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.