Gulyás Katalin et al. (szerk.): Tisicum. A Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok megyei Múzeumok évkönyve 26. (Szolnok, 2018)

Történelem - Bagi Gábor: Szolnok város leírásai a XIX. század középső harmadából

BAGI GÁBOR: SZOLNOK VÁROS LEÍRÁSAI A XIX. SZÁZAD KÖZÉPSŐ HARMADÁBÓL

IRODALOM

ANTALFFY Gyula

1943. A honi utazás históriája. Budapest.

BRACE, Charles Loring

2005. Magyarország 1851-ben. Személyes beszámoló az osztrák rendőrségről. Máriabesnyő-Gödöllő.

FELLER, Francois Xavier de

1820. Itinéraire, ou voyages de Mr. l'Abbé de Feller en diverses parties de l’Europe: en Hongrie, en Transylvanie, en Esclavonie... I. Paris.

MKL

2007. Magyar Katolikus Lexikon XII. Budapest.

MÓDY György

1978. Egy angol utazó 1850 februárjában Bihar megyében és Nagyváradon. In: Bihari Múzeum Évkönyve 2. (Szerk.: HÉTHY László). Berettyóújfalu. 153-162.

1988. Angol utazó-diplomata 1849/1850 telén Magyarországon. In: A Hajdú-Bihar Megyei Levéltár Évkönyve XV. (Szerk: RADICS Kálmán). Debrecen. 59-74.

PATON, A[ndrew] Archibald]

1861 Researches on the Danube to Adriatic or contributions of the modern history of Hungary and Transylvania, Dalmatia and Croatia, Serbia and Bulgaria II. Leipzig.

SZINNYEI József

1891. Magyar írók élete és munkái l-XV. Budapest.

WERTHEIMER Ede

1894. Rainer főherczeg magyarországi utazása, 1810-ben, Kiadatlan naplója alapján. Második és utolsó közlemény. In: Budapesti Szemle 77. (206. sz.) 201-226.

Gábor Bagi

Descriptions of Szolnok

from the middle of the 19th century

The detailed descriptions of the town of Szolnok date back to the middle third of the 19th century. As antecedents after the Turkish rule, one might mention the descriptions by the Belgian François-Xavier de Feller (1735-1805) and from 1810 Archduke Rainer Habsburg (1783-1853). In the booming press of the Reformist period, to our understanding, it was the locally related Gusztáv Remellay (1819-1866) who provided detailed accounts of the settlement.

The interest towards Hungary and the Hungarians were ignited by the heroic strife of the 1848-49 Revolution and War of Independence. Charles Loring Brace (1826-1890), the pioneer of American children education, in 1851 explored Hungary and especially the Lowlands. His book, published a year later, was the only work in the USA that gave a detailed picture of Hungary for a long time. In this volume, he devoted one and a half pages to describe Szolnok. Unlike Brace, who sympathized with the Hungarians, Scotsman Andrew Archibald Paton (1811-1874), a British diplomat, proved to be more moderate, and based upon the contemporary British political interests, he thought that the existence of the Austrian Empire was absolutely imperative from point of view of the civilisation of Hungarians.

From the mid-1850’s, as tyranny started to soften, more and more articles were published about Szolnok written by local correspondents often anonymously. They contain a lot of factual data about the contemporary life of the town and criticism at the same time. Although between 1847 and 1857 Szolnok was the final station of the imperial rail system, and after nearly 300 years it became a county seat again, the population could not really fully utilize the unfolding and sometimes temporary opportunities. The town continued to show a rural character and largely unregulated, and the population failed to keep the pace with the accelerated reality and establish long-term plans. Ironically, later on many had nostalgic feelings thinking back to the first half of the 1850’s.

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