Földvári Books

Becoming Hungarian: Jewish Assimilation Through Surname Magyarization

[Official Register of Surname Changes Approved in 1912.] Kimutatás az 1912. évi I. [II.] felében engedélyezett névváltoztatásokról.

Budapest: [S.n. (Várnay és Fia], 1913?]. First edition. Two original stitched fascicles with paper-covered spines. 62 [2 (blank)]; 47 [1 (blank)] p. Spines somewhat worn. Both fascicles folded once vertically. Contemporary blue-pencil highlighting of selected individuals, predominantly those born or living in Nagykőrös. Overall in very good condition.

Official register of approved surname changes during the great wave of surname Magyarization and Jewish assimilation in Hungary.

Issued annually by the Hungarian Ministry of the Interior, the present register records every surname change officially approved in Hungary during 1912. Arranged alphabetically by each applicant’s original surname, it gives the original and newly adopted surname together with occupation, place of residence, birthplace, year of birth, religion, the corresponding ministerial decree authorizing the change, and the reference to its publication in the Official Gazette. Individual applicants appear separately, while family applications are entered under the head of the family together with the children. The result is an unusually detailed record of one of the defining processes of social and national assimilation in the Kingdom of Hungary.

The volume includes members of all the legally received denominations of the Kingdom of Hungary—Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Lutheran, Reformed, Unitarian, and Israelite—but is overwhelmingly dominated by persons recorded as of the Israelite faith. Although spouses are not listed separately, the register nevertheless contains approximately 4,500 named individuals.

Those recorded as of the Israelite faith predominantly represent the urban and emerging middle classes of the Kingdom of Hungary, including merchants, physicians, lawyers, teachers, civil servants, railway employees, craftsmen, students, and numerous other occupations. Although applications came from across the Kingdom of Hungary, they were concentrated in Budapest and other urban and regional centres, reflecting the close connection between surname Magyarization and the rapidly modernising sectors of Hungarian society.

Combining genealogical, demographic, and administrative information in a single official source, the register stands among the most important contemporary documentary records of Jewish assimilation in the Kingdom of Hungary.

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Price: €1,500.00