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Being in the middle of Europe means being a crossing place for Celts, Romans, Huns, Avars, Pechenegs, Magyars, Tartars, Turks, Austrians, Germans and Russians, each in due season. Each group leaves behind some residue of its presence, as do the other communities who have settled and flourished on the banks of the Danube. Here be Serbs, Bosnians, Swabians, Slavs, Romanians, Jews, people dwelling within and without the city walls, all or most employing the Magyar tongue. Today these are supplemented by many others, including Americans, English, Chinese and Japanese. And so this endless process goes on, the nations passing through like water through a colander, running away and leaving some solid matter behind: a church, a synagogue, a tomb, some baths, a hotel, a café, some architectural trick or device, a word or two, no to mention the names: Tatár, Lengyel, Horváth, Moldován, Svábi, Szerb, Tóth, Török, Németh, Román, Oláh, Orosz. History’s etceteras. Buzinkay’s history of Budapest could be read as a series of footnotes to the city’s genetic narrative.

Capital cities are the inevitable focal point of this process. Of course, the point is often, and rightly, made (Buzinkay himself makes it in his introduction) that the capital is not to be confused for the country or the nation as a whole. Paris is not France, London is not England. Never- theless, these cities act as filters, voices, figureheads. The capital is, after all, the head of the body and it is through the head the voice emerges in response to the needs of the body. That, at least, is the theory: that is where the analogy goes. The centre of the nervous system is located in the head, and when you take an aerial view and see the roads and railway lines converging on the capital, the sheer physical force of the metaphor comes vividly alive. This is not even to mention that which is less visible on the surface: cables, wires and pipelines, still less the invisibles. Trade, directives, thoughts. People. Invisible cities.

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