ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book presents a diachronic analysis of Budapest narratives in prose and polemics over four decades, spanning the turn of the twentieth century and decline of liberalism, as well as the post-liberal 'Christian-national' era. In European thought, the city may be regarded as the source of light and progress, a refuge from what Marx termed the idiocy of rural life. The earliest remaining settlement is Aquincum, today in Obuda, founded by the Romans in the first century CE. The book focuses on representations of how, at the turn of the century, individuals became pesti, meaning from or of Pest. It considers two novels and one diary-style polemic of revolution and conquest of the capital. The book discusses various interwar depictions of the relationship between the self and the city.
