It has been some time since we have seen a book on Budapest as good as The Once and Future Budapest. Its merits are many. It is rich in data: yet this richness is not excessive. It makes for enjoyable reading: yet the use of a scholarly terminology is appropriate. It is well-proportioned: general statements and the examples, stories and anecdotes illustrating them are finely balanced. It arouses the reader's interest and keeps it throughout its eight chapters. It defines its aim-to examine the influence of Hungarian nationalism on the history of Budapest, from the end of the eighteenth century through the unification of Buda, Óbuda and Pest in 1873 up to 1890-and adheres to the necessary perspectives accordingly.
All the while it provides good reading. The witty subtitles not only entertain, but also implicitly reflect the many angles the author approaches his topic from. He overviews the system of power in the cities, the country and the whole of the Dual Monarchy. He walks down streets that were dusty and muddy at the beginning of the nineteenth century. He looks around the village-type houses on the outskirts of the three towns, the mansions of wealthy merchants and tradesmen in their centres, as well as the Royal Castle in Buda, where a Habsburg archduke lived for more than half a century. As the highest ranking dignitary of the 800-year-old Hungarian kingdom (originally the king's deputy) Palatine Joseph became fond of the city and contributed substantially to its prosperity. Nemes takes us to the field where the first horseraces took place and where modern social life in Pest started, and to the clubs and casinos where the political elite and the founders of voluntary associations prepared for the transition from

feudalism to a civil society. We take part in the festive procession on 20 August to honour the great king, the founder of the state, St Stephen, in the streets of Buda's Castle Hill, gaining insight into the confessional situation in towns. And here we are shouting "Vivat!" by the torchlight music offered by the youth of Pest to welcome the beautiful Zichy sisters, who were at the forefront of the reform movement. (Nemes might have added that István Széchenyi, the leading reformer of the 1830s, was well aware of the key 'sociological' role of women in all kinds of movements-so much so that he dedicated his epochal principal work Hitel [Credit, 1831] "to the fine-spirited ladies of our fatherland".)
In his overview of the changes of the social strata, the author deals with the German burghers and the Jewish community in more detail, since their "Magyarisation" played a vital role in the change of the ethnic character and the language character of the towns of Buda, Pest and Óbuda. (Less attention is given to the question of immigration, which became important only after the period discussed in the book, i.e. following the unification [1872-73].) In his treatment of the 1848 Revolution Nemes recaptures the dramatic events in lively detail, clarifying how decisive these experiences were in the process of assimilation. Especially enjoyable among many witty details is Nemes' discussion of Gyula Benczúr's well-known painting The Recapture of Buda Castle in 1686, a brilliant iconographic presentation of all the characteristic ideological features in late nineteenthcentury Hungarian nationalism (p. 185).

There is, however, a question of approach beyond the minor issues mentioned so far that deserves a somewhat more detailed discussion.
When first delineating his subject, the author states that the nationalist struggle, with Budapest as its "holy city", has had a profound influence on the political culture of modern Hungary. He believes that this culture could historically have led to liberalism, progress and receptivity as well as to xenophobia, intolerance and exclusion (p. 3). As we proceed in the book (and thus in the history of the "Magyarisation" of Buda-Pest), the ratio of these two historical options slowly changes. The nationalist movement greatly contributed to the selforganisation of civil society and the stratification of the polity, due to which more and more formerly "invisible" social groups became public actors, such as women, workers and Jews (p. 12). Yet, according to the author, "Nineteenthcentury nationalism had a darker side as well", and this darker side began to dominate, resulting in chauvinism, coercion and segregation, thus allowing exclusion, intolerance and intimidation to spread in Buda-Pest (pp. 12-13). The author regards the "national activist" as the principal hero of the age, who above all else strove to implement the national programme (the "Magyarisation" of the Twin Towns) and endorsed liberal reforms-the programme of economic, social and political modernisation of the country- only as a means to that end. He regards the language programme-the insistence upon the Hungarian language-as the turning point: in his opinion this created the first "foreigners" in the formerly common "Hungarus" fatherland, and thus necessarily gave rise to the forces of the "darker side" (pp. 50-53). Nationalism thus has a "Manichaean logic", it divides the world into "us" and "them" (p. 45), and-as the author concludes some pages later-this distinction is the first step towards exclusion. The author registers this in the 1840s: according to him it is from this time onwards that the young national activists started to use a sharper tone in the press and that xenophobia appeared in the streets of Buda-Pest (pp. 105-106).
Nemes' application of sociological categories and assertions to national sentiment as expressed in nineteenthcentury Hungary is somewhat problematic. These categories are often revealing, so that their use is justified-yet sometimes they suggest a value judgement the actors of that period can hardly meet, as these categories also include the experiences and lessons of twentieth-century history. At several points, for example, the author discusses with clear sympathy the emergence in the eighteenth century of the possibility of the so-called 'Hungarus' identity in Hungarian history-i.e. that someone as a German, Croat or Slovakspeaking subject could be loyal to the Hungarian kingdom (e.g. pp. 73-74). This (non-nationalist) patriotism, however, was overcome by aspiration for a "pure" national state, calling forth the aforementioned "dark forces" which were influenced by the language movement. Nemes notes that the "national activists" at home were aware of the fact "that Magyars were less than half the population of the Hungarian kingdom" which "was taken as a spur to decisive action, rather than as evidence of the unsuitability of the nationstate idea in Hungary" (p. 51).
The author ignores a basic dimension, i.e., the socio-psychological character of the national movement. He considers nationalism to be mainly a political strategy, and from a politological perspective the assertion is understandable. Statistics do convince a strategist that the relative strength of forces is decisive for the outcome of the struggle and ultimately renders the national "efforts" futile. Whoever fails to acknowledge this brings his fellow men much pain and suffering. Such language runs the risk of missing a basic socio-psychological aspect of the national movement. However, national identity is by no means merely a rational political strategy. It may be to some extent, yet it is mainly a peculiar communal self-suggestion with a pseudo-religious structure, symbolism, rituals, group mechanisms etc. Throughout the history of Hungarian nationalism-but mostly in its early period -the noble/aristocratic view of the past, according to which the Hungarians were the only state-founding nation in the Carpathian basin, has been held particularly strongly. Examination of this religion-like frame of mind, full of mythological moments, should provide a counterpoint to quantitative studies of populations of various ethnicities. This surely sheds an unfavourable light on Hungarian nationalism, especially bearing in mind present attitudes to human rights-yet it is a fact that renders the author's critical perspective difficult to apply.

In sum, it is not helpful to construe a historical alternative that the people of a given time could not have been aware of.
There is another point as well. The appearance of nationalist sentiment in Hungarian history-emerging from the medieval situation through more intense contacts due to language, tradition and a modern economy-is inseparable from the position of Hungary in the Habsburg Monarchy. Two hundred years later, a historian looking back at the achievement of Hungarian modernisation within the Monarchy sees a story of success and may be inclined to forget what an important role the assertion of Hungarian interests had played in this achievement. Thus, the historian may easily disregard the facts showing to what extent Vienna's economic policies impeded the achievement of civil society in certain Hungarian regions in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Nemes helpfully notes this several times (p. 60, p. 65, p. 75), yet somehow fails to establish a causal relation to the virulence of nationalism. Unfortunately, historians outside Hungary writing on the Habsburg monarchy pay little attention to the question. Viewing the region as a whole from the perspective of the twenty-first century, the situation of Hungary at the time does in fact seem to be so idyllic and sheltered that some scholars easily condemn all opposition to Vienna as nationalist turbulence.
Such was not the case. One example: András Gergely's study¹ on the Fiume question shows that in the first half of the nineteenth century the Hungarian liberal opposition had a complex economic programme asserting Hungarian interests. Gergely argues that they sought compromises in customs and trade policy with the Viennese court to diminish or even overcome the disadvantages of the Hungarian economy. The author believes that the actions of the Protection Association (Védegylet), for example, emerged out of xenophobic rhetoric (p. 187) -yet support for the Association came mainly as a reaction to exploitation through customs tariffs by the Habsburg economic administration. Also in the air was a political fear of Austrian absolutist aspirations inspired not only by a long historical memory, but by Josephinism, when feudal constitutionalism was, in Nemes' words, "suspended", as well as by the lingering resentment produced by Metternich's repressive policy in the second half of the 1830s. The Hungarian national movement may have been responsible for the appearance of the "dark forces" in the streets of Buda-Pest; however, by opposing policies intended to preserve the disadvantageous position of Hungary within the Monarchy, it was also inseparably intertwined with the ideas and aspirations that were fostering the emergence of communal self-governance.
This also holds true of the Magyar language movement. As far as facts are concerned Nemes gives a thorough account of Ferenc Kazinczy's language reform movement and work, and he notes some of its positive aspects such as the creation of a terminology for the sciences. He does not, however, stress that the movement also worked to create a defence against the absolutist aspirations of the Monarchy, as well as aiding the struggle for selfgovernance. As reflected by the words of Ferenc Kölcsey, the poet who wrote the national anthem Himnusz: "fatherland and progress" (haza és haladás); the national movement and the issue of the socialeconomic reforms were inseparable and present in every thought and action.
The author's final evaluation is sufficiently differentiated in its approach. Right from the beginning Hungarian nationalism was associated not only with the worst political tendencies of the century, i.e. the language policy and the preservation of the power of the nobility, but also with the best, with cultural innovation and liberal reforms (p. 186). Yet in the larger part of his book he is inclined to simplify what were complex conflicts and to consider language nationalism as the "greatest evil" among all the conflicts of an emerging civil society.
By the end of the nineteenth century the burghers of Budapest declared in every aspect of their life-as if by a daily referendum -that they were Hungarians. The author discerns the essence of their situation claiming that it would have been extremely difficult for them to do otherwise. And that is absolutely true. Would a Cherokee Indian have been better off if he had not started down the Trail of Tears? Or a Sicilian, if he had wanted to reject that Piedmontisation, which was inseparable from the Unification of Italy?
Rhetorical questions or not, Robert Nemes's book offers an excellent occasion for reflection.