Országkép a 18–19. századi útikalauzokban
The Image of Hungary in 18–19th-Century Travelogues

Summary/Abstract: While the literature sees the 18-19th centuries as a golden age of travels and travelogues, the sources from the era are unevenly treated. This is particularly true in the case of Hungary: the travel guides of the period are still unexplored. The paper aims to grasp the methodology and sources of describing a nation, thus providing support for scholars studying this subject, through the analysis of the 1818 French edition of Heinrich August Ottokar Reichard’s travel guide, which was published several times in several languages after 1784. This edition already contained sections on Hungary. The analysis of the guidebook’s passages on Hungary reveals that Reichard – somewhat contrarily to the rules of the genre – provides a very reduced image of the country, mentioning only the most important postal routes and localities, while the description of the country’s geography and political, economical or social circumstances are missing completely, and information on language, religion and common law, all essential for a traveler, is also absent. But we would expect more seeing his bibliography which lists relatively lengthy and more or less up-to-date works. The short, fragmentary and often accidental description of Hungary is largely attributable to the country’s location: the itinerary of the Grand Tour did not embrace the country and the charm of Pozsony or Buda could not rival that of Constantinople or Saint Petersburg. But the main reason why he failed to provide a more complex or detailed description was that the author, admittedly, had never visited Hungary, and most probably did not even consult anyone who had. The absence of thematization, such as topographic descriptions, leads us to the believe that the editor did not use the information found in the sources theoretically available to him, such as the travelogue of Salaberry. In summary, the Reichard guidebook in itself was of little help for foreigners traveling to Hungary: they needed to do additional research (reading geographical dictionaries, travelogues and historical works). Of course, it is a question whether the traveler of the era actually required this. An answer might be provided in the texts created during the “travel fever” beginning in the 1810s; the authors of these, partly because they were aware of the lack of information, strove to publish works, sometimes in multiple volumes, that made it possible for the reader to really get to know Hungary and its history.

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