Hungarian Studies
Volume/Issue:
Volume 25: Issue 2
Polgári lakáskultúra (bourgeois furnishings) and a postsocialist middle class in Hungary
Author:
Krisztina Fehérváry University of Michigan Ann Arbor MI USA

Search for other papers by Krisztina Fehérváry in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed Close
Pages:
267–286
Online Publication Date:
09 Jan 2012
Publication Date:
01 Dec 2011
Article Category:
Journal Article
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1556/hstud.25.2011.2.8
Keywords:
bourgeois furnishings [polgári lakáskultúra]; postsocialist middle class; material culture; homes; Dunaújváros
Restricted access

This article looks at the fate of the kind of home furnishing in Hungary known as “bourgeois” (polgári lakáskultúra) as a way to investigate the middle classes that have emerged since the fall of state socialism. In the 1990s, political discourse was full of speculation about the revitalization of a historic bourgeoisie, and the media regularly featured the material culture of such a historic class. Such furnishings were indeed highly valued among an urban intelligentsia, and seemed to represent evidence of a long history of Hungarian bourgeois taste, civilized values and refinement starkly at odds with socialist material culture, tastes and manners. However, I argue that for many of the emerging middle classes in the 1990s and 2000s, this form of furnishing was no longer a suitable expression of the kind of class position to which they aspired, nor for how it was being newly legitimized. As I show through my anthropological fieldwork among the aspiring middle classes in the former “socialist” town of Dunaújváros, even families who owned such furnishings sold them or demoted them to less prominent places in their homes. Although the socialist state had attempted to devalue inherited, antique furnishings in its promotion of modern lifestyles in the 1960s and 70s, it was not until the end of socialism that such furnishings began to fail to represent middle class respectability. New ideals for such a class were based on entrepreneurial achievements in the present rather than on inherited status, and new home décor was an important way in which this new middle class subjectivity was being constituted.

  • Collapse
  • Expand
Cover Hungarian Studies
Hungarian Studies A Journal of the International Association for Hungarian Studies and Balassi Institute
Print ISSN:
0236-6568
Online ISSN:
1588-2772
Submit Your Manuscript

 

The author instructions are available in PDF.
Please, download the file from HERE

 

Senior editors

Editor-in-Chief: Andrea Seidler

Editorial Board

  • Bíró, Annamária
  • Khavanova, Olga
  • de Montety, Henri
  • Áron Orbán

Nemzetközi Magyarságtudományi Társaság
Address: H-1097 Budapest, Tóth Kálmán u. 4. B.8.41.
Tel.: (36 1) 321 44 07, (36 1) 224 6700/4556
Web: http://hungarologia.net/

Scopus

2023  
Scopus  
CiteScore 0.1
CiteScore rank Q4 (General Arts and Humanities)
SNIP 0.03
Scimago  
SJR index 0.101
SJR Q rank Q4

Hungarian Studies
Publication Model Hybrid
Submission Fee none
Article Processing Charge 900 EUR/article
Printed Color Illustrations 40 EUR (or 10 000 HUF) + VAT / piece
Regional discounts on country of the funding agency World Bank Lower-middle-income economies: 50%
World Bank Low-income economies: 100%
Further Discounts Editorial Board / Advisory Board members: 50%
Corresponding authors, affiliated to an EISZ member institution subscribing to the journal package of Akadémiai Kiadó: 100%
Subscription fee 2025 Online subsscription: 426 EUR / 468 USD
Print + online subscription: 474 EUR / 522 USD
Subscription Information Online subscribers are entitled access to all back issues published by Akadémiai Kiadó for each title for the duration of the subscription, as well as Online First content for the subscribed content.
Purchase per Title Individual articles are sold on the displayed price.

Hungarian Studies
Language English
French
German
Size B5
Year of
Foundation		 1985
Volumes
per Year		 1
Issues
per Year		 2
Founder Nemzetközi Magyarságtudományi Társaság -- International Association for Hungarian Studies
Founder's
Address		 H-1097 Budapest, Tóth Kálmán u. 4. B.8.41.
Publisher Akadémiai Kiadó
Publisher's
Address		 H-1117 Budapest, Hungary 1516 Budapest, PO Box 245.
Responsible
Publisher		 Chief Executive Officer, Akadémiai Kiadó
ISSN 0236-6568 (Print)
ISSN 1588-2772 (Online)

Monthly Content Usage

Abstract Views Full Text Views PDF Downloads
Apr 2024 26 0 0
May 2024 15 0 0
Jun 2024 14 0 0
Jul 2024 11 0 0
Aug 2024 7 0 0
Sep 2024 13 0 0
Oct 2024 0 0 0