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

Mátyás tér

is a lovely, if dilapidated, pink single-storey structure, a type nearing extinction in the inner city.

In the early 20th century, the neighbourhood was heavily peppered with Roma musicians. Roma orchestras had been popular all across Europe and even further abroad since the 19th century, and there were so many well- known and well-travelled Gypsy musicians from Hungary that Gypsy music was frequently mistaken for Hungarian folk music. The area around Mátyás tér was quite rich with musician families, according to newspaper accounts from the 1930s. One description described the square as a common gathering place for Gypsy musicians and their families. "On Mátyás tér, a person encounters some horse traders, some peddlers selling towels and carpets - sunny days it's still possible to encounter a huddle of Gypsy musicians, but one does see that there are hardly any young ones among them. They say that they’ve gone away, emigrated, or learning a trade and becoming 'civilized', getting assimilated into society and getting themselves far away from the Pest Gypsy quarter.”

The same essay - rich in detail not only about life in 1930s Józsefváros but also quite evocative of the attitude of the period towards the Roma minority — described that it was common in the quarter to hear any of many Gypsy languages, and that one would often encounter bright-eyed Gypsy children in colourful ethnic costumes. When one of the children, usually walking the street with multiple younger siblings in tow, would approach a passer-by for money, one would feel compelled to help them. "You can’t escape the thought that these children are the last Mohicans of a talented tribe, who, beginning from their very childhood, will walk the road of humiliation..."

Another journalist, interviewing musicians on the square, sprinkles parentheses throughout the article to ensure the audience understands the Gypsy slang of the time. The young musicians travelled to Switzerland and Paris, bragged about possibly being sent in the near future to New York or Hollywood. The boss (or "góré", a word virtually unknown in the Hungarian of the period) typically would provide them with six shirts, six pairs of pants, a hunter's cap, leather gloves and fur. It was often the custom that the adolescent children would act as single supporter of a whole large

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