A Piece of Late Modern Age History of Hungary through the Rombauer Family Tree

A Piece of Late Modern Age History of Hungary through the Rombauer Family Tree Pál Koudela INTRODUCTION In this study is focused on the integration of a German minority family to the Hungarian society during the centuries especially the first half of the 19th century. But through their story I also want to tell about society from a rarely exposed viewpoint. This family lived for ages in Lőcse (today Levoča in Slovakia), Szepes County, keeping their German language and identity, while in the 19th century they moved to the very different parts of the country or even — as a consequence of their participation in the Revolution and War of Independence — to different parts of the world. The migration patterns of the family is exemplary: moving from northern, peripheral areas to the center was a general direction in inner migration in Hungary in the 19th century and the first great international migration outflow burst out just after the fall of the Revolution.1 Our aim is to get closer to the traditional bourgeoisie world of Szepes, the fate of Fabricius, Mauks, Quendel and Blom families. We want to peer into the life went on behind the city walls and to form a picture how this very closed and special community cope in the big World. So my story is about those who left the immediate environment’s protective arms. Each members’ stories create independent narratives needed to be examined embedded into different contexts but just because of the many contexts a more holistic, intergenerational approach is also needed. Thus we came closer to interpret the whole as long-term mobility and continuity or discontinuity let us to connect to wider interpretational frames of society of the adequate period. Those family members moved to different environment from their primary socialization were under secondary influences and had a “chance” to keep some of the values and to leave some others. At the same time the connection of a personality and the community he or she becomes a part of is a process of interactions altering the recipient too. This might be especially true in societies with great migration gain like big cities in the 19th century America. We donʼt need to give up rationality as the main organizing principle during a biography research or generally during creating a historical narrative. Rationality might be a construction itself and not reality but was relatively continuous in history at least in the last centuries thus we can report it as the most active principle. Not 1 P. KOUDELA, Turning Points of Emigration from Hungary: Understanding the Present Changes in Migration Structure, in: B. BILTSIK et al. (Eds.), International Relations, History and Social Sciences: New Approaches in a Complex World, Budapest 2014, pp. 163–178. OPEN ACCESS PáL KOUdELA 29 only the researcher of the past “wants” to arrange events into series but the “intent” of the creators of the past was also this. The difference is that while the researcher wants to make a chain of events for a relatively long period actors in the past could do this only for the moment. Single intentions could come true at a given moment thus rationality could prevail only horizontally but not longitudinally. So we have to coordinate three points in case of a biography: the actual changes happened at the time of the incidence; the circumstances of the genesis of our sources, namely how the given event appears in historical sources; the researcher’s narrative and its mechanism. The rationality of the explored reality is hidden in the first point: the given event matches probably rationally into its context and its antecedents both on human and social level. Rationality in this case is not individuals’ rational choices or a resultant of them but a structure which is the correlation of the events in a given moment. Thus irrational (emotional, traditional) acts can be interpret in a logical framework because actors’ minds work like this. The given event is known only through our sources which can be fragmented: most sources are written in different times and places carrying different intentions so their interpretations’ is limited. Considering all of these we can use rationality as a code language to solve a message as long as we presume that coding systems are similar. This way decoded single events can be put next to each other in a timeline creating a biography which is not a narrative, not a story in a traditional way and even not rationally constructed. The biography built like this can be interpret rationally afterwards by searching patterns in careers or in the process of social environment and in their interaction. This rationality is nevertheless independent from personal interactions and is merely a possible interpretation. Method of filtering rationality thus is not researching individuals’ careers but the series of incidents happened to individuals this way. THE DESCENDANTS FROM LŐCSE Lőcse — considering its population — never was a big city, but even not a medium-sized. table no. 1: Houses and Population in Lőcse in Different Years2 Year Number of Houses Population 1555 536 3162 1667 866 4869 1728 494 2915 1786 834 4971 1810 829 4891 1849 1092 5412 1869 855 8016 1890 806 7582 1900 854 7866 1910 856 7528 2 K. DEMKÓ, Lőcse története, Vol. 1, Lőcse 1897, p. 269 [Népszámlálás (Census): 1869, 1890, 1900, 1910]. 30 PRAGUE PAPERS ON THE HISTORY OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 1/2015 The townʼs public position was very special since Géza II when its first residents, the Saxon colony founded it. Due to its special legal position even in the 18th century only German citizens lived there; immigrants came only from and the youth of the city studied in German territories, priests and teachers were asked from Saxony and guilds recruited only German members in the city. While citizenship was limited to those with German origins and language skills Slovaks from neighboring villages started to flow in since the 16th century. These worker and servant families had their own preacher that time and in 1570 they built a separate church. After the plague in 1717 migration inflow increased and ethnic composition started to change basically but until 1865 only German school worked in town. In the 19th century other changes occurred in the composition of the cityʼs population. The traditionally artisan-merchant population — although not as highly as in other cities in the area — loaded up with officials. table no. 2: Merchants, Artisans and Officials in Lőcse in Different Years3 Year 1667 1697 1720 1810 1896 Merchant 292 278 169 337 367 Artisan 265 253 145 287 167 Official, intellectual 27 25 24 50 200 Our protagonist family’s first known member in Lőcse was Mátyás Rombauer, city councilor at the beginning of the 17th century.4 One of the beautiful epitariums in the north nave of the St Jacob Church remains the name of his son, Mátyás Rombauer, merchant from 1640. The family was probably already wealthy that time: the clothes of the mentioned councilor’s second son is known from 1689. The green dolman made of Dutch baize with eighteen-eighteen silver buttons and same amount of silver acorns on its sleeves and breast confirms this. His son, Samuel worked also as a senator in 1720: his great-grandchildren were János and David whose descendants we deal with below. AT THE TURN OF THE 18TH AND 19TH CENTURIES David Rombauer, joiner and Anna Mária Prossin’s son János Rombauer was born on May 28, 1782, in Lőcse. The document of his baptism suggests that his father was a wealthy artisan. The high number of godparents corroborate this because of its luxurious nature that time. From his family circumstances and from data for his later life it is presumable that he was probably intended for priesthood and as a theologian arrived to Dutch where he became a painter. During his studies he might have been to France also and learned French perfectly. János Rombauer later studied partly in Pest and partly in Lőcse as a student of Johann Jacob Stunder from Copenhagen but in 1806 a Russian count took him to Saint3 Ibidem, p. 306. 4 Lived 1592–1640. The family name was written like Rompauer that time: e.g. in the 1667 and 1728 register. PáL KOUdELA 31 Petersburg where he became the royal painter of Czar Alexander I. According to his death certificate he was a member of the Russian Royal Academy of Arts. He married in Saint-Petersburg and after his return from Russia received a pension from the Czar. He painted the portrait of Ignác Aurél Fessler, famous Hungarian historian also in Russia. The painting is in the portrait room in the Hungarian Academy of Sciences today. Rombauer painted him in his superintendent vestment in Saint-Petersburg. That time he also deepened his knowledge by copying old masters’ works in the Hermitage in 1810.5 Rombauerʼs father worked as a joiner and his many godparents were also all artisans. As the lives of painters in the 18th — 19th centuries show nobody became a painter merely following his bent. Just like Miklós Barabás only their innate aptitude, extraordinary charting skills and related financial success drafted most of the painters to the artistic career. General perception handled artistic talent as part of artisan craft or even everyday life but rarely as an independent way of subsistence. It’s more than likely that Rombauer didn’t prepare to be an artist. His parents expected him a normal position, only as an autodidact has been painting in Eperjes (today Prešov in Slovakia), the town which exceeded the average with its intellectual life. Probably the financial success he reached with his portraits inclined him to be a painter. The tight relationship to the Steinhübel family since the beginning of his career until his death might had also contributed to his artistic progress and direction of life. Samuel Seinhübel — whom he recorded with its wife with oil on two separate canvases at the early age of 22 — was one of the wealthiest merchant and richest citizen of the town at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the next century. Vivid educational and artistic life characterized Eperjes in that period: Gábor Fejérváry, the famous collector lived there under whose influence two excellent historians of arts evolved Ferenc Pulszky and Imre Henszlmann. This is very likely that János Rombauer went to Samuel Steinhübel in Eperjes as a merchant assistant; exactly as a liberated assistant but never became an independent tradesman. In the preserved documents and registers of the guild we can find only those clerks and apprentices who were liberated in Eperjes and paid the adequate charge to the guild chest. Apprentices might have had their own chest but nothing remained of this.6 Despite of this career his leaning to artistry appeared in different ways in his youth: he was even an amateur actor in 1804–1805.7 The tight connection between Rombauer and the Steinhübel family is clearly shown in the letter below which is remained in the archives of the Academy. The letter was written in German by Károly Steinhübelʼs son, Samuel to count Emil Dessewffy, the President of the Academy.8 5 A. PETROVÁ-PLESKOTOVÁ, Die Entwiklungsaspekte des Schaffens Johann Rombauers, in: Časopis ARS, Vol. 2, No. 1, 1968, pp. 31–66. 6 K. DIVALD, Adatok Rombauer festő életéről, in: Művészet, Vol. 3, No. 2, 1904, pp. 123–144. 7 L. ZEMAN, Gymnasiologia, Az eperjesi Kollégium és áthagyományozódásai, Dunaszerdahely 2003, p. 29. 8 Eperjes, 1863, I. 18. Your Excellency! I would prefer to write you in Hungarian, but I’m more familiar with German, so I venture to write in German. I sent Your Excellency a paperboard depicting the Resurrection with closely life-size figures in black style with the 32 PRAGUE PAPERS ON THE HISTORY OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 1/2015 Another portrait, Rombauer painted in Russia, depicts Czar Alexander I. in a blue General Uniform with red cuffs and golden fringes, in a size of app. 30–40 centimeter. One of Rombauer’s best portrait is almost life-sized of his younger brother, Samuel, who was a solicitor in Eperjes and died in 1830 at the age of 37 according to his gravestone. This portrait might have been painted in the 1820s already in Eperjes. Another painting depicts the resurrection of Christ was painted in Russia. It was ordered by Prince Czartoryski who paid a considerable amount: 400 Rubles for it. We could reckon Rombauer a late eclectic on the score of this work of art, who was inspired by Rembrandt and Rubens unlike his contemporaries. Though considering all of his works he seems to be rather a representative of the Biedermeier. Although Dutch masters influenced him undeniably, Rombauer didn’t deny his own era and the Vienna School. His perception was realistic, but brushwork was fine and meticulous, the development of his pictures, which paid homage to taste of contemporary audience, was just as academic taste as his contemporaries’. Only the bright and sometimes garish coloring distinguishes his artwork. About fifty paintings remained after his oeuvre.9 He returned from Russia in 1824 to Eperjes. He painted mostly portraits of the city’s bourgeoisie there but was interested in other themes too. Those portraits exhibited in the ceremonial hall of the City Hall the portraits of King Franz I and King Ferdinand V were obviously based on etchings. His most famous painting is the portrait of Ferenc Kazinczy from 1825. János Rombauer was a shot and man with red and shaved face according to the reminiscences of his paint rubbing prentice. He was very polite with everybody and morning mail coach, and I consider it my duty to offer this to the honorable Academy. This not only schematic but almost finished paperboard, of which the main figure is the Savior, who resurrects from his graveyard with the victory flag in his hands was painted by Mr. János Rombauer deceased years ago in Eperjes. He oil painted the original for the count Bobrinsky family with the family’s greatest satisfaction. I entrust the aesthetic evaluation to the competent and only note that Mr. Rombauer’s picture affects from a medium distance from where its plastic impression prevails. I even confine myself only for some data for this excellent painter. If Mr. Rombauer is less well-known than Markó, the famous landscape painter, who was born in Lőcse too, this is because Mr. Rombauer was mainly a portrait painter and hardly painted any historic picture or landscape. His extraordinary talent turned up even in his youth which persuaded Count Illinski of Wolhyna, whom he met in Bath Bártfa, to carry him to Saint Petersburg as a companion. He got a very pleasant job there, in which he had a chance to improve his artistry with adequate tools and also could compete with the best artists for eighteen years. He painted the deceased Czar Michael I. over many of his family members. Czar Alexander I wanted to send him to Rome at his own expense to make him stay at the Academy of Saint Petersburg later but he didn’t want to engage himself and returned home in 1824, especially because the climate of Saint Petersburg was harmful for his wife, and died in Eperjes. With the hope to be able to give artistic joy for Your Excellency and the audience of Eperjes I assure my highest consideration for your Excellency. Your obedient servant. Károly Steinhübel MTA kézirattár (HAS archive) 126. sz. Vettem mart. 28-án 1863; K. DIVALD, Újabb adatok Rombauer János festőről, in: Művészet, Vol. 14, No. 8, 1915, pp. 414–418. 9 J. BAYER, Újabb adatok Rombauerről, in: Művészet, Vol. 7, No. 2, 1908, pp. 124–144. PáL KOUdELA 33 could create a wealthy lifestyle in which he could live for his pastimes. He and his wife from Saint Petersburg always talked to each other French, and her epitaph in the Lutheran Cemetery suggests that they had a very gentle and benevolent relationship. “Liebe verwandelte Dir die Fremde zur Heimat. Du schiedest. Ach! und zur Fremde für uns hat sieh die Heimat geschaltet. — Amalie Rombauer geborne Baumann zu St. Petersburg geb. l 794. d. 25 oct., zu Eperjes gestor. 1842. cl. 30. dec.” János Rombauer shortly survived his only son who died in tuberculosis at the age of nineteen. Rombauer died in stroke in the triumphant Eperjes shortly after the victory of Branyiszkó, but fully forlornly because his younger brother, Gusztáv moved to Pest in 1848 and took the Hungarian name of Romlaky. 10 The first generation leaving Lőcse had chosen the typical migration direction to the center of the country. In case of the Hungarian Highlands this meant a flow from the north the south. At this time it was a general phenomenon to move from the Szepesség to Eperjes than to Kassa and at the end migrating to Pest-Buda. The other great-grandchild of Mátyás Rombauer (1592–1640), mentioned above was also called János Rombauer (1717–1794). He and his wife, Dorottya Krausz had two children. The older, Mátyás was born on February 22, 1759, the younger was called Gottfrid. We know very little about the latter and this is that he worked as a mine councilor and steward and that his daughter, Bertha, who was born in 1809 married to her own cousin, Tivadar on September 11, 1827. Because Tivadar was the son of Mátyás, we are going to deal with them all as the descendants of Mátyás. Mátyás Rombauer (1759–1822) was born in Lőcse but later moved to Körmöcbánya (today Kremnica in Sovakia), where he became clergyman then livestock manager. He continued this job at the Révay family’s manor of Túróc County in Prékopa (today Priekopa in Slovakia). He was a man of means.11 He didn’t have children with his first wife (his own cousin, Júlia Krausz), why he divorced. His second wife was the daughter of János Elhard, famous physicist and surgeon in Lőcse and Anna Lassgallner (1777–1853). He was 38 in September 5, 1797, when they married, and they had seven children of which three died young. IN THE AGE OF REFORMS AND REVOLUTION The oldest of the sons was János Tivadar Rombauer.12 He was born in Lőcse on January 23, 1803,13 in the Elhard family’s still existing flat at 22 Főtér. Shortly afterwards they moved to Prekopa where there was no schools and he had been learning privately until he could enroll to the Lutheran Lyceum of Lőcse in 1811. The frequent moving was so typical so we even don’t be surprised that he finished his elementary school in 10 K. DIVALD, Adatok Rombauer festő életéről, in: Művészet, Vol 3, No. 2, 1904, pp. 123–144. 11 S. TÓTH, Sáros vármegye monográfiája, Vol. 3, Budapest 1912, p. 670, http://mek.oszk.hu/ 12800/12885/pdf/12885_3_4.pdf, [cit. 2015–07–25]. 12 T. VASS, Rombauer Tivadar a gyáralapító (1803–1855), in: Ózdi Honismereti Közlemények, Vol. 12, 1996, pp. 3–130. 13 A Lőcsei Evangélikus Egyház lajstroma 1803 (Levoča Lutheran Church Register 1803), 9/11. no. document. P. RIECKE, Nachkommen von Dr. Johann Christoph Elhard, Brassó 1900. 34 PRAGUE PAPERS ON THE HISTORY OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 1/2015 Selmecbánya (today Banská Štiavnica in Slovakia) where he was usually the best student. He enrolled to the Academy of Mining and Forestry in Selmecbánya in 1822, and started to study forestry too in the following year. He finished the Academy in 182514 and married to her cousin, Bertha Rombauer September 11, 1827. After finishing schools, in 1825 he started to work at the iron foundry in Rohnic as an apprentice. The following year found him at the Schönborn manor next to Munkács (today Мукачеве in Ukraine) working in the industrial plants. Bereg County, on its 2,351 km2 174 settlement belonged to it and the number of inhabitants exceed the sixty thousand. On the mostly wooded area agriculture had not play a major role but regarding to the close sources of raw materials different industries like weaving, iron and chemicals were tried to domesticate. The large distance of the consumer markets nevertheless impended the development.15 Rombauer became the overseer of the alum works in Pusztakerepes, next to Munkács but also participated in the development of the metallurgical plants. He managed the building of the ten meter high forge in Selesztó between 1829 and 1832. The foundry with its diverse casts became known nationwide.16 The management was satisfied with Rombauer’s work because he could achieve forty percent savings at the fuels and ten percent at the ores. Along with these he realized 1750 quintals production growth until 1831. Foundries were built, depositories were installed in Sátoraljaújhely, Kassa (today Košice in Slovakia) and Pest. Rombauer initiated the production of machine parts17 that time but in 1832 he even wrote about artistic moldings in a submitting. And really: one-fourth of the sales catalogue next year contains artistic casts. The result is that the factory received a gold medal18 in 1842 on the first industry exhibition organized by Kossuth. Even in 1834 the management sent him to Glewice to gain experiences, but in 1838 he was such a celebrity that Chancellor Metternich invited him for performing manorial services. Count Ferenc Schöborn retained him in Munkács by offering higher position and salary. That was quite reasonable because he boosted the factory’s distribution such a large extent: in 1840 they had to answer for orders from Pest that only bigger casts are able to deliver because of the huge demand. After the successful participation on the exhibition in 1843, on which Kossuth special praised the factory, Tivadar Rombauer nonetheless switched job and became chief officer at the headquarters of the Coalition of Rima (Rimai Coalitio) in Rimabrézó (today Rimavské Brezovo in Slovakia). He provided new iron ore licenses, made a new road build for ten thousand forints which investment paid off soon by helping to reduce transport costs with fifteen percent. He also increased capacity by technical and organizational measures indicating a huge profit growth for the company.19 14 A Selmeczi M. K. Bányászés Erdész-Akadémia évszázados fennállásának évkönyve 1770–1870, Selmecz 1871, pp. 229–230. 15 A. SAS, Egy kárpáti latifundium a hűbéri világ alkonyán: A munkácsi Schönborn-uradalom társadalmi és gazdasági viszonyai a XIX. század első felében, Bratislava 1955, pp. 39–40. 16 Z. REMPORT, Magyarország vaskohászata az ipari forradalom előestéjén (1800–1850), Budapest 1995, p. 123. 17 SAS, pp. 56–57. 18 G. NYÁRÁDY, Az első magyar iparműkiállítás, Budapest 1962, p. 133. 19 J. MARTON — L. TETMAJER, A Rimamurány-Salgótarjáni Vasmű Rt. fejlődésének története a XXV. közgyűlés alkalmából, Budapest 1906, p. 22. PáL KOUdELA 35 Representatives of iron industry held a meeting in the Andrássy mansion in Husszúrét in 6 September, 1843. This was the second time to hasten progress in legislation: proposal for a mining act, founding Technical University and schools, developing infrastructure. By the proposal of Rombauer a new plan was born to build an iron refinery and roller factory. According to Széchenyi’s and Kossuth’s vision large amount of rail were needed in Hungary which was unable to be produced by the small metallurgical companies. The government and the railway companies wanted to provide it from abroad, mainly from Wien, but as a consequence of this meeting and Rombauer’s proposal the two largest company, the Coalition of Rima (Rimai Coalitio) and the Union of Murány (Murányi Unio) was planned to be united.20 Two crucial question arose: if the two companies together have enough financial resources to apply the latest technology and for this technology they need foreign experiences that they couldn’t acquire even in Austria. For this reason they asked the President and the Chief Officer of the Rimai Coalitio, Pál Szathmáry-Király and Tivadar Rombauer to go to West-Europe. After their field trip in England, Czech and Belgium only one task had left: to find adequate coal sources and to install the new factory nearby. Ózd proved to be the most appropriate place. Experiments of lignite were carried out by Rombauer in Germany and test furnaces were built in Hungary to convince the skeptical land owners.21 Ózd was a rather small settlement that time, only 334 inhabitants are mentioned in 1837 by Elek Fényes, the statistician.22 The Rimai Committee led by Rombauer was delegated to organize the new company and developed the iron factory plans by the May 1845. The foundation of the Ironworks Association of Gömör was decided and Rombauer was entrusted with the task of the technical management. The funds were 250 thousand forints and both capital and entrepreneurs were all Hungarian, and even foreign subscription of shares were prohibited by its statutes. This put some trouble on selling shares, partly because of land owners who were not rich enough to buy whole shares, but partly because political reasons. One of them was the non-attendance of Count György Andrássy, a close friend of Széchenyi with whom he had used to go to England before the building of the Chain Bridge. Rombauer belonged to the company of Kossuth at the same time, who had a decisive influence in factory building in Hungary. Andrássy so feared that he would be ignored in the management. Rombauer himself became a shareholder with a half share. Negotiations had taken place with the Central Hungarian Railways (Magyar Középpontú Vasúttársaság)23 in 1845, but they had failed to conclude a contract thus they had no other choice but concentrating on acquiring coal-beds. Rombauer had a leading role in site selection and later in the organization of the factory and mines. It was a Herculean task to contract with the landowners one by one for the coal 20 K. JENEI, Az alapítás előzményei, in: I. BEREND T. (Ed.), Az Ózdi Kohászati Üzemek története, Ózd 1980, pp. 43–51. 21 A. ÓVÁRI, Az ózdi vasmű alapításának és első üzeméveinek vázlatos története, in: Kohászati Lapok, No. 10, 1967, p. 439. 22 E. FÉNYES, Magyarország mostani állapotja statisztikai és geográphiai tekintetben, Pest 1837. 23 MOL RMST-Okmánytár (Hungarian National Archive Rimamurány-Salgótarján Document Bank hereinafter referred only as HNA), Z 366–155. 36 PRAGUE PAPERS ON THE HISTORY OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 1/2015 rights transfer.24 Large mine excavations begun in September, 1846 with sixty miners. Steam machines, ordered from abroad, came on board to Vác and by storage cart to Ózd. Technical experts from Brno and England assembled them, which wasn’t rare in that period: a significant number of skilled workers came from abroad to Hungary in the 19th century. While the number of industrialist population in 1805 was 88,000 this number increased to 125,000 in 1840, and still only one inhabitant became craftsman out of eighty in Hungary counter to Austria where the rate was one craftsman out of 13–15 inhabitant. The surplus worked mainly in the large-scale industry. Counting smaller manufactories and factories together their number was 528 in 1847 in the country, in which 23,400 workers were permanently employed. The number of foreign skilled workers begun to increase substantially in this period, and the number of factory workers increased fifteen times during the following forty years.25 The factory had financial problems due to the loss of contract, which could have been complemented only by shareholders’ further investments, but as a consequence profiles had to be replaced thus rail production fifteen years delayed. Ózd had an outstanding position in Hungarian industrial history. Although the construction of the iron factory had not finished by the time, the rolling friction stir process was practiced in 1847 first in Ózd in Hungary fifty years after its introduction in England and twenty years after in Western Europe. Tivadar Rombauer had a leading role in the foundation of the factory, in the production of the first machine: a ninety three meters long and seventy meters wide rolling mill and in the structure of the officials’ and workers’ houses with ornamental gardens next to each.26 IN THE REVOLUTION Construction and production stopped with the outburst of the revolution, foreign workers returned to their homelands. Lajos Kossuth — based on their former relationship in the Védegylet — called Tivadar Rombauer to be a staff member of the first independent government formed in 1848 April. Rombauer left the Rimai Coalition and moved to Pest where he became the Head of Department of Industry in the Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Trade lead by Gábor Klauzál.27 As his very first action in May he summoned the owners of mines, factories and industrial plants to Pest. He imported iron through Fiume because he should have mainly deal with the production of saltpeter, gunpowder and cloth. He had success in acquisition of wood, copper and tin from western Hungary. The opening of the sulfur mine in Kalinka and the development of new types of production method was also his merit; the Austrian government — to prevent gunpowder production — banned the import of sul24 MOL RMST-Okmánytár (HNA), Z 366–153/a. 25 G. RÉZLER, A magyar nagyipari munkásság kialakulása 1867–1914, in: G. LITVÁN (Ed.), Magyar munkásszociográfiák 1888–1945, Budapest 1974, pp. 15–26. 26 J. FALLER, Régi kép és leírás Ózdról, in: Bányászati és Kohászati Lapok, No. 10, 1943, p. 370. 27 I. BAKÓ, A magyar állami „Országos Fegyvergyár” működése 1848–49-ben, Budapest 1942, p. 22. PáL KOUdELA 43 Two of his articles were published about the reform of teacher training in 1891.53 He wanted to settle the payments and emphasized the importance of secondary schools in teacher training foundation. His third proposal was not only published but was also said word of mouth on the Twenty-year anniversary of the General Assembly. He took size against Mór Kármán, famous pedagogue and professor that nor the examination schedule of the Faculty of Arts needed to be tightened nor it had to make teacher training a profession but this was the task of the Public Education Department because this was their direct interest. He cited the example of Tübingen, introduced their organizational structure and called for the establishment of a similar institution. This fruitful idea largely supported the call the institution of the Eötvös Collegium to life. Already in 1881 on the Electrical Congress in Paris Lóránd Eötvös and Károly Than represented Hungary and Trefort also tasked Eötvös to study French education. According to the memories of Géza Bartoniek, the organizer and first director of the Eötvös Collegium Eötvös hoped for roughly from this time forth that he can establish a Collegium in Hungary along the lines of the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris.54 Though countless many things had to happen until 1895 when it had the chance to be established. The idea of the integrated secondary school system raised also in the nineties and the minister organized a group to deal with the case into which Rombauer was elected. In the following years Rombauer took part in different preparatory law committees to help the regulation of teachers’ payment, status and position in educational system. In 1895 his article “Some intentions on textbook authorization” first formulated the need that authorization must be general. This aspect was then included into the Regulation by Minister of Education Wlassics issued in 1896. In the same year he became the vice-president of The National Association of Secondary School Teachers and in the following year he received the title of Director-General and membership in the National Council on Public Education. In this position he performed countless tasks. He edited and wrote the chemical part of the journal Technical School Instructions. Eötvös invited him to be the head of the Secondary School Department in the Ministry but he didn’t accepted. But in 1904 he couldn’t refuse the minister’s invitation to the position of director of the V. District Technical School in Budapest. He made the new building constructed, established new drawing room, gym, library, and teacher conference room. Later a new wing was attached to the building and many equipment were provided.55 In the spring of 1905 on the meeting of the Society for Social Sciences he spoke about the problems of the secondary schools and defended his position just like on the annual meeting of the Teachers’ Association. He defended himself against such accusations that excessive curriculum would have bad influence on students’ nerve condition.56 In 1906 — partly due to these attacks and partly because he came round 53 E. ROMBAUER, A tanárképzésről, in: Országos Középiskolai Tanáregylet Közlönye, 1891/ nov., pp. 1–2, 1891/dec., pp. 1–3. 54 RADNAI, p. 341. 55 ROMBAUER, A társadalom…, pp. 5–30. 56 E. ROMBAUER, A középiskolai reform kérdéséhez, in: Országos Középiskolai Tanáregylet Közlönye, 1904, pp. 62–72. 44 PRAGUE PAPERS ON THE HISTORY OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 1/2015 that the secondary schools’ integrated public position was against insurmountable obstacles57 — he resigned from the vice-residency of the National Association. Zsolt Beöthy — one of the leading figures of literature science and one of his best friends — followed him. After his decision Rombauer partly retreated but didn’t gave up completely public activities. He remained an active participant of Lutheran Church in Budapest. The Church decided to give tuition waiver for poor Jewish students too due to his proposal. He functioned the supervision of religious teaching even in his old age and interceded to settle the payments for religious education teachers. Superficially it might seem that Rombauer basically didn’t change his social environment. He remained in Hungary and even despite of his Saxon ethnicity he came to another Saxon town. His difficulties actually derived from his humanitarian, progressive and uncompromising nature but at least all of these contributed to them. Despite all of these it seems that even Saxons disliked him in Brassó. This might be partly interpret by his Hungarian identity: till Roderick Rombauer — his cousin in the U.S. — got far from Hungarian or even European identity due to his refugee status and desire of integration so long Emil was strengthened in his national identity by his plodding on the fate of home. THREE GENERATIONS DURING MORE THAN A CENTURY “The task of scaling is to identify context-systems which give the frame for social games.”58 Life spans and social environment are in close interrelation both in vertical and horizontal meaning. A career shows the features of a social group,59 or here the middle strata, but in two different way: representing its actual social environment and its origins. We wouldn’t digress too much if mention — in our case — the theory of Protestant Ethic nowadays a bit sunk into oblivion. A painter, a manufacturer and a teacher: all typical middle class members, all Protestant and all with an indestructible will to create. Their values include frugality and hard work but also emphasizes mathematics and observation. It’s easy to find the elements of the enhanced values of scholarship, rational systematization of government administration, and an increase in entrepreneurship ventures lead to a modern western value system linked to Protestant origins.60 And we shouldn’t forget that in our contemporary geopolitical view these elements are part of the western civilization according to Huntington’s interpretation and influence. As today it is generally accepted everything which was written as a story create a hardly disentangled line of acts and contain a specified direction at the same time.61 57 Az egységes jogállásítású középiskolákról. Szakértekezlet, 1906. január 29–31.-én Jegy zőkö nyv. 119. and 139. BINDER, p. 25. 58 B. LEPETIT, Architecture, géographie, histoire: usages de l’échelle, in: Genèses, T. 13, No. 13, 1993, pp. 118–138. 59 G. LEVI, Les usages de la biographie, in: Annales: Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations, T. 44, No. 6, 1989, pp. 1325–1336. 60 B. REINHARD, Max Weber: An Intellectual Portrait, Oakland 1977. 61 A. MACINTYRE, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, Notre Dame 2007, p. 230. PáL KOUdELA 45 Every biographies must be teleological,62 interpersonal relations namely bear the effects of narrative traditions thus narrative tradition itself effects our senses. This preforms writing itself and even thinking. Usually we try to create a story in which individual elements fit together and eliminate contradictions.63 But in our case not only history itself but the positive information extracted from it can be a narrative too. A PIECE OF LATE MODERN AGE HISTORY OF HUNGARY THROUGH THE ROMBAUER FAMILY TREE ABSTRACT A closed community of Lutheran Germans in the city of Lőcse (Levoča) and a family lived for centuries in this city showed three generations in the 19th century got far from their home but kept their values. A painter, a manufacturer and a teacher in different eras and environments in Hungary with the same ethic: hard work and thrift. Both originated from Lőcse: János Rombauer, the painter got to Saint Petersburg as a royal painter of Czar Alexander I and returned later to Eperjes (Prešov). Tivadar Rombauer moved close to Munkács (Мукачеве) and later to Ózd as a founder of the most famous iron foundry. Later because of his role in the Revolution he had to flee to America where he established a new life for the emergence of a new family line of his descendants. Emil got to Brassó (Brașov) where he had to cope with Saxons as a Hungarian and later to Budapest where he had to cope with the bureaucracy as a teacher and director. In both three life spans we can easily discover the essence of those values derived from their ancestors and can be characterized with the spirit of capitalism and Protestant ethic. KEYWORDS Micro history; Genealogy; Migration; Social integration Pál Koudela | Kodolányi János University College, Fürdő u. 1, 8000, Székesfehérvár, Hungary, [email protected] 62 P. BOURDIEU, L’Illusion biographique, in: Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, T. 62, Nos. 62–63, 1986, pp. 69–72. 63 D. SPENCE, Narrative Truth and Historical Truth: Meaning and Interpretation in Psychoanalysis, New York 1984.