Gál Éva: Margaret Island - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2000)
In the narrow park, to the left as well as the right, you can occasionally see the shimmer of the Danube, between the almost too pretty ßower beds, between the upper and lower restaurants, where it is our custom to be children and to grow old—says Antal Szerb in his guide to Budapest for Martians. The finest park of Budapest, Margaret Island is often referred to as “the pearl of the Danube”, “an enchanted garden” or “an earthly Paradise” in sources new and old, citing its exceptional location, beautiful verdure and medicinal waters. Indeed, Margaret Island is a choice attraction for the local population as well as foreign visitors. The island plays a unique role in the life of Budapest. There are parks and thermal springs elsewhere. This, however, is both park and island and right in the middle of a river and a metropolis at that. Embraced by water, an island is both separated from and connected to the mainland by the ancient element; no wonder it has always been a popular attraction stimulating the imagination, assuming mythical proportions (one only has to think of “the island of the blessed” or that particular island on the Danube which plays such an important part in the life of the Man with the Golden Touch in Mór Jókai’s eponymous novel). No doubt, it is large islands set in the sea that have always played a significant part in the history of humankind, but here, in this small, landlocked country, one has to settle for islands in a river. And Margaret Island is among the smaller even of its own kind, dwarfed by the islands of Csallóköz, Szentendre and Csepel. However, its position, lying as it does between Buda and Pest, and its past and recent history—itself related to the geographical situation—assign Margaret Island a distinctive place among all the other alluvial islands set in the middle reaches of the Danube. As for its size, that makes us aware of being on an island no matter where we happen to stand on it. Today’s Margaret Island has a surface area of about 850 acres with a length of one and a half miles and a breadth of about 550 yards. Earlier, however, it was much smaller. Its southern tip was once a separate islet. Variously called Buda Islet or Painters’ Islet—the latter name was given on account of artists painting away 5
