Zeidler Miklós: Sporting Spaces - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2000)

á ‘.pjssm *jssaí)jA.

u sciiu vabna ri-mflMt« ns: —•— i icoir hatídmu »i naiaiiok á pisj.

~ • IHp Ptgfher National»Scltwifiigchule •

The National Swimming Pool of Pest (drawing by Jakab Marastoni from 1844)

ing of swimming surfaces surrounded by plank walls and wooden huts appeared at the beginning of the 19th century. In 1817 a military and then in 1835 a civilian swimming school (National Swimming Pool) were opened on the Pest side; these, however, were wiped out in 1849 by general Hentzi’s artillery batteries together with the row of buildings on the Danube bank. From the middle of the 19th century, swimming across the Danube became a popular activity, and swimmers able to cover the distance between Margaret Island and Csepel Island were allowed to use the swimming pools on the Danube at a discount. (It was in one of these swimmers’ ‘baths’ that Kálmán Szekrényessé the first swimmer to cross Lake Balaton, began his career.) The first “official” swimming competition on the Danube was held in 1881 between Vác and Budapest. In a few years’ time, when they achieved sufficient prestige, short-distance competitions were usually organised at the Császár and Lukács Baths from the late 1880s. The young of Pest frequented the ‘bath’

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