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Map usage in Hungary
Klara Patay, National Széchény Library, Budapest
© LIBER and author
Published from: The LIBER Quarterly 2(1992)1
The use of maps in Hungary started in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. We have knowledge of preserved maps, mainly portolans, in the library of the renaissance king Matthias Corvinus (1458-1490) in Buda. Numerous maps made by Western European publishers in the next century were also stored in aristocrats' libraries, from where most of them later entered public collections.
The first map showing the oro-, hydro- and topographic features of the land was compiled in this country at the beginning of the 16th century. We only know that its author's name is Lazarus and that he worked as a secretarius (secretary) of archbishop Tamás Bakócz of Esztergom. He travelled the country gathering data on the spot, but the map itself was published only in 1528 by Tanstetter of Vienna. Apianus, the noted German scholar, took part in its preparation as the map's printer.
During the next 150 years, until the end of the 17th century, one third of the country was ruled by the Turks. This fact, the repeatedly wars against the Turks, and the fight for liberty and religion, made it impossible for the country to be surveyed and for the production of new maps based on such surveys. At that time, though, there was no real demand for such a map.
The maps made in the 16th and 17th centuries were compiled in Western Europe in the years when further campaigns against the Turks were under way. They weren't compiled from primary survey data, but in general were compilations or revised versions of mid-16th century maps based on the earlier-mentioned Lazarus map. These revisions sometimes adversely affected the topographical accuracy of earlier work and so it could happen that maps dating from later times did not show the country as faithfully as the map of Lazarus compiled 50, 100 or 200 years earlier. In consequence, surveying, map-making and map use in everyday life contrasts with other parts of Europe and started only after the liberation of the country from the Turks at the beginning of the 18th century.
The first topographic surveys covering the whole territory of the country were executed at the beginning of the 18th century. This resulted in the map of Johann Christoph Müller, printed in 1709 with the assistance of the Royal Treasury. Some years later, as government became more organised, maps were made for the administration and the economy. These maps depicted parts of the country: counties, towns and the lands of villages. The pioneer of scientific geodesy and cartography was Samuel Mikoviny (1700-1750) who made topographical maps, as well as hydrographical and mining maps for practical purposes using astronomical observation as triangulation for his surveys.
In the second part of the 18th Century, the management of rivers began, as well as the drainage of swamps which until then had covered a considerable part of the country. The planning of these projects required the preparation of large-scale maps. Such works in the field of water management were still continued in the 19th century. Around that time landowners who were developing more sophisticated farm operations required estate surveys. The performance of these works required more and more engineers for whom in 1763 the first training school, the Collegium Oeconomicum, was established.
At the turn of the 18th to19th Century, map use began in the field of education, so school maps and atlases were then made for these purposes. Also around that time, to be more precise in 1802, Count Perenc Széchényi laid the foundation for the first public map collection. Our map department holds the biggest Hungarica collection at the present, containing his 1,500-piece map donation to the National Library, which also was established by him from his private book collection.
In 1848 the liberation of the serfs was effected, followed by the resettlement of properties. This also involved land surveying. The work of surveying lands belonging to villages before and after the settlement set huge tasks for the engineers. Soon after, in the 1860's, in order to introduce uniform taxation, the surveying of village lands started. As a result of these surveys cadastral maps to a uniform set of scales were made.
The turn of the 19th to 20th Century was a significant epoch in the history of Hungarian cartography. The first modern administrative and school maps were made at this time. For the production of these maps, Manó Kogutowicz established the Hungarian Geographical Institute, his cartographic firm, which played a leading role in the map-making of the country. By this time cartography had already penetrated into economic and scientific life, continually making maps on economics, transport, population and ethnography, as well as world and county atlases. Map usage had become a part of everyday life. Special thematic maps also appeared in this period. The maps made for the use of scouts, for example, played a major part in the development of the scout movement in the country, especially between the world wars.
Change in state boundaries after the First World War required new political, ethnographic and other maps from Hungarian cartographers. Numerous maps on these subjects, especially ethnographic maps, were produced in those years. At the same time map usage in economic as well as scientific life became general. Newspapers, periodicals and books were filled with maps not only illustrating the text, but sometimes even replacing it. Maps were decorative, accurate, and gained ground in the life of the people.
Currently, the three largest map collections in the country's capital, Budapest, are: the National Széchényi Library (Országos Szechényi Könyvtár); the Nationa! Archives (Országos Levéltár) and the Map Department and Archives of the War History Museum (Hadtörténeti Intézet és Muzeum). Also available for map researchers and for persons showing interest in maps are the archives of the counties.
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