The Other Side of the Border – Lesser Hungary (The Lost Cities #1)

Would I like to do my travels across Eastern Europe all over again? I am not so sure that I would. I find the thought exhausting. While there are some places I would love to see one more time, the idea of enduring more flight delays, layovers, and missed connections makes me want to pull the covers over my head and go back to bed. My distaste for doing it all over again extends beyond airplanes and airports. Bus rides are one of the most exhausting things I have ever done. I still love to travel, but I do not miss the pre-planning or changes in plans, working out trip logistics, jet lag, sleepless nights, dodging real and perceived dangers, Not to mention a litany of minor irritations. I endured such less-than-ideal experiences to pursue my Eastern European travel dreams.

Staying power – Astoria Grand Hotel in Oradea (Nagyvarad)

Well Manored – Palace of Transport
There is only one thing that makes me want to do it all over again. If I could do certain parts of my travels just a little bit differently, then I would be advantageous to repeating them. Specifically, I would love to visit a handful of cities that were once part of the Kingdom of Hungary but ended up on the wrong side of the border due to the post-World War I Treaty of Trianon. These cities were easy for me to overlook when I first began to visit Hungary. Mainly because I knew nothing about them. Guidebooks dedicated to the country did not offer coverage of them because they are now in other countries.

I first became aware of the beautiful cities just beyond Hungary’s borders on a train journey to Transylvania. Not long after crossing over the border from Hungary into Romania the train pulled into Oradea. All I knew about the city was that its Hungarian name was Nagyvarad. This was a name I became familiar with due to a stop on Metro Line 3 on the Budapest metro. I knew nothing about this city that had gone by that name until 1920 and still does for the quarter of its population that are ethnic Hungarians. The train stopped in Oradea to pick up more passengers who would be traveling onward to Transylvania. What caught my eye was Oradea’s Railway Station. The tan colored, multi-story structure reminded me of a manor house. Rather than being surrounded by gardens and green space, this one had platforms with passengers waiting for trains. The station had a presence about it that impressed me. I thought there had to be much more in Oradea worth seeing. I pulled out my Rough Guide to Romania and discovered that Oradea had mansions and palaces from the Austro-Hungarian era among many other attractions. This appealed to me. I made a mental note to one day visit the city. I would return on a day trip two years later.

Ready for arrival – Platforms at Oradea (Nagyvarad) Railway Station
(Credit: Attila Nagy-Meuleman)

The Lost Lands – Historic Hungary
Oradea turned out to be just the beginning in discovering several beautiful cities just beyond the borders of Hungary which had historically been part of it. I was already acutely aware how much Hungarians were pained by losing two-thirds of the Kingdom of Hungary’s territory. The region whose loss caused the greatest consternation was Transylvania. This continues to be an open wound that is likely to fester well into the future. The losses of Upper Hungary (Slovakia), Vojvodina (northern Serbia), the Banat (western Romania) and Burgenland *West Hungary) were also a blow to Hungarians. These regions are collectively termed “the lost lands” which were part of “Historic Hungary.”

Prior to passing through Oradea, I had never heard Hungarians talk about what could be called the “lost cities.”  These include Oradea (Nagyvarad), Timisoara (Temesvar), Subotica (Szabadka), Pozsony (Bratislava), Kosice (Kaschau), Eisenstadt (Kismarton), and Ungvar (Uzhhorod). Each one of these cities had a long and historically resonant past in the Kingdom of Hungary. I made it a point to visit each one of them (except Uzhhorod) during an eight-year period. If I had to do it over again, I would visit each of these cities on the same trip rather than piecemeal. That is because of their connection to Hungary. They are links in a chain that was broken after World War I and can never be repaired. The demography of these cities has changed. They now have fewer Hungarians and more inhabitants from the dominant ethnic group of the nations in which they are located.  

Right on time – Facade of the Oradea (Nagyvarad) Railway Station

Change & Continuity – Going In Different Directions
Visiting these cities on a single journey would be fascinating. Using Budapest as a hub, the cities could be visited either clockwise or counterclockwise. I could still go back and do this journey but having visited all but one of the cities already, I am not keen to follow in my own footsteps. At least, not in the flesh. The next best thing to visiting “the lost cities” in person is visiting them vicariously. That is what I intend to do by writing about this hypothetical journey. I have written about most of these cities in the past. Now I want to connect all of them together. A single itinerary that takes me back in time and forward in travel. There is no better time than the past, present and future to undertake this journey. While the cities have a rich Hungarian heritage, they also have a history with the other ethnic groups who inhabited them then, as they do today.

These ethnic groups have been in the ascendant since the end of World War II. Their influence has been profound. Their attachment to these cities cannot be denied. The cities were never lost to them in the same context which Hungarians use that term. It was a new beginning for Austria, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia (in 1994) and Ukraine (in 1991) with the assimilation of these cities into their own countries. The ethnic complexity in each of the cities still exists, albeit to a much lesser degree than just before the outbreak of World War I. The war and Treaty of Trianon changed everything, irreparably severing these cities from centuries of history, and reorienting them in a different direction going forward. This journey to the lost cities is about change and continuity. Two contradictory impulses that explain the history of Eastern Europe from the early 20^th century to the present.

Click here for: Retro Rail Ride – From Budapest to Eisenstadt & Bratislava (The Lost Cities #2)