Budapest 1900: A Historical Portrait of a City and Its Culture

By John Lukacs

"Lukacs's book is a lyrical, sometimes dazzling, never merely nostalgic evocation of a glorious period in the city's history. . . . {His} true sympathy lies . . . not with the famous expatriates, but with the writers and intellectuals who lived and died at home: the poets Endre Ady and Mihaly Babits; the novelists Ferenc Herczeg, Sandor Hunyady, Frigyes Karinthy, Dezso Kosztolanyi, Gyula Krudy, Kalman Mikszath, and Zsigmond Moricz; the political essayist DezsoSzabo; the playwright Erno Szep; the literary historian Antal Szerb; and others. . . . {John Lukacs} sets out to explain Hungarian literature to English-speaking readers. Though I have no idea whether or not he will succeed, few interpreters of Hungarian literature have made a more touching and eloquent attempt." -- The New York Review of Books

Budapest: A History of Grandeur and Catastrophe

By Joe Jajdu

Budapest today is a palimpsest of its history and partially crystallized present. Its earlier history is best seen on the Castle Hill of Buda, the seat of Hungarian royal power since the beginning in the 13th Century. This peaked in the glory years of King Matthias' reign in the second half of the 15th Century, when Buda was one of the largest and wealthiest cities of Europe. The Ottoman conquest that followed a generation later was a catastrophe whose effect would last two centuries. However when the new Castle Hill of Buda arose, it became a version of Baroque central Europe, controlled by Imperial Vienna. Pest, on the opposite banks of the Danube, is a symbol of the grandeur of the late 19th Century metropolis. Elaborate, historicist buildings and monuments first inhabited by the members of the rising bourgeoisie that had achieved prosperity in the booming Budapest around the year 1900. This era still largely defines the visual appearance of the central city. Nearly half a century later Fascism, and then forty years of Communism, again produced economic dislocation and social tumult in the lives of the people. This is best shown through descriptions of the fate of individual families in Budapest. Since 1990 the metropolis and its people have gone through a frenzied transition for which there was no template: authoritarian socialist economy to volatile capitalism and democracy. The story of the key players and groups in this transition make this tumultuous process particularly vivid. Today Budapest is a city whose role in Europe is still being crystallized. However, inventive entrepreneurs and creative artists are making the city a more and more vibrant home for its citizens and a favoured destination for a rapidly increasing flow of visitors.

Danube: A Sentimental Journey from the Source to the Black Sea

In this acclaimed international bestseller, Claudio Magris tracks the Danube River, setting his finger on the pulse of Central Europe, the crucible of a culture that draws on influences of East and West, Christianity and Islam. In each town he raises the ghosts that inhabit the houses and monuments, from Ovid and Marcus Aurelius to Kafka and Canetti, in a fascinating blend of anecdote and history

The Danube: A Cultural History

The Danube is the longest river in western and central Europe. Rising amidst the beautiful wooded hills of Germany's Black Forest, it touches or winds its way through ten countries and four capital cities before emptying into the Black Sea through a vast delta whose silt-filled channels spread
across eastern Romania.

The Cathedral Builders of the Middle Ages

By Alain Erlande-Brandenburg

All over Europe, from Westminster to Rouen, the cathedrals of the Middle Ages still stand. This book explores the world of the medieval master mason. How were these structures built when only primitive machinery was available? Who initiated and designed them? Who built and paid for them?

Faust: A Tragedy

A classic of world literature, Goethe’s Faust is a philosophical and poetic drama full of satire, irony, humor, and tragedy. Martin Greenberg renders not only the text’s varied meters and rhymes but also its diverse tones and styles—dramatic and lyrical, reflective and farcical, pathetic and coarse, colloquial and soaring. His translation of Faust has been widely praised as the most faithful, readable, and elegantly written translation of Goethe’s masterpiece available in English.

"Greenberg has accomplished a magnificent literary feat. He has taken a great German work, until now all but inaccessible to English readers, and made it into a sparkling English poem, full of verve and wit. Greenberg's translation lives; it is done in a modern idiom but with respect for the original text; I found it a joy to read.”—Irving Howe

"Martin Greenberg's translation, here presented in newly revised form, has rightly been celebrated for its colloquial idiom....The translation brings Goethe's seminal text to life for twenty-first century readers." - from the Introduction by W. Daniel Wilson

Journey by Moonlight

By Antal Szerb

A major classic of 1930s literature, Antal Szerb's Journey by Moonlight (Utas és Holdvilág) is the fantastically moving and darkly funny story of a bourgeois businessman torn between duty and desire.

'On the train, everything seemed fine. The trouble began in Venice ...'

Mihály has dreamt of Italy all his life. When he finally travels there on his honeymoon with wife Erszi, he soon abandon her in order to find himself, haunted by old friends from his turbulent teenage days: beautiful, kind Tamas, brash and wicked Janos, and the sexless yet unforgettable Eva. Journeying from Venice to Ravenna, Florence and Rome, Mihály loses himself in Venetian back alleys and in the Tuscan and Umbrian countryside, driven by an irresistible desire to resurrect his lost youth among Hungary's Bright Young Things, and knowing that he must soon decide whether to return to the ambiguous promise of a placid adult life, or allow himself to be seduced into a life of scandalous adventure.

Journey by Moonlight (Utas és Holdvilág) is an undoubted masterpiece of Modernist literature, a darkly comic novel cut through by sex and death, which traces the effects of a socially and sexually claustrophobic world on the life of one man.

Translated from the Hungarian by the renowned and award-winning Len Rix, Antal Szerb's Journey by Moonlight (first published as Utas és Holdvilág in Hungary in 1937) is the consummate European novel of the inter-war period.

The Last Hundred Days

By Patrick McGuinness

The socialist state is in crisis, the shops are empty, and old Bucharest vanishes daily under the onslaught of Ceaucescu's demolition gangs. The author creates an absorbing sense of time and place as the city struggles to survive this intense moment of history.Longlisted for the 2011 Man Booker Prize.Shortlisted for the 2011 Costa First Novel Award.Longlisted for the 2012 Desmond Elliot Prize.

They Were Counted

By Miklós Bánffy, Patrick Thursfield, Kathy Bánffy-Jelen and Patrick Leigh Fermor

Painting an unrivalled portrait of the vanished world of pre-1914 Hungary, this story is told through the eyes of two young Transylvanian cousins, Count Balint Abady and Count Laszlo Gyeroffy. Shooting parties in great country houses, turbulent scenes in parliament, and the luxury of life in Budapest provide the backdrop for this gripping, prescient novel, forming a chilling indictment of upper-class frivolity and political folly, in which good manners cloak indifference and brutality. Abady becomes aware of the plight of a group of Romanian mountain peasants and champions their cause, while Gyeroffy dissipates his resources at the gaming tables, mirroring the decline of the Austro-Hungarian Empire itself. The first book in a trilogy published before World War II, it was rediscovered after the fall of Communism in Hungary and this edition contains a new foreword.

Home of the Gentry

By Ivan Turgenev

Home of the Gentry is a novel by Ivan Turgenev published in the January 1859 issue of "Sovremennik". I t was enthusiastically received by the Russian society and remained his least controversial and most widely-read novel until the end of the 19th century. It was turned into a movie by Andrey Konchalovsky in 1969.

The novel's protagonist is Fyodor Ivanych Lavretsky, a nobleman who shares many traits with Turgenev. The child of a distant, Anglophile father and a serf mother who dies when he is very young, Lavretsky is brought up at his family's country estate home by a severe maiden aunt, often thought to be based on Turgenev's own mother who was known for her cruelty.

Dracula

By Bram Stoker and Joseph Valente

A true masterwork of storytelling, Dracula has transcended generation, language, and culture to become one of the most popular novels ever written. It is a quintessential tale of suspense and horror, boasting one of the most terrifying characters ever born in literature: Count Dracula, a tragic, night-dwelling specter who feeds upon the blood of the living, and whose diabolical passions prey upon the innocent, the helpless, and the beautiful. But Dracula also stands as a bleak allegorical saga of an eternally cursed being whose nocturnal atrocities reflect the dark underside of the supremely moralistic age in which it was originally written -- and the corrupt desires that continue to plague the modern human condition. Pocket Books Enriched Classics present the great works of world literature enhanced for the contemporary reader. This edition of Dracula was prepared by Joseph Valente, Professor of English at the University of Illinois and the author of Dracula's Crypt: Bram Stoker, Irishness, and the Question of Blood, who provides insight into the racial connotations of this enduring masterpiece.

Discoveries: Cleopatra (Discoveries (Abrams)

By Edith Flamarion

Well-written, loaded with information, and with a rich assortment of illustrations, each Discoveries "RM" volume is a look at one facet of art, archaeology, music, history, philosophy, popular culture, science, or nature. These innovatively designed, affordably priced, compact paperbacks bring ideas to life and amplify our understanding of civilization in a new way.

The Black Sea: A History

By Charles King

The lands surrounding the Black Sea share a colorful past. Though in recent decades they have experienced ethnic conflict, economic collapse, and interstate rivalry, their common heritage and common interests run deep. Now, as a region at the meeting point of the Balkans, Central Asia, and the Middle East, the Black Sea is more important than ever. In this lively and entertaining book, which is based on extensive research in multiple languages, Charles King investigates the myriad connections that have made the Black Sea more of a bridge than a boundary, linking religious communities, linguistic groups, empires, and later, nations and states.

The Balkans: A Short History

By Mark Mazower

Throughout history, the Balkans have been a crossroads, a zone of endless military, cultural, and economic mixing and clashing between Europe and Asia, Christianity and Islam, Catholicism and Orthodoxy. In this highly acclaimed short history, Mark Mazower sheds light on what has been called the tinderbox of Europe, whose troubles have ignited wider wars for hundreds of years. Focusing on events from the emergence of the nation-state onward, The Balkans reveals with piercing clarity the historical roots of current conflicts and gives a landmark reassessment of the region’s history, from the world wars and the Cold War to the collapse of communism, the disintegration of Yugoslavia, and the continuing search for stability in southeastern Europe.

In Search of Dracula: The History of Dracula and Vampires

By Raymond T. McNally and Radu R. Florescu

The true story behind the legend of Dracula - a biography of Prince Vlad of Transylvania, better known as Vlad the Impaler. This revised edition now includes entries from Bram Stoker's recently discovered diaries, the amazing tale of Nicolae Ceausescu's attempt to make Vlad a national hero, and an examination of recent adaptations in fiction, stage and screen.

The Martian

Ridley Scott

After an intense storm during a manned mission to Mars, astronaut Mark Watney is thought to be dead and left behind by his crew. But when NASA learns that he is still alive, scientists do what they can to bring him home, while his crewmates plan a near-impossible rescue mission. Filmed in multiple locations throughout Budapest.

Bolse Vita

Ibolya Fekete

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, three young Russians arrive in Budapest seeking their fortunes in this revealing portrait of life after Communism.

Wallenberg: A Hero’s Story

Lamont Johnson

Based on a true story, this film tells the story of Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish banker and diplomat who saved more than 100,000 Hungarian Jews from the Holocaust while living in Budapest.

Heavenly Shift

Márk Bodzsár

Set in Budapest, this film offers insights into the everyday lives of a remarkable ambulance crew. Originally titled Isteni müszak.

Mephisto

István Szabó

A German stage actor finds unusual success in the popularity of his performance in a Faustian play as the Nazis take power in pre-WWII Germany, and finds that his best performance is keeping up appearances for his Nazi patrons. Filmed in multiple locations including Budapest.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Tomas Alfredson

During the cold war in the early 1970s when an operation in Budapest, Hungary goes terribly wrong, the head of British Intelligence, Control, resigns. It is believed that one of four senior figures in the service is a Russian agent, a mole. Espionage veteran George Smiley is forced from semi-retirement to uncover the Soviet agent within MI6. Filmed in multiple locations including Budapest.

Jakob the Liar

Peter Kassovitz

Set in a wartime Polish ghetto, this film stars Robin Williams as a shopkeeper who spreads hope among the imprisoned community by fabricating tales about approaching Allied advances, claiming he has heard such stories on his secret radio. Filmed in Hungary and Poland.

No One’s Child

Vuk Rsumovic

A boy is found in the mountains of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and nobody knows how he ended up there or who raised him. Originally titled Nicije dete.

The Oak

Lucian Pintilie

This story follows Nela, the daughter of a former Secret Police officer. After refusing to become an agent of the Securitate and after her father dies, Nela leaves Bucharest and ends up in a small town, where she meets a surgeon who has the same disposition as she does. Originally titled Balanta. Filmed in Romania.

When Day Breaks

Goran Paskaljevic

When a metal box containing documents is found on the site of a World War II Nazi concentration camp for Jews, Misha Brankov, a retired music professor, discovers that his real parents gave him away to their friends just before they were taken into the camp. Originally titled Kad svane dan. Filmed in Serbia.

I Am David

Paul Feig

Twelve-year-old David escapes from a Bulgarian communist concentration camp with little more than a compass, a sealed letter, a loaf of bread and instructions to carry the letter to Copenhagen, Denmark. Filmed in Bulgaria.

Next to Me

Steven Filipovic

Olja, a high school history teacher, is attacked by a group of masked hooligans after her husband’s latest paint exhibition provokes violent reactions from Serbian nationalists. Soon after, Olja learns that some of her students were responsible for the attack. Originally titled Pored mene.

See You in Montevideo

Dragan Bjelogrlic

When a football team from Belgrade gets the opportunity to go to the First World Football Championship, things get complicated along the way. Originally titled Montevideo, vidimo se! Filmed in the Canary Islands, Spain and Trieste, Italy.

Uncle Marin, the Billionaire

Sergiu Nicolaescu

When Romanian peasant Nea Marin visits a friend who works at a hotel on the Black Sea, he is mistaken for Mr. Juvett, a rich American businessman who is being followed by the American mob. Mr. Juvett, on the other hand, is mistaken for Nea Marin. Hilarity ensues. Originally titled Nea Marin miliardar. Filmed in multiple locations including Bucharest.

Toni Erdmann

Maren Ade

When practical joker Winfried visits his daughter, Ines, in Bucharest, his visit is cut short when he annoys Ines with his less-than-serious lifestyle. But instead of going home, Winfried takes on an alter ego dressed in disguise, Toni Erdmann. In order to get closer to Ines, Toni tells her that he is her CEO’s life coach. This film was a 2017 Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film. Filmed in Bucharest.

Just Between Us

Rajko Grlić

Set in Zagreb, this movie follows two middle-aged brothers leading parallel lives and navigating a web of relationships with their wives, children and mistresses. Filmed in Zagreb, Croatia.

My Beautiful Country

Michaela Kezele

This film shows how love can grow in a time of hatred. When a young Serbian widow with two sons finds a wounded Albanian soldier on the run and in her home, she takes him in and nurses him back to health. Originally titled Die Brücke am Ibar. Filmed in Croatia and Serbia.

Circles

Srdan Golubovic

Twelve years after five people were affected by a tragically heroic act, they must confront the past and overcome frustrations, guilt and vengeful urges. Originally titled Krugovi. Filmed in multiple locations including Belgrade.

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu

Cristi Puiu

When 63-year-old Mr. Lazarescu feels ill and calls an ambulance, the paramedic thinks he should take him to one hospital and then another, and another. Mr. Lazarescu’s health begins to deteriorate fast as the night unfolds. Originally titled Moartea domnului Lazarescu. Filmed in Bucharest.

The World Is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner

Stephan Komandarev

When a young Bulgarian man living in Germany is in a car accident and loses his memory, his grandfather organizes a spiritual journey to take him back to his past, to the country from which he came. Originally titled Svetat e golyam i spasenie debne otvsyakade. Filmed in multiple locations including Karlovo, Bulgaria.

Bucharest Non Stop

Bucharest Non Stop

This film, set in a neighborhood of Bucharest, conveys the stories of everyday people in extraordinary situations. Originally titled Bucuresti Non Stop. Filmed in Bucharest.

The Happiest Girl in the World

Radu Jude

When a young Romanian girl wins a beautiful new car in a contest organized by a soft drink company, she travels to Bucharest with her parents to collect her prize. But Delia and her parents have different ideas about what to do with the new car. Originally titled Cea mai fericita fata din lume. Filmed in Bucharest.