1920 Kogutowicz and Czako City Map or Plan of Budapest, Hungary

This is a 1920 Kogutowicz Manó and Czakó István city map or plan of Budapest, Hungary and illustrates a city in turmoil after Hungary was on the losing side of World War I. The map depicts the city from Budakeszi to Czinkota and from Újpest to Budafok and Erzsebetfalva. Entirely in Hungarian, streets are labeled throughout the city. Important buildings are identified numerically, although the index has been lost. Districts within the city are shaded a variety of colors, with city parks presented as green spaces filled with round trees. Rail lines are illustrated throughout the city. The city limits are highlighted by a thick burnt orange line. An inset map of the city center is situated in the upper right corner.

Hungary in Turmoil

Hungary, which was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, entered a few years of revolutions following the dissolution of Austria-Hungary after World War I. The Hungarian Democratic Republic was created on October 31, 1918 and was declared on November 16, 1918, marking Hungary's independence after being ruled by the Habsburg Empire for several centuries. However, the Democratic Republic did not last very long, as another revolution in March 1919 created a communist state known as the Hungarian Soviet Republic. The Soviet Republic lasted only a few months, because their leader, Béla Kun, tried to fulfill promises about restoring Hungary's border and invaded Slovakia and then Romania. The Romanians broke through the Hungarian lines and occupied Budapest on July 30, 1919 and ousted Kun's government the next day. A group of militantly anti-communist military officers entered Budapest soon after the Romanians and established an authoritarian government. These leaders instituted a 'white terror' that persecuted, imprisoned, and executed communists, socialists, leftist intellectuals, Jews, sympathizers with the former regimes, and others the newly empowered believed threatened their dominance. It is estimated that 5,000 people were killed, 75,000 imprisoned, and a further 100,000 to flee Hungary.

By March 1920, a Regent and Prime Minister had been declared the leaders of the restored Kingdom of Hungary. This new regime declared all edicts of the previous two governments null and void, essentially renouncing the 1918 armistice. This move, along with an unsuccessful bid by the King of Austria to retake the throne of Hungary in 1921, set the country on a path toward an alliance with the Axis Powers and involvement in World War II.

Publication History and Census

This map was originally created by Kogutowicz Manó in 1907 and then updated by Czakó István in 1920. It was published by Magyar Földrajzi Intézet in Budapest in 1920. The OCLC records examples in the institutional collections of the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, the University of California Berkeley, and the Zentralbibliothek in Zurich, Switzerland.