Scholarly record

CITIES AND TOURIST SIGHTS IN TRANSYLVANIA IN 19TH CENTURY ENGLISH TRAVELOGUES

Borbala Bokos, E. I. Molnar

Abstract

Transylvania became an important and well-liked destination for English travelers in the nineteenth century. Their travel accounts provide intriguing insights into the cultural, social, as well as political climate of the period. John Paget’s journey was meticulously recorded in his extensive book entitled Hungary and Transylvania (1839) that served as a travel guide for other British visitors after him. Archibald Andrew Paton, writer and diplomat, synthesized his travel memoirs in the volume entitled: The Goth and the Hun; or, Transylvania, Debreczin, Pesth and Vienna, in 1850. John Arthur Patterson’s The Magyars (1869) offers a compelling view on Hungarian society and culture in the years preceding as well as following the Austro-Hungarian Compromise. These men were courageous explorers of the “terra incognita”, that is, the countries of Hungary and Transylvania seen as exotic places by the western societies, and, by thoroughly reporting their experiences and observations, their accounts of Hungary and Transylvania contributed to the shaping up of the nineteenth-century British image of the cultural groups of Eastern European nations and cultures. The research attempts to offer and inventory and an analysis of the most important urban descriptions of Transylvanian cities in the nineteenth century as seen through the lens of British travelers. The paper will argue that the travel journals can be interpreted not merely as “objective” records with more or less accurate historical and social data, but also as very subjective and personal accounts of places, people, and events, also serving as informative texts on leisure and tourism possibilities in Transylvanian cities.

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