Multicultural Cities

The Hidden Faces of a Capital. Traditional Multiculturalism in Contemporary Budapest, the latest book published by the Terra Recognita Fundation is available.

Most people living in Budapest today seem to take it for granted that Hungary’s capital is a Hungarian city. Indeed, we tend to think of it as ‘completely’ Hungarian and never even consider that it might be otherwise. At first sight this might appear to be the case. However, it is enough to take a closer look at the buildings we walk past every day or quickly look through the names listed by the entry phone of the house where we live and we shall instantly become mindful that there is something more under the surface.

Something strange, something special is hiding behind the unusual forms or foreign-sounding names. The more one starts noticing these nuances, the deeper we delve in urban history, the more colourful the picture which emerges. The history of the Hungarian capital is in fact filled with aspects which are not Hungarian, and there are also a number of features which we believe to be Hungarian but which in fact had very little to do originally with what we call Hungarian today.

The area of contemporary Budapest is a scene where a number of peoples, denominations and cultures intersected and influenced each other throughout history. Although this versatility was marred considerably by 19th century modernisation, then covered over by layers of grey uniformity in the 20th century, relics and remnants are still to be found today. The colours, if somewhat faded, are still discernible. Indeed, since the end of the 20th century they seem to be gaining new life and vividness. This trend is fuelled further by multi-culturalism being fashionable – people are showing a renewed interest in their past, their roots and they take pride in their different identities, as there are ever more opportunities to do so.