Divide, Provide and Rule: An Integrative History of Poverty Policy, Social Reform, and Social Policy in Hungary under the Habsburg Monarchy

Preface

Preface There are different types of acknowledgements and indebtedness I would like to list here. First of all, the Austrian Academy of Sciences must be mentioned for being so kind as to give permission to use as a basis for some sections of this book a study it commissioned back in―I believe ―2007. This study was published as Susan Zimmermann, “Armenund Sozialpolitik in Ungarn im Vergleich mit Österreich” [Poverty policy and social policy in Hungary compared to Austria], in: Helmut Rumpler, Peter Urbanitsch, eds. Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848–1918, vol. 9: Sozialstrukturen, partial vol. 1: Von der feudal-agrarischen zur bürgerlichindustriellen Gesellschaft, partial vol. 1/2: Von der Stände- zur Klassengesellschaft [The Habsburg Monarchy 1848–1918: Social structures: from the feudal-agrarian to the bourgeois-industrial society: from estatal to class society] (Vienna 2010), 1465–1535. I am most grateful to Tibor Sándor who generously offered his professional knowledge and help in order to identify and assemble the photographs contained in this volume (and many others) as well as the cover photograph; he also provided the information contained in the List of Illustrations at the beginning of this book. Many archivists and librarians in Budapest and elsewhere have been helpful in making my access to and use of the material this book draws on (and my earlier research on which parts of it builds) as smooth, easy and above all enjoyable as possible, and I would like to thank each of them here. Gabriela Dudeková and others drew my attention to important historical facts; Theodora Văcărescu and others helped with organizational matters. Without the imperturbability of my translator, John Harbord, I would surely have been lost amongst all the főispánok, külső cselédek, and other figures and institutions pertaining to Hungary under the Habsburg Monarchy―figures and institutions who in such a lively manner have populated my own imagination for many years but are so desperately unknown to the English-speaking world. I hope that this book can achieve more than simply making readers in various countries more familiar with an important dimension of the social xii Preface and political history of Hungary. I would also like to see this study contribute to an internationalization of historical writing in Europe and beyond that does not simply add―under the banner of “European enlargement ”―the history of the less advantageous regions of the continent to the canon. Rather I hope that my “country-study” on Hungary may serve as a point of reference for a new international and transnational history which draws a more realistic picture of the past and present of inequality and exploitation within and between the countries and regions of Europe. ...