Blog

Families of past societies are commonly conceived of as secure and intimate communities of parents and their offspring. This idealized image often serves as a foil against which the alleged modern-day crisis of the family as a social institution in turmoil is seen. However, due to high mortality rates, stepfamilies were just as common in the past as their modern counterparts formed rather through divorce. Our research team aims to provide a more nuanced picture, in essays published every month, of the folktale figures of wicked stepparents and their children by revisiting the complex relationships between them and the ways in which they interacted in their everyday lives.

2018. October 29. 21:14
csaladtortenetek

“While old people seek vice, maidens look at the pockets”: widows and their chosen ones

This post by Eszter Baros-Gyimóthy provides a vibrant, vivid image of the fragility of family in traditional societies, using eighteenth-century...
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2018. September 12. 14:39
csaladtortenetek

“A hated, illegal and amoral affair”: the double life of a Buda physician in the 1880s

This post by Sándor Nagy leads us through an extraordinary story which demonstrates that the everyday family life of middle class people was very...
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2018. April 20. 13:17
csaladtortenetek

“God, how we all grow!” The family of Júlia Szendrey at Hársfa Street

Emese Gyimesi presents the everyday life of Julia Szendrey’s stepfamily, who was the most famous literary widow of the 19th century. In the...
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2018. March 20. 13:41
csaladtortenetek

“Such a numerous family as mine”. István Széchenyi as Stepfather

Zoltán Fónagy presents one of the best-known Hungarian historical figures in a lesser-known role. István Széchenyi, sometimes referred to as...
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2018. February 04. 15:08
csaladtortenetek

In Search of Stepmothers: The Stepfamilies of a Calvinist Minister

Family, autobiography, emotions Calvinist minister István Miskolci Csulyak (1575–1645) introduced his sixth and final marriage at the age of 65 in...
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