Hospitality networks, British travel writers, and the dissemination of competing Transylvanian claims to civilization, 1830s–1930s

Abstract

Hungarian, Saxon, and Romanian nationalist activists in Transylvania disseminated competing claims to “Westernness” by swaying visiting British travel writers’ descriptions through hospitality networks that guided what writers saw and heard, assuring that travelers favored the nationalists’ classifications of the region’s ethnicities. Although the qualities British travelers valued varied depending on individual differences and intellectual currents such as enlightened reform, scientific racism, and the romantic revival, travelers consistently ascribed the qualities they best favored to the nationality on whose hospitality they relied. Wealth and time of travel determined which hospitality networks travelers favored. The Hungarian noble elites hosted most travelers until 1918, when the newly dominant Romanian nobility replaced them. Throughout, peasant voices especially remained marginalized.

Keywords:

• Balkanism
• nationalism
• travelogues
• Hungarian
• Saxon
• Romanian

Acknowledgements

My gratitude to Johanna Perheentupa, Alexander Maxwell, and the anonymous reviewer for their generous feedback. All errors remain solely my own.