Socio-Historical Preliminaries

Abstract

In this chapter the emergence of modern Hungary, a uniquely multi-ethnic and multi-denominational society, the consequences of the Austro-Hungarian compromise (1867) and the rapid economic and cultural development under the dual monarchy are discussed. The modernization of intellectual institutions (universities, the Academy of Science, statistical services) played a growing role, together with the consolidation of the political and administrative apparatus and ongoing urbanization. Most of the creative intelligentsia were concentrated in the Budapest metropolis, and by 1900 a critical mass of intellectuals, sharing an interest in various cultural innovations, were demanding scholarly studies of their semi-modernized country, which still bore the remnants of feudalism, while major economic and cultural functions were developed by mobile minorities-mostly assimilated Jews and Germans-thanks to their entrepreneurial agency and educational excellence.