The Reception of Csárdás in Late 19th-Century Hungary: Press Discourse and Cultural Representation

Abstract

This study examines the late nineteenth-century Hungarian- and German-language reception of the ballet Csárdás, with particular attention to the ways in which the concept of “national ballet” was shaped within the different press registers of the periodical public sphere. Building on the findings of an earlier, detailed reconstruction of the press reception, the article repositions this material within an argumentative framework: it shows how the periodical press became an active medium of cultural interpretation, through which the work acquired an identity-forming function. The analysis argues that the reception history of Csárdás was not stabilised from a single critical position, but emerged through the interacting readings of newspapers and journals differing in language, genre and political-cultural orientation. Whereas Hungarian-language criticism primarily interpreted the ballet within the horizon of national absence and symbolic compensation, the German-language press in Budapest approached it through European generic norms, while the satirical papers exposed the overburdening of theatrical representation. Drawing on the concepts of cultural representation, authenticity and cultural mediation, the study demonstrates that Csárdás became intelligible not merely as a ballet premiere, but as one of the significant media events of the period: situated at the intersection of national self-image, generic adaptation and the cultural mediation performed by the press.