East of Vienna is a phrase I frequently use (sometimes in a form of hashtags) to describe where I’m living. Although it is also geographically correct, it’s rather a symbolic term is my vocabulary.
I was born and grew up in the part of Hungary, which seems to be culturally much more closer to Austria (and Western-Europe in general) than to the rest of the country.
The great 20th-centurain Hungarian philosopher, Béla Hamvas wrote in his book about the five archetypes of Hungarian people, that those who come from the North-Western part of the country, can find common ground with, for exsmple, a Parisian citizen easier, than with anyone from the Eastern part of Hungary. He also names one typical historical person fittimg in this Western-Hungarian category: István Széchenyi, “the greatest Hungarian”. 1
But being a different place withing Hungary started way earlier than the first nomad Hungarian hordes have arrived in the Carpatian Basin. There are cities near to my hometown, like Szombathely (Savaria), Győr (Arrabona) or Sopron (Scarabantia) existing since the days of the Ancient Roman Empire. Actually, Savaria was a regional center. After the fall of the Roman Empire during the so-called Dark Ages (I know, medievalists don’t like this phrase) this region still had the strong cultural connection to the rest of Western-Europe.
Also, during the one and a half century of Hungary (or at least a huge part of it) being occupied by the Ottoman Empire, this North-Western region of the country was ruled by the Habsburg, thus it was still pretty much the part of Central- (but from a certain point of view it would ve correct to say Western-) Europe.
East of Vienna in my personal interpretation refers not only to the two North-Wester counties of Hungary, but a whole region, including some parts of, of course Austria, the Chech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia.
Because I’m deeply convinced that this is a unique part of the world.
- I might write about him a bit more in my history and fiction blog, because he was an anglophil person, who single-handedly tried to modernise the Hungarian society in the first half of the 19th century. From our 21st-centurian point of view, when it’s clearly visible, that the Hungarian society still stuck in a pre-Enlightenment mindset, I should say, no wonder, Széchenyi had a mental breakdown, went mad, and killed himself . [↩]