Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
GET-READY READING
Tony Láng, doyen of Budapest booksellers and owner of
Bestsellers
,
recommends the
following five books as reading in preparation for your visit to Budapest.
Buda
ultuure(John Lukacs; 1994) Still
a classic, this illustrated social history is indispensable for understanding Budapest
today.
TThe In
udapest 1
t 1900: A His
900: A Histtorriical P
al Porrttrrait o
it of a C
f a Ciity a
y and It
d Its C
s Cult
e Inviisible B
ible Brridg
idge(Julie Orringer; 2010) Epic saga of a Hungarian Jewish family dur-
ing WWII.
TThe W
f Hungarry(Bryan Cartledge; 2011) The best all-round
general history of Hungary by a former British diplomat.
Balla
e Will t
ill to Sur
o Surviive: A His
: A Histtorry o
y of Hun
obberr(Julian Rubinstein; 2005) Unbelievable but true story of
one Attila Ambrus, who took up bank robbing when not playing professional ice
hockey - a portrait of what was the 'Wild East' of Budapest in the early 1990s.
Twelv
allad o
d of th
f the Wh
e Whisk
iskey R
y Robb
olutiion(Victor Sebestyen; 2007)
Meticulously researched and comprehensive day-by-day account of the 12 days
between the outbreak of the popular revolt and its brutal suppression by the Soviets.
elve D
e Days: Th
: The St
e Storry o
y of th
f the 1
e 1956 Hun
956 Hungarriian R
n Revolut
The Magyars were so skilled at riding and shooting that a common Christian prayer in the
Middle Ages was 'Save us, o Lord, from the arrows of the Hungarians'.
The Magyars & the Conquest of the Carpathian Basin
The origin of the Magyars is a complicated subject, not helped by the similarity (in English)
of the words 'Hun' and 'Hungary', which are
not
related. The Magyars belong to the Finno-
Ugric group of peoples, who inhabited the forests somewhere between the middle Volga
River and the Ural Mountains in western Siberia as early as 4000 BC.
By about 2000 BC, population growth forced the Finnish-Estonian branch to move west,
ultimately reaching the Baltic Sea. The Ugrians moved from the southeastern slopes of the
Urals into the region's valleys, and switched from hunting and fishing to farming and raising
livestock, especially horses. Their equestrian skills proved useful half a millennium later
when drought forced them north onto the steppes.
On the plains, the Ugrians turned to nomadic herding. After about 500 BC, a group
moved west to the Bashkiria area in Central Asia. Here, living among Persians and Bulgars,
