Volume 37, Number 12 · July 19, 1990
Reunion in Budapest
By Hugh Trevor-Roper
Bibliotheca Corviniana: 1490–1990 April 6–October 6, 1990
An Exhibition at The National Széchényi Library, Budapest
Bibliotheca Corviniana: 1490–1990
catalog of the exhibition by Csaba Csapodi, by Klára Csapodi-Gárdonyi
National Széchényi Library, 162 pp., Ft 750 (paper)
The year 1989–1990 has been one of the most dramatic in remembered history: a general revolution in Europe, unparalleled in time of peace, at least since 'the year of revolutions,' 1848. Indeed, it has many similarities with that year: the crumbling of an imposed international order; the rediscovery, by the nations of Eastern Europe, of their national identity, their long-suppressed individualism, their continuous history. Of course such rediscovery is always selective, and it can be painful. The recent controversy among German historians, the famous Historikerstreit, has shown that. But one can generally find the right elements to select, and cultural history offers a safe field for commemoration. So it is very appropriate that the restoration of Hungarian freedom and the return of Hungary to its place in Europe and in European culture should coincide with an anniversary which could have been devised for the purpose. For 1990 is the fifth centenary of the death of Matthias Corvinus, the king who, it can be said, brought medieval Hungary into the Europe to which it has now returned.
Review, 4068 words
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