Heritage management serving identity politics in Hungary at the end of the nineteenth century

Text: Viktor Rozmann, Deodáth Zuh

The study aims to discuss the manifold relations of late 19th-century cultural heritage management and the quest for reinforcing national identities. This issue is exemplified by the case study of Imre Henszlmann’s works that expanded on the status and meaning assumed by Gothic Revival styles in the then-contemporary Hungarian context. The essay is equally concerned with a matter of theoretical course: how was it possible that in some cases national stylistic endeavors set foot on a strong consensual ground, while in others consensual resolutions proved themselves far more problematic? The Hungarian example unpacks a wide range of cases for the second.

In the closing section, the authors make a concise survey of five theoretical issues giving the appropriate background against which nineteenth-century national tendencies in architecture could be more precisely understood. These five are as follows: the foundation of building praxis in natural science; the universal comprehensibility of styles; the value of strong visual identity that makes products recognizable on the market; the bottom-up structure of many aspects of nationalism; the clash of contemporary national identity politics – the latter could equally deliver a finer-grained analysis of „nationalist” and „universalist” tendencies in the recent history of art forms. Henszlmann was from the onset strongly committed to shaping national styles on a scientific basis. He endorsed this as a viable strategy for communicating a universal message. Rational manner and high quality of Gothic structural engineering could deliver the desired universal warranty for the prima facie local and regional tendencies of national architecture.