The Monumental Nation: Magyar Nationalism and Symbolic Politics in Fin-de-siecle Hungary

This title is printed to order. This book may have been self-published. If so, we cannot guarantee the quality of the content. In the main most books will have gone through the editing process however some may not. We therefore suggest that you be aware of this before ordering this book. If in doubt check either the author or publisher’s details as we are unable to accept any returns unless they are faulty. Please contact us if you have any questions.

From the 1860s onward, Habsburg Hungary attempted a massive project of cultural assimilation to impose a unified national identity on its diverse populations. In one of the more quixotic episodes in this Magyarization, large monuments were erected near small towns commemorating the medieval conquest of the Carpathian Basin-supposedly, the moment when the Hungarian nation was born. This exactingly researched study recounts the troubled history of this plan, which-far from cultivating national pride-provoked resistance and even hostility among provincial Hungarians. Author Balint Varga thus reframes the narrative of nineteenth-century nationalism, demonstrating the complex relationship between local and national memories.