A few years ago, an early post on this blog looked at ruined castles in what was once Upper Hungary (today’s Slovakia) – or rather, it looked at their representations in image and text. Such ruins are perfect symbols of History in all its formidable, mysterious glory: they are fragments of a past which we strive to piece together, never perfectly or completely, from tiny fragments usually much more flimsy than their monumental walls. They have survived through centuries, even though their battered bodies bear the marks of old battles, wars and neglect; the turbulences of history. They have seen it all. The post talked about a trend in early nineteenth century history writing which focused on such castles, led by a fascination with the aspects described above. It used the places marked by the castles as anchors in the wild and still unharnessed currents of history. Because it focused on spatial relations, rather than teleological, coherent, chronological narratives, and because it celebrated the fragment in its openness, this approach to history was well suited to telling the stories of a multi-ethnic region like Upper Hungary. Read that old post here: Ruined Castles and the Layers of History: An Emotional Approach
The spatial, fragmented approach to history was soon overshadowed by one that aimed to tell linear national narratives. The castles still marked out space, but soon that space itself changed: after the First World War, in the Trianon Peace Treaty, two thirds of the former territory of the Kingdom of Hungary were allocated to Hungary’s neighbours. What was once Upper Hungary was now in Czechoslovakia. What happened to the national narratives that incorporated, with a self-confident assertiveness, the territories that were no longer part of the country? How was historical memory reframed? Did the time come for a spatial history again? I wrote about this for a different blog, on the website of the research project I am currently involved in. You can read it here: Place, Memory, Propaganda: The 1930 album Justice for Hungary!
The Castle of Trencsén (now Trenčín, Slovakia), in Ottó Légrády, ed., Justice for Hungary! (Budapest: Légrády Brothers, 1930), p. 50
Hungarian Art History 