Multi-culti

V/24. Ihre werte atress [Adresse] habe ich von Herrn Jenö Singer erhalten, und bitte meiner auch gedenken mit Gruß: Franz Horváth. / Meine atresse [Adresse] ist. Budapest II. Bez[irk], Csónak gasse N° 13.

24 May 1900. I received your precious address from Mr. Jenő Singer, and I also ask you to remember mine. With greetings: Ferenc Horváth. / My address is: Budapest II., Csónak street 13.

An [den] Wohlgeboren[en] Herrn Anastagi Piero. Rue Vacchereccia 7. Florence, Italien.

To the respected Mr. Anastagi Piero. Vacchereccia street 7. Florence, Italy

This postcard, written in a somewhat bad German mixed with French, was sent from one of the most beautiful places in the world to another, from under the Castle of Buda – only a few meters from the sharp bend, where in 1937 Wilhelm Miklas and Miklós Horthy turned to go up to the Castle – to under the Palazzo Vecchio of Florence, just two streets from the Ponte Vecchio and the Biblioteca Nazionale, from whose windows a view, which seriously impedes any research, opens over the Arno.


In the foreground of the postcard, sent in the final months of the previous century (or in the first months of the new one?), you can still see the majestic Castle Bazaar, which, after having been destroyed in the war, is just being reconstructed in our days. And in the background, the romantic little streets of Budapest’s Montmartre, the Tabán, which will disappear without a trace during the demolitions of the 1930s. This enchanting world is reconstructed on such sites as Tabán Photo Gallery, Tabán Anno, Falanszter, the interactive map of old Tabán, the anniversary compilation of Cink.hu, and of course in the writings of the excellent city historian Noémi Saly and the large Tabán exhibition that she recently organized.


Next to this postcard, I also find another multi-culti letter in the flea market of Berlin. The envelope, with the letterhead of a French company, addressed in German, was sent in 1943 using Greek stamps to Berlin, with the swastika postage stamp of the German occupying authorities, but with a military censorship label in Italian. This, however, I leave for the delight of other specialists.