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AbstractScholars have treated images from the golden age of Transylvanian photography, recently elevated to prominence through the digitization of archives, as "authentic" portrayals of peasant culture. However, Hungarian, Romanian, and Saxon nationalists in Transylvania utilized photographs to brand place and nation in the global market, as well as to make claims to territory and assert competing national hierarchies. I examine here Saxon historian, folklorist and travel writer Emil Sigerus' Durch Siebenbürgen: eine Touristenfahrt in 58 Bildern (Through Transylvania: a Tourist Trip in 58 Pictures), published repeatedly between 1905 and 1929. Sigerus' photographic survey of Transylvania's natural landscape, built environment and diverse populations branded Transylvania in general and Transylvanian Saxons in particular as a tourist destination unspoiled by the passage of time. Sigerus also projected an ethnically stratified social hierarchy on Transylvania's heterogeneous population, with Saxons at the apex; asserted Saxon ownership of urban centers, thereby reinforcing Saxon claims to a "civilizing mission" in Transylvania; and laid claim to territory, simultaneously redirecting tourism from other parts of Transylvania to Saxon nationalists' benefit. By careful curation, then, Sigerus projected a strong nationalist message often overlooked in the analysis of individual images as "objective" sources of evidence.

Hungarian, Saxon, and Romanian nationalist activists in Transylvania disseminated competing claims to "Westernness" by swaying visiting British travel writers' descriptions through hospitality networks that guided what writers saw and heard, assuring that travelers favored the nationalists' classifications of the region's ethnicities. Although the qualities British travelers valued varied depending on individual differences and intellectual currents such as enlightened reform, scientific racism, and the romantic revival, travelers consistently ascribed the qualities they best favored to the nationality on whose hospitality they relied. Wealth and time of travel determined which hospitality networks travelers favored. The Hungarian noble elites hosted most travelers until 1918, when the newly dominant Romanian nobility replaced them. Throughout, peasant voices especially remained marginalized.

AbstractThis article examines writings on theZigeuner("Gypsies") by three prominent Hungarian-German scholars—Johann Schwicker, Anton Herrmann, and Heinrich von Wlislocki—as responses to Magyarization pressures, which divided Hungarian-Germans by threatening the traditional privileges of some while offering others opportunities for social advancement. Hungarian and German elites alike castZigeuneras primitiveNaturvölkerin an effort to legitimize reform efforts. By writing about theZigeuner, scholars asserted competing Magyar and German models for modernization and reform. Passionate German nationalist Johann Schwicker called for theZigeunerto assimilate into Hungarian and Romanian culture, arguing that Germanization was beyond their reach, thereby asserting German culture's supposedly superior status as an elite culture. By contrast, Hungarian nationalist Anton Herrmann urged the Magyarization of theZigeunerto strengthen the Hungarian nation-state, denigrating the role of German and Romanian culture. Finally, Heinrich Wlislocki rejected all nationalist modernizing efforts, presenting theZigeuneras a romantic symbol of the premodern age. In all three cases, Schwicker's, Herrmann's, and Wlislocki'sZigeunerbore very limited resemblance to Romani lived experience. Collectively, the writings of these three scholars illustrate both the range of Hungarian-German responses to nationalist modernization, as well as the role of national disputes in shapingZigeunerkunde("Gypsy Studies").