Nature in Late Nineteenth-Century Budapest (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select): Paper presentation

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Late nineteenth-century Budapest was one of the fastest growing cities in the world. Contemporaries marveled at its breweries, mills, public buildings, shops, coffeehouses, and crowded streets. The city’s rapid rise evoked powerful, opposing feelings – love and hate, pride and resentment – among much of the population. Yet few doubted that Budapest had become a metropolis, a different world from the countryside. In recent decades, however, historians have paid closer attention to the dynamic relationship between the city and its hinterlands, as well as between Budapest the local landscape and environment. Building on this work, my paper will look at the role of nature in the late nineteenth-century city. This in many ways is a story of dramatic transformations. Although the landscape and environment have powerfully shaped the history of Budapest, the reverse is also true. As the city boomed, its residents dug, dammed, desiccated, deforested, paved, and polluted – in the process drastically altering terrestrial and riverine ecosystems. Similarly, following the work of William Cronon, I will also explore how the city’s growing population and economic muscle affected landscapes and environments far removed from the city itself. The growth of Budapest went hand-in-hand with the emergence of large-scale cereal cultivation in neighboring districts and with deforestation in remote mountain regions. But the paper will end more hopefully, examining the ways in which some people rediscovered and worked to protect nature in the city.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Robert Nemes is Charles A. Dana Professor of History at Colgate University. He is the author, most recently, of Another Hungary: The Nineteenth-Century Provinces in Eight Lives (2016).