rank of a city. Much of the population — 38% at one point - dealt directly with food production and commerce, including vineyards. Serious damage came in the 1500s under the conquering Turkish army; the cloisters were abandoned, and it was only in 1686 when the Turks were driven out that the town started to rebuild. Óbuda was the estate of the Zichy family from 1659, and it was they who, after the Ottoman Turks were driven out, repopulated the emptied-out area with Catholic Germans. Eventually, from the 18th century on, silk mills became a common industry in Óbuda, along with factories manufacturing indigo-dyed fabrics, bricks and boats. By the end of the 17th and the early 18th century there was also a large Jewish population. In 1732, according to the data, of 1562 people, 1208 were Catholic, 186 reform and 168 Jewish. Just north of the square stood, from 1738, a plague hospital for the disease that would kill a substantial number of people there as well as in Buda and Pest. Óbuda would remain an independent entity until 1873, when it united with Buda and Pest to form the city as it is today.

The overall atmosphere and scale are of the 18th century, with various buildings and street elements dating from the 19th and early 20th century.

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