Research for this article was supported in part by grants from the Fulbright Program and the American Council of Learned Societies. I am grateful to die many people who commented on earlier versions of diis article, especially Istvan Deak, Alice Freifeld, Elizabeth Marlowe, Daniel Unowsky, Gabor Vermes, and the editor and anonymous referees for Slavic Review.

1 Although “Budapest” was often used in the 1840s, the towns of Buda, Pest, and Obuda united only in 1872–73. Most of the associations and newspapers described in this article were located in Pest, Hungary’s largest city, and most of die balls took place there as well.

2 Paget, John, Hungary and Transylvania: With Remarks on Their Condition, Social Political and Economical, 2 vols. (Philadelphia, 1850), 2:264.Google Scholar

3 Vahot, Imre, “Budapesti Szemle,” PestiDivatlap, 12 February 1846, 138–39.Google Scholar

4 Gerevich, László, ed., Budapest Törtenéte, 5 vols. (Budapest,1973–80), 3:480–516.Google Scholar

5 Hungarian-speakers comprised less than half the population of the Hungarian Kingdom. It is worth recalling that for most people, especially in die countryside, dynasty, confession, corporate status, and region, rather than language or nationality, were the building blocks of community and of political loyalty.

6 Magyar Országos Levéltár (Hungarian National Archives, hereafter MOL) A 105 Informations-Protokolle, 17 February 1846. These police reports are a rich, largely untapped source for studying Hungarian cultural history of the 1840s.

7 Following Hunt, Lynn, political culture is defined here as the “values, expectations, and implicit rules that expressed and shaped collective intentions and actions.” Hunt, , Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution (Berkeley, 1984), 10.Google Scholar

8 For discussions of cultural history and its significance for theories of the public sphere and civil society, see Brooke, John L., “Reason and Passion in die Public Sphere: Habermas and die Cultural Historians)“ Journalof Interdisciplinary History 29, no. 1 (1998): 43–67;Google Scholar Eley, Geoff, “Nations, Publics, and Political Cultures: Placing Habermas in the Nineteenth Century,” in Calhoun, Craig, ed., Habermas and the Public Sphere (Cambridge, Mass., 1993), 289–339;Google Scholar and Hull, Isabel V, Sexuality, State, and Civil Society in Germany, 1700–1815 (Ithaca, 1996).Google Scholar

9 Early nineteenth-century Hungarian women have received little scholarly treatment; a notable exception is Lampland, Martha, “Family Portraits: Gendered Images of the Nation in Nineteenth-Century Hungary,” East European Politics and Society 8, no. 2 (1994): 287–316.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Lajos Kossuth, a leader of the liberal opposition in the 1840s, was at the same time a journalist, an officer in numerous patriotic associations, and a consistent advocate of Hungarian language and culture. See Deak, Istvan, The Lawful Revolution: Louis Kossuth and the Hungarians, 1848–1849 (New York, 1979), 35–62.Google Scholar

11 Hunt, Politics, Culture, and Class; Jonathan Sperber, “Festivals of National Unity in the German Revolution of 1848–1849,” Past&Present 136 (1992): 114–38; and Waldstreicher, David, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes: The Making of American Nationalism, 1776–1820 (Chapel Hill, 1997).Google Scholar

12 On the Czech balls, see Alena Šimůnková, “Sociability and Performing Identity in Middle-Class Czech Society” (paper, American Association for die Advancement of Slavic Studies, St. Louis, November 1999), as well as Mirjam Moravcova, “Die Tschechischen Frauen im Revolutionaren Prag 1848/49,” in Rudolf Jaworski and Robert Luft, eds., 1848/49 Revolutionen in Ostmitteleuropa (Munich, 1996), 75–96. I am grateful to Alena Simunkova for sharing her paper with me.

13 ‘Julia,” Nemzeti Ujság, 13 December 1844, 391–93.

14 Eley, Geoff and Grigor Suny, Ronald, “Introduction: From the Moment of Social History to the Work of Cultural Representation,” in Eley, and Suny, , eds., Becoming National: A Reader (New York, 1996), 7.Google Scholar

15 In Hungary, where 1 in 20 persons was a noble (compared with 1 in 353 in Austria and 1 in 828 in Bohemia), most liberal leaders came from the ranks of the nobility. For an introduction to Hungarian liberalism, see George Barany, Stephen Széchenyi and the Awakening of Hungarian Nationalism, 1791–1841 (Princeton, 1968); Kecskemeti, Karoly, La Hongrie et le réformisme liberal: Problemes politiques et sociaux (1790–1848) (Rome, 1989);Google Scholar and Varga, Janos, A Hungarian Quo Vadis: Political Trends and Theories of the Early 1840s (Budapest, 1993).Google Scholar

16 On the Hungarian associational movement, see Pajkossy, Gábor, Polgári álalakulás és nyilvánosság a magyar reformkorban (Budapest, 1991)Google Scholar and Pajkossy, , “Egyesületek Magyarországon es Erdélyben 1848 elõtt,” Korunk 4 (1993): 103–9.Google Scholar For a comparative perspective, see Joseph Bradley, “Voluntary Associations, Civic Culture, and Obshchestuennost’ in Moscow,“ in Edith W. Clowes, Samuel D. Kassow, and James L. West, eds., Between Tsar and People: Educated Society and the Quest for Identity in Late Imperial Russia (Princeton, 1991), 131–48.

17 Illustrating the patterns of cultural diffusion characteristic for this region, the model for these societies was often Vienna: the Pest-Buda Music Society was modeled on Vienna’s Musik-Verein, and the Pest Arts Society (Pesti Muegylet, founded 1839) closely resembled the Viennese Kunstverein.

18 The Music Society held its first concert in November 1836 and within a year had 66 active (mũködõ) and 531 subscribing (ftzetõ) members. Over the next decade it held regular concerts in the Pest German Theater, presenting works by Ludwig van Beethoven, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Franz Joseph Haydn, and Gioacchino Antonio Rossini, as well as pieces by such local composers as Ferenc Erkel and Robert Volkmann. Kálmán Isoz, “A Pest-budai Hangászegyesület és nyilványos hangversenyei (1836–1851),” Tanulmányok Budapest Múltjából 3 (1934): 165–79.

19 The banquet is described in Fábri, Anna, Az irodalom magáneléte: Irodalmi szalonok és társaskörök Pesten 1779–1848 (Budapest, 1987), 685–86.Google Scholar According to the Pesti Divatlap, 22 October 1844, 44, the banquet was so well attended that people were turned away at the door. Leaving no stone unturned, the paper also urged local restaurants to follow the National Circle’s example of using Hungarian-language menus in its dining room.

20 Vörösmarty, Hungary’s most celebrated poet and a vice-president of the National Circle, wrote “Fair Ilonka” in 1833. The poem is translated in Jones, D. Mervyn, Five Hungarian Writers (Oxford, 1966), 140.Google Scholar

21 Erkel’s first performance in Pest, it might be added, was at a concert organized in the National Casino, which played an important role in sponsoring concerts in the 1830s and 1840s. Erkel was also active in both die National Theater and the Pest-Buda Music Society.

22 These goals are spelled out in the society’s bylaws, Az Országos Védegylet alapszabályai (Pest, n.d.). The best study of the Protection Association remains Kosáry, Domokos, “Kossuth és a Védegylet,” Magyar Történettudományi Intezét Évkönyve (1942): 421–536.Google Scholar

23 Komlos, Cf. John, The Habsburg Monarchy as a Customs Union: Economic Development in Austria-Hungary in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which soundly rejects the “colonial diesis”

24 Deák’s, speech, “A Védegyletrõl,” can be found in Kónyi, Manó, ed., Deák Ferencz be.sze.dei, 6 vols. (Budapest, 1882–98), 1:535–40.Google Scholar

25 Though Kossuth, in one of his darker moods, blamed the Protection Association’s failure on “Hungarian indolence” and “spent enthusiasm” (elhamvadó szalmaláng), the boycott failed largely because Hungarian manufacturers were unable to produce enough quality goods to satisfy Hungarian consumers. See Kosáry, “Kossuth és a Védegylet,” 514.

26 There were clear limits to this, especially since Vienna still used its censors and police to monitor and control the content of domestic papers and the circulation of foreign ones.

27 Vahot, , “Budapesti Szemle,” 137–38.Google Scholar

28 It is ironic that Hungarian patriotic reformers spurned the waltz, which had replaced the stilted, courtly minuet and was regarded suspiciously by die Viennese authorities for the wild enthusiasm it inspired.

29 Tolstoy, Leo, Anna Karenina (Oxford, 1995), 765.Google Scholar

30 Women were not entirely shut out of associational life: a number of Hungarian women’s associations (nóegyletek, Frauenvereine) dedicated diemselves to charitable and educational causes. Although excluded from most casinos and reading clubs, many women supported the more open economic and cultural associations.

31 Cf. Jürgen Habermas, for whom serious involvement with cultural products was predicated upon rational-critical discourse, which typically took place in salons, reading clubs, and journals. Yet as Habermas himself acknowledged, this culture-debating public was immersed in a far more inclusive public of private persons, who “as readers, listeners and spectators could avail themselves via the market of the objects that were subject to discussion.“ Habermas, Jürgen, The Structural. Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society (Cambridge, Mass., 1989), 37.Google Scholar For a good discussion of this work, see Calhoun, Habermas and the Public Sphere, especially the articles by Calhoun, Eley, and Mary Ryan.

32 Breen, T. H., ‘“Baubles of Britain’: The American and Consumer Revolutions of the Eighteenth Century,” Past&Present 119 (1988): 73–104.Google Scholar On consumption more generally, see Victoria de Grazia, ed., with Ellen Furlough, The Sex of Things: Gender and Consumption in Historical Perspective (Berkeley, 1996), and Mary Louise Roberts, “Gender, Consumption, and Commodity Culture,” American Historical Review 103, no. 3 (June 1998): 817–44.

33 Breen, , “’Baubles of Britain,’” 93.Google Scholar

34 ves, Margaret C., Enlightenment and National Revival: Patterns of Interplay and Paradox in Late 18th Century Hungary (London, 1979), 140, 151–53, 185–87.Google Scholar

35 MOL A 105 Informations-Protokolle, 10 February 1843, which states: “[Es] geschah zum ersten Mai, daβ der ung. Tanz allgemeiner Balltanz war, während der früher nur produktionsweise aufgeführt war.“

36 MOL A 105 Informations-Protokolle, 3 February 1843.

37 Lázár Petrichevich Horváth, “Iparmũkiállitás 1843,” Honderũ, 9 September 1843, 312.

38 The Hungarian-language papers were unanimous in their praise of die ball: “A télhó 15–iki tánczvigalom a fõvárosban,” Pesti Divatlap, 19 January 1845, 89–90; Jelenkor, 23 January 1845, 40; “Budapest! Ujdonságok,” Nemzeti Ujság, 19 January 1845, 43.

39 MOL A 105 Informations-Protokolle, 27 January 1845.

40 “Tánczvigalom Pesten,” Éhtképek, 18 January 1845, 97–98.

41 This charming short story, “A Védegylet mint pártarabló,” appeared in Honderũ in five installments in June 1846. It tells the story of a patriotic, modernizing landowner who attends the Protection Association Ball and falls in love there. Balls provided an important arena for the debut of young women in society and for the arrangement of their marriages. This aspect of the dance floor, litde investigated for Hungary, falls outside the present study.

42 Early nineteenth-century statistics are conflicting and unreliable but concur that the largest part of the populadon of Buda and Pest spoke primarily German. This was the language of business and commerce, and there were German-language theaters and newspapers. Yet there is also evidence that many local elites spoke—or at least understood— both German and Hungarian.

43 Pesti Divallap, 26January 1845, 138.

44 Kosáry, “Kossuth és a Védegylet,” 477.

45 Of Ottoman origin, the men’s costume featured a dolman, a caftan of simple cut that widened at the waist and had gussets (flaps) covering the hands, and a mente, an outer caftan with a decorative collar and intricate braiding, loops, and buttons down the front. On the Hungarian national dress, see Dózsa, Katalin, “How the Hungarian National Costume Evolved,” in Cone, Polly, ed., The Imperial Style: Fashions of the Habsburg Era (New York, 1980), 74–87 Google Scholar, and Turnau, Irena, History of Dress in Central and Eastern Europe from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century (Warsaw, 1991).Google Scholar

46 Paget, Hungary and Transylvania, 2:265, describes this costume: “The full dress of the Magyar nemes asszony, —noble Hungarian lady,—is composed of a tight bodice, laced across the breast with rows of pearls, a full-flowing skirt, with an ample train, a lace apron in front, and a long veil of the same material hanging from the head to the ground behind. The dress is composed of some rich brocade, or heavy velvet stuff. The head, neck, arms, and waist, are commonly loaded widi jewels, and the veil and apron are often richly embroidered, after the Turkish fashion, in gold.“

47 Imre Vahot, “Üdv és hála hölgyeinknek a nemzetiság szent neveben!” Pesti Divatlap, 6 March 1845, 297–98.

48 A dance card from the Pest Circle’s ball lists two Polish, three French, and thirteen Hungarian dances. MOL R 150 “Tánczrend a Pesti Kör tánczvigalmában. Télútóhó 18-án 1846.“

49 “Néhány szó a nemzeti tánczról,” Pesti Divatlap, 25 February 1845, 249–51.

50 Many Hungarian composers, such as Márk Rózsavölgyi (born Marcus Rosenthal) and Gábor Mátray (born Gabriel Rothkrepf), were of German or Jewish origin; others (Franz/Ferenc Liszt) discovered their “Hungarianness” only later in life. Rózsavölgyi’s song appeared in Pesti Divatlap, 1 December 1844, 145.

51 Hobsbawm, Eric, Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality (Cambridge, Eng., 1990);Google Scholar Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. ed. (London, 1991), 102.Google Scholar In writing about Hungary, Anderson draws heavily on Ignotus, Paul, Hungary (New York, 1972)Google Scholar, which offers a rather bleak reading of Hungarian history.

52 That one of the National Circle’s balls featured tropical flowers and a Moorish kiosk bedecked wiui flowers is unsurprising, since die Hungarians’ “eastern” origins were much discussed at this time. See Honderũ, 17 February 1846, 136.

53 Ironically, the Wiener Modezeitung, the leading fashion paper in Vienna, had itself been established in 1816 to publish original Viennese fashions by Viennese tailors and dressmakers, and thus break the stranglehold of Paris.

54 Hungarian folk songs were being collected and published at this time. According to János Erdélyi, a pioneer in this field, these songs could free Hungarian poetry from Italian and German influences and tlius make it “more national” (nemzetiebb). See Lajos Kéky, A Százéves Kisfaludy-Társaság (1836–1936) (Budapest, 1936), 75.

55 Isoz, “A Pest-budai Hangászegyesület,” 170–72.

56 On Sparta, see Lajos Pongrácz, “Fényũzés es egyszerũség: Adalékül a védegyleti eszmekhéz,” Eletképek, 18 January 1845, 69–71. Zeyk cited in MOL A 105 Informations- Protokolle, 5 April 1845.

57 On several occasions, Ferenc Deak suggested that the Protection Association admit women as members to the National Executive Committee, an idea he put into practice in his home county of Zala. The chapter in Alap, a small village in Fejér County, also included women on its executive committee. The chapter’s secretary wrote in January 1845 that the 67 members included many “enthusiastic women.” (An attached list of 27 members names 16 women.) Significantly, 3 of the 9 members of the branch’s executive committee were women. Although men and women had worked together before in charitable organizations, the inclusion of women among the leadership of the Protection Association’s chapters is striking. See MOL N 22 47 cs. Ep. Off. 1845/14; MOL A 105 Informations- Protokolle, 23 April 1845; and for the Alap chapter, MOL R 104.II.K.35–36, 29 January 1845.

58 Patriotic consumption, of course, was only one of several discourses on women in the 1840s. As Martha Lampland has pointed out, images of “motherhood, blushing bride, and desirable sexual partner” also figured prominently in this period. Lampland, “Family Portraits,” 296.

59 Harold Mah, “Phantasies of the Public Sphere: Rethinking the Habermas of Historians, “Journal of Modern History 72, no. 1 (March 2000): 167.

60 On the 23 January 1845 dance: EletkÉpek, 1 February 1845, 162–63; Pesti Divatlap, 26 January 1845, 138, and 6 February 1845, 176; Pesti Hirlap, 30 January 1845, 66; Der Spiegel, 25 January 1845, 128.

61 Though there were more than 250,000 Jews in Hungary, Jewish emancipation would come only during the Revolution of 1848–49 and then again in 1867. See Horel, Catherine,Juifs deHongrie 1825–1849: Problémes d’assimilation et d’émancipation (Strasbourg, 1995).Google Scholar

62 The dance committee consisted of three lawyers (János Kossalkó, Endre Bajkay, and József Szekrényessy) and Elek Fényes, a respected statistician. Their letter was printed in three installments in “Nyilt levél a Pesti Divatlap szerkesztójéhez,” Pesti Divatlap, 6 February 1845, 180–82, 9 February 1845, 194–98, and 13 February 1845, 211–14.

63 On this assembly, see Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Polizeihofstelle 1845/2521, which contains a lengthy report by a police informant (“Stephen S.“). Also see Egyetemi Könyvtar kézirattár E 164, Minutes of 2 March 1845 meeting.

64 The two liberal–spirited groups would reunite in 1847 to form the Opposition Circle (Ellenzéki Kör), while the Assembly for the Common Good (Közhasznú Gyũlde), would become a gathering place for conservative aristocrats, merchants, officials, and clergymen. Dezsényi, Béla, “A Nemzeti Kör a negyvenes évek irodalmi és hirlapi mozgalmaiban,“ Irodahmtörténeti közlémenyek 57 (1953): 163–204.Google Scholar

65 Eley, “Nations, Publics, and Political Cultures,” 307.

66 Michael K Silber, “The Entrance of Jews into Hungarian Society in Vormärz: The Case of ‘Casinos,’” in Frankel, Jonathan and Zipperstein, Steven J., eds., Assimilation and Community: The Jews in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Cambridge, Eng., 1992), 297–99.Google Scholar

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68 “Carneval naplója,” Honderũ, 10 February 1846, 114.

69 Pesti Divatlap, 2 March 1845, 290; Ektkipek, 8 March 1845, 324; and Der Ungar, 1 March 1845, 196.

70 Hunt, , Politics, Culture, and Class, 81.Google Scholar

71 As Giesen, Bernhard has written, “belonging to a nation is neither a natural fact nor a side effect of modernization. Instead, it is substantiated through participation in a common symbolic culture that is both unique and malleable, in the view of its adherents.“ Giesen, Intellectuals and the German Nation: Collective Identity in an Axial Age (Cambridge, Eng.,1998),9.Google Scholar

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73 Freifeld, Alice, Nationalism and the Crowd in Liberal Hungary, 1848–1914 (Washington, D.C., 2000), 125–27, 170.Google Scholar