George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas
Metropolitan Culture at the Fin de Siècle
- 268 pages
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas
Metropolitan Culture at the Fin de Siècle
About This Book
Nearly a quarter of the population of Budapest at the fin de siècle was Jewish. This demographic fact appears startling primarily because of its virtual absence from canonical histories of the city.Famed for its cosmopolitan culture and vibrant nightlife, Budapest owed much to its Jewish population. Indeed, it was Jews who helped shape the city's complex urban modernity between 1867 and 1914. Yet these contributions were often unacknowledged, leading to a metaphoric, if not literal, invisible status for many of Budapest's Jews.In the years since, particularly between the wars, anti-Semites within and outside Budapest sought to further erase Jewish influences in the city. Appellations such as the "sinful city" and "Judapest" left a toxic inheritance that often inhibited serious conversation or scholarly research on the subject.Into this breach strides Mary Gluck, whose goal is no less than to retrieve the lost contours of Jewish Budapest. She delves into the popular culture of the city's coffee houses, music halls, and humor magazines to uncover the enormous influence of assimilated Jews in creating modernist Budapest. She explores the paradox of this culture, which was Jewish-identified yet lacked a recognizable Jewish face. Because much of the Jewish population embraced and promoted a secular, metropolitan culture, their influence as Jews was both profound and invisible.
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Table of contents
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: Jewish Budapest as a Symbolic Space
- 1. Cultural Visions of the Emerging City
- 2. The Jewish Question and the Paradox of Hungarian Liberalism
- 3. A Jewish Politician in a Divided Public Space
- 4. The Jewish Humor Magazine and Collective Self-Parody
- 5. The Scandal of the Budapest Orpheum
- 6. Critical Cross-Dressing and Jewish Bourgeois Identity
- Epilogue: The Waning of Jewish Budapest after World War I
- Notes
- Index