The Hungarian Peculiarities of National Remembrance: Historical Figures with Symbolic Importance in Nineteenth-century Hungarian History Paintings

Authors

  • Zsuzsanna Tóth University of Szeged

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/ahea.2012.72

Keywords:

Hungarian history painting, cultural memory, nationhood, national symbolism, reception

Abstract

In order to place nineteenth-century Hungarian art into international context, this article calls for the theoretical discourse of cultural memory, when a suppressed community turns to their past and insists on their antecedents’ traditions for the survival of their culture. When, in the 1850s and 1860s, the leaders of the Habsburg Austrian Empire retaliated against Hungary for its 1848-49 “Fight for Freedom”, Hungarian visual art of the era rediscovered long-honoured figures of the historical past as the essential components of Hungarian national identity. This article argues that the successful visualization and memorialization of outstanding historical characters with symbolic values for the Hungarian nation was due to history painting itself as medium. The Hungarian painters’ choice of characters vigorously reacted to the changing political relationship between the Austrians and the Hungarians from the failure of the 1849 Hungarian Fight for Freedom until the 1850s and the 1870s involving the 1867 Austro-Hungarian Compromise. Keeping it in mind, the display and the reception of four great paintings, Bertalan Székely’s The Discovery of the Body of King Louis II (1860), Viktor Madarász’s Péter Zrínyi and Ferenc Frangepán in Prison at Wiener-Neustadt (1864), Székely’s The Women of Eger (1867) and Gyula Benczúr’s The Baptism of Vajk (1875) are analysed.

Author Biography

Zsuzsanna Tóth, University of Szeged

Zsuzsanna Tóth is a Ph. D. Candidate in the British and American Literature and Culture Programme at the Doctoral School of Literary Studies, University of Szeged (SZTE), in Hungary. Her research interests are religious symbolism, cultural memories in Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian traditions, and theories of verbal and visual representations. She is currently conducting research on Philip Pullman’s book trilogy, His Dark Materials (1995-2000). She holds an M.A. degree in English Language and Literature and English Language Education from the University of Szeged, where she also completed a specialization as a Hungarian Studies Instructor for Foreigners.

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Published

2012-01-01

Issue

Vol. 5 (2012)

Section

General Articles

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