Spatial and Urban Patterns
Gábor Demeter Special Editor of the Thematic Issue
Contents
Articles
Gábor Koloh
Rural Society at the Time of the Cholera Outbreak: Household and Social Structure, Taxation and the Cholera Outbreak in Endrőd (1834–1836) 5
Abstract
Endrőd is a village in Békés County along the Körös River. A census taken by the local church administration presents the composition of 663 household from 1835. From the perspective of household structure studies, this source is unique in length, age, and complexity. Furthermore, cholera destroyed the settlement the year before and after the census was taken. The census and parish registers offer sources on which one can study the impact of the epidemic on households. The tax register from 1834/1835 allows for the classification of family heads into tax categories, so we can extend the test to the relationship between financial background and mortality rate. This multivariate analysis uses the sources and methods used in epidemic history, social history, and historical demography.Réka Gyimesi and Dániel Kehl
A Spatial Analysis of the Socio-economic Structure of Bonyhád Based on the Census of 1869 28
Abstract
In this study, we examine the social structure of Bonyhád, a multi-ethnical and multi-confessional Transdanubian town in Tolna County. We analyze the individual level data of the census of 1869 and offer a visual rendering of the results on a historical map of the town. The surviving material of this inventory covers the entire population of Bonyhád, providing a detailed picture about 6,036 inhabitants. Records include the names, sex, birth year and place, marital status, occupation and occupational status, literacy, residence, and whether the person in question was present or absent at the time the census was taken. As in Tolna County a cadastral survey was finished in 1866, a contemporary cadastral map is also available. Combined, these sources provide rich information about the spatial structure of the town, because the coordinates are also available using the mapire.eu website, which is overlaid on the OpenStreetMap and the HERE satellite base map. One can use the degrees of longitude and latitude of each household and study the census and the map together in R, a free software environment for statistical computation and graphics.Bonyhád was the economic center of a small region and had a position of strategic importance in the control of local trade routes. After the end of the period of Ottoman occupation, German settlers arrived and lived alongside the original Hungarian and Serb population. Later, a significant Jewish community settled in the area in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The denominational composition of the population, according to the census of 1869, was 41 percent Roman Catholics, 31 percent Lutherans, 5 percent Calvinist and 23 percent Jewish. The analysis of the census-based information and the visual rendering of the results on the cadastral map explain valuable details about the socio-economic structure of Bonyhád, including the question of segregation, which would be difficult to demonstrate on the basis of qualitative sources, as is typically the case with historical research.
Arlene Peukert
The Notion of Space on Railway Maps of the Habsburg Monarchy / Austria–Hungary 52
Abstract
In this article, the notion of space on railway maps of the Habsburg Monarchy/Austria-Hungary is analyzed and interpreted. Two railway maps from the 1840s and one network map from the 1860s are examined from the perspectives of their visual language and inherent communication mechanisms. A reciprocal approach to maps is applied. The context in which maps are created (production and consumption) is taken into consideration, as is the context which is created by maps (spaces as cultural products). The desired outcome is a synopsis of the plurality of spaces envisioned in the mid-nineteenth century contrasted with the process of unification of space spurred on by the continuous expansion of railway networks. Topics addressed in this article are the rendering of nature and terrain on maps, the beginning development of a railway corridor into a network of lines, the depiction of networks, the hierarchization of territory in the visual language of maps, and the marking of space as a national territory.Gábor Demeter and Bagdi Róbert
Social Differentiation and Spatial Patterns in a Multiethnic City in the Nineteenth Century: Potential Uses of GIS in the Study of Urban History 77
Abstract
This study is a GIS-aided quantitative statistical analysis which aims to explain the spatial patterns of sociodemographic phenomena in an urban community in the era of transition from preindustrial to industrial society. It is also a methodological attempt to use a unique source type and compare different methods used for social classification. Using the Hungarian census data from 1870, we tried to assess the wealth levels of different social groups indirectly and compare the internal inequalities within these groups with internal inequalities within social groups in other regions. The source also provided material on the basis of which we were able to reconstruct social networks, migration patterns, different strategies adopted by different religious communities, patterns involving occupation and age group, etc. We were able to compare the potential uses (and limits) of this source with the uses and limits of other sources. Our main goal was to put more emphasis on a spatial-regional approach, which is underrepresented in the Hungarian historiography, while geographers tend to refrain from putting their research into historical frames and contexts.Zsolt Szilágyi
Regional Differences in Development and Quality of Life in Hungary During the First Third of the Twentieth Century 121
Abstract
In this essay, I look for answers to the following three questions: to what extent did the borders of Hungary after the 1920 Treaty of Trianon overlap with borders of structural development in 1910 and in 1930; what does the term “development” mean when we are talking about the Carpathian Basin; and how did geographical differences in standards of living change in the territories under discussion over the course of these two decades. To some extent, the new political borders which were drawn in 1920 in the Carpathian Basin overlapped with the borders which reflected the different levels and patterns of development in the region. This is a consideration which has been given little attention in the secondary literature in Hungary. The developmental structure of the Carpathian Basin in 1910 can be mapped using the GISta Hungarorum Database. One discerns in this structure a major line of development. Within this line, one finds an area in which the level of development was higher than average and, in some places, considerably higher than average. Another distinctive feature of this area was that is had several centers, and this fact was of particular importance from the perspective of the Treaty of Trianon and its alleged consequences. In recent years, groundbreaking research on economic history has persuasively shown that Hungary managed to recover economically relatively quickly after 1920. Numerous factors played a role in this recovery. One of the more decisive, I argue in this study, was the geographical developmental structure of Trianon Hungary, which had several centers. Although the territory of Trianon Hungary was considerably more developed than other areas of the Carpathian Basin, it is quite clear that the economic fault lines which existed after Trianon had in fact existed before Trianon too, and the internal peripheral areas had already formed (and remained essentially unchanged throughout the interwar period). Thus, the Treaty of Trianon did not play any role in the emergence of formation of these areas. The treaty may well have had grave consequences for the country and region, but the developmental geographical structure of Hungary in the interwar period, which ultimately exerted a shaping influence on development in Hungary for the rest of the twentieth century, was not a result of Trianon.Gergely Károly Bán
Inner Territory and What Lies Behind It: An Inquiry Into the Hungarian Urban Hierarchy in 1930 153
Abstract
The study of the emergence of the Hungarian urban hierarchy raises a number of methodological questions concerning the complex settlement structure and the unique urban development of the Carpathian Basin. Research on the Hungarian urban hierarchy reveals a strong positive correlation between the position of the cities in the hierarchy and the complexity of their urban functions. The aim of my inquiry is to provide a complex picture of the Hungarian urban hierarchy of the 1930s, or, more precisely, the potential hierarchies. I approach this issue from various perspectives. As there are different definitions of cities in judicial (administrative), statistical, economic, sociological, and geographical contexts, the questions remain open: what do we consider a city, and what makes a settlement a city in the interwar period in Hungary? One of the cornerstones of my research is the issue of the outskirts. In administrative terms, we can speak about a unit, but due to the differing patterns of urban development in Hungary, the relationship between the core territory and its periphery is complex. Since the classic homestead theory has been challenged, hierarchical investigations have had to address the problems involved in dividing the data between urban cores and urban peripheries. Hierarchic rankings based on the incorporation of outskirts are quite different from rankings which omit the latter zones, which tend to be dominated by scattered farms not linked functionally to the urban core. The differences also show strong regional patterns. This study, based on statistical data, tries to highlight these differences in the urban hierarchy using this new approach. This way, it becomes possible to put the study of the Hungarian urban hierarchy in the interwar period on a new methodological footing which differs in several significant ways from the foundations of earlier research on the subject in Hungary.Penka Peykovska
Migration and Urbanization in Industrializing Bulgaria 1910–1946 179
Abstract
Urbanization is among the most important demographic phenomena of the modern age. Today, half of the world’s population lives in cities, and by 2050 this share is expected to reach 70 percent. Urbanization theorists see this as a consequence of three mutually impacting processes: natural growth (population growth as a result of birth rates exceeding mortality rates), migration (mainly from the villages to cities), and reclassification (the administrative mechanism for giving urban status to former villages or urban settlements) – whose relative contribution to the urbanization process varies depending on the environment.The processes of urbanization and internal migration in Bulgaria in 1910–1946 have not often been made the subject of rigorous study, perhaps because the scale of urbanization at the time was small and the pace slow compared to the period after World War II. At the same time, however, the first half of this period was characterized by intensive waves of refugees and immigrants (Bulgarians, Russians, and Armenians). Having in mind the lack of attention which this question has been given in the secondary literature, in this paper I examine the urbanization processes in Bulgaria at the time and the role of migration to and within the country in these processes. In particular, I monitor the significance of gender, nationality/“nationalité ethnique” in urbanization in Bulgaria and the roles of smaller and larger cities and the capital, Sofia. I rely heavily on the five censuses carried out between 1910 and 1946, which drew a distinction between local-born and non-indigenous populations, including people who had been born abroad. In other words, the data contain information on native-born people (i.e. born in the locality where they were enumerated or, as one might say “locals”), people who were enumerated in a locality different from their birthplace within the country (i.e. internal migrants, in-migrants), and people who were foreign-born (i.e. external migrants, immigrants).
Concerning the role of migration to and within the country in the urbanization process in Bulgaria, my quantitative analysis shows that urbanization in Bulgaria was influenced by migration (mainly internal migration), partly by the waves of refugees and immigrants during the war and in the interwar period, which accelerated the growth of cities. At the same time, the urbanization of small towns was due primarily to immigration. The trend towards urbanization (albeit at a slow pace) in Bulgaria was a result of the migration of the predominantly ethnic Bulgarian population from villages to cities, but the contribution of Armenian and Russian refugees was also notable.
Book reviews
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Conflict, Bargaining and Kinship Networks in Medieval Eastern Europe. By Christian Raffensperger. Reviewed by Márta Font 208
Die Textilien des Hanseraums: Produktion und Distribution einer spätmittelalterlichen Fernhandelsware. By Angela Huang. Reviewed by Maxim Mordovin 213
Utcák, szavak, emberek: A városi tér és használata Párizsban a középkor és a kora újkor határán [Streets, words, people: The urban space and its use in Paris at the boundary of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period]. By Veronika Novák. Reviewed by András Vadas 216
Batthyány Boldizsár titkos tudománya: Alkímia, botanika és könyvgyűjtés a tizenhatodik századi Magyarországon [Bolidzsár Batthyány’s secret science: Alchemy, botany, and book bollecting in sixteenth-century Hungary]. By Dóra Bobory. Reviewed by Áron Orbán 219
Practices of Diplomacy in the Early Modern World c. 1410–1800. Edited by Tracey A. Sowerby and Jan Hennings. Reviewed by Joel Butler 224
Papok, polgárok, konvertiták: Katolikus megújulás az egri egyházmegyében (1670–1699) [Priests, burghers, converts: Catholic renewal in the Diocese of Eger, 1670–1699]. By Béla Vilmos Mihalik. Reviewed by Zoltán Gőzsy 227
The Sinews of Habsburg Power: Lower Austria in a Fiscal-Military State, 1650–1820. By William D. Godsey. Reviewed by István M. Szijártó 230
Südosteuropa: Weltgeschichte einer Region. By Marie-Janine Calic. Reviewed by Ulf Brunnbauer 233
Climate in Motion: Science, Empire, and the Problem of Scale. By Deborah R. Coen. Reviewed by Samuel Randalls 236
Geteilte Berge: Eine Konfliktgeschichte der Naturnutzung in der Tatra. By Bianca Hoenig. Reviewed by Patrice Dabrowski 239
Germany’s Empire in the East: Germans and Romania in an Era of Globalization and Total War. By David Hamlin. Reviewed by Mirna Zakić 242
Erdély elvesztése 1918–1947 [The loss of Transylvania 1918–1947]. By Ignác Romsics. Reviewed by Csaba Zahorán 245
Beyond Balkanism: The Scholarly Politics of Region Making. By Diana Mishkova. Reviewed by Filip Lyapov 248
Coca-Cola Socialism: Americanization of Yugoslav Culture in the Sixties. By Radina Vučetić. Translated by John K. Cox. Reviewed by Michaela Žimbrek 251
Lajos Fehér: Egy népi kommunista politikus pályaképe [The career of a folk communist politician]. By István Papp. Reviewed by Gábor Tabajdi 254
Notes on Contributors