Budapest 1867–1914: A Dual Capital for the Dual Monarchy

Abstract

Although much older in origin, Budapest is essentially a nineteenth-century city. Once Buda and Pest, on opposite sides of the Danube, were united, the combined city became the capital of a resurgent Hungary. After the creation of the Dual Monarchy in 1867, Budapest flourished as the second capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This was Hungary’s ‘Golden Age’, culminating in the Millennium celebrations of 1896. Enlarged with new boulevards and able to boast the first underground railway in continental Europe, Budapest was embellished with magnificent public buildings, not least the new parliament building, a major monument of the Gothic Revival which reflects the strong Anglophilia of contemporary Hungarian culture. Other buildings can be classified as examples of National Romanticism, creative expressions of Hungarian nationalism. Budapest’s ‘Golden Age’ was brought to an end by the Great War, but since the end of Communism the city is flourishing again.