Prohászka László: Polish Monuments - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2001)

Street names which tell a story

Naming a street or square is one of the most established ways of preserving the memory of some person or event. Budapest has many street names which record some detail of Polish interest. In Népliget, a large park in District X, a promenade was named Lengyel (Polish) in 1935, with reference to the monument of the Polish legionaries erected in the park in 1934. Another street near a small housing estate in District XIV was also named Lengyel for some reason.

There are two streets bearing the name Tátra, referring to the mountain range which was the natural boundary between the two countries for a long time. The name of Nedecuár utca in District XI refers to a place called Nedec (presently Niedzica), which belonged to Hungary before the 1920 Trianon Treaty. (The town was the scene of the plot of a novel based on details of actual history, The Siege of Beszterce, by Kálmán Mikszáth.) Once the stronghold of the Pong- rácz Earls, in 1996 the museum housed in the castle in the fortress was presented with a valuable collection of Hungarica by Hungary’s former ambassador to Warsaw, Ákos Engelmayer. In return for the noble gesture, there is a Hungarian flag next to the Polish flag on the wall of the castle of Nedec.

The name of Limanova utca and Limanova tér in District XIV, given in 1930, refers to the location of a gruelling battle fought in World War I. Hungarian Hussars who fell in the attack on Russian troops launched on 9 December 1914 are buried in the cemetery of this Galician town. An obelisk on the battlefield marks the spot where colonel Othmar Muhr, commander of the charging Hussars, fell in the fight. A street in District XVII commemorates Lemberg, an Austro-Hungarian fortified town of key military importance. (The most important fortress in Galicia, Przemysl is not commemorated by any street name, possibly because of the difficulty Hungarians have in pronouncing its name.)

Several streets in Budapest are named after his59