Introducing historical landscape in the cultural heritage conservation through the example of the Tokaj wine region in Hungary

Krisztina Albert

doi:10.14712/23361980.2020.8

Abstract

The Tokaj wine region has been declared as a historical landscape by the decree of the National Ministry of Human Capacities in 2012. The historical landscape is defined in the Act LXIV of 2001 on the Protection of Cultural Heritage as an area under the preservation of Historical Monuments. The Tokaj Wine Region is the only legally recognized historical landscape in Hungary. This protection aims to preserve the historical built and natural environment as well as the traditional land use methods. The historical landscape, in the case of Tokaj, is a legal tool to increase the heritage protection level of the wine region. Nevertheless, no further details have yet been communicated on the preservation method. In this matter, protection remains on the level of discourse which puts emphasis on the expected perspectives in territorial planning and development. It may create a narrative that might potentially transform the territory. The region of our case study has been inscribed as a cultural landscape on the UNESCO World Heritage List and was added to the World Heritage List in 2002. Besides, the national government recognized the region as a territory of priority development in 2014 and a territory of priority touristic development in 2017. The area in question is marked by the stark contrast between social inequality and the image of the prestigious wine sector. In this paper, after providing a discussion of the institutional background of the adoption of the historical landscape in Hungary, I describe the different protection tools from the perspective of heritage conservation in order to reflect on the conception of the historical landscape: how was the region recognized as a historical landscape, and what was the purpose of this recognition? The main aim of the paper is to analyse the institutional process that led to the integration of a new object of protection in Hungary, called historical landscape.

Highlights

Instead of comparing the conceptions of heritage and landscape according to the Conventions, in particular the European Landscape Convention and the World Heritage Convention, we will study how both Conventions, notably the European one, influenced, the national institution to adapt the notion of the landscape in territorial planning and heritage conservation in the case of Tokaj wine region, recognized as a World Heritage site on the 26th session of the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO in Budapest in 2002
The event demonstrated a rapidly emerging civil society involving local winemakers and municipalities to safeguard cultural and natural heritage in order to claim for a national legal framework for the World Heritage site
The aim of the article was to present the institutional background of the introduction of the notion of the landscape into heritage conservation and to analyse the conceptions linked to it in the case of Hungary, and in particular of the Tokaj wine region

Summary

Introduction

It defines the challenges of the preservation of a spatial area from the perspective of heritage conservation through the notion of the historical landscape. Instead of comparing the conceptions of heritage and landscape according to the Conventions, in particular the European Landscape Convention and the World Heritage Convention, we will study how both Conventions, notably the European one, influenced, the national institution to adapt the notion of the landscape in territorial planning and heritage conservation in the case of Tokaj wine region, recognized as a World Heritage site on the 26th session of the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO in Budapest in 2002. Neither of these Conventions mention the notion of historical landscape, whereas the National Office of Cultural Heritage in Hungary adopted in 2005 the notion to manage challenges of the preservation of a spatial area

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Conclusion