The article applies the sociological term social mobility to German Lutheran burghers, a small, yet characteristic social group in Hungary, in the last decades of the early modern period (1750–1850). Since an individual’s social status in the broader sense encompasses various aspects of cultural identity, the concept of social mobility should take into account the changing of legal status (nobilitation, obtaining burgher privileges), local/regional identity (migration within the urban network), shifting occupation systems, schooling patterns, and the decreasing commitment to the community’s cultural boundaries as German and as Lutheran (assimilation in the age of the Enlightenment and the rise of modern nations). The study presents a number of cases of German Lutheran families successfully adapting to the changing social and economic environment.

The study examines the extent of German Lutheran burghers’ participation in pre-1848 associations in Hungary. Ranging from Free Masons’ lodges, ladies’ charitable societies, and Pest casinos (social clubs) to scientific-medical societies, the study explores the participation of Lutheran burghers as leaders, subscribers, or activists in various organisations from the Saxon towns to Pozsony/Pressburg, from Eperjes/Preschau to Pest. Although the figures and patterns of participa- tion show great variation across the types of associations and the traditions of different towns, German Lutherans generally show higher levels of activity than others. The paper suggests that the reasons for this lie in the shared cultural con- ventions of the stakeholders, such as their access to information abroad and their educational preferences, as well as their already existing nationwide network. The study is a methodological experiment of sorts, as the analysis approaches the associations as vehicles of social organisation. In this sense, instead of the traditional analysis of estates affiliation and profession, the subject of the present inquiry is a characteristic “estatesque” group of Hungarian society in the age of the late estates system, which can be described in terms of shared culture, and is characterised by strong social ambitions and cohesive countrywide cooperation.

Nincs absztrakt.

Nincs absztrakt.

Providing sickness and burial benefit to their membership, friendly societies were important and popular elements of social organisation in mid-19th century Pest. The analysis of the social history of these societies has revealed that their rules as well as the rate of their membership within the urban population were alike to their Western- European counterparts. The article stresses both the continuity of the guilds’ traditional arrangements to support the master’s family, and the novelty of friendly societies which had a mixed social composition recruiting many of their members from out of the civic (bürgerliche) artisan world, and were based on the liberal principle of voluntary joining. The rapid dissemination of this form of organisation can be explained with the fast pace of urbanisation in Pest absorbing masses of non-civic groups (including lower-rank officials, daily workers and non-authorised craftsmen), the still significant proportion of the immigrants from German towns (mediating the culture of philanthropy, thrift and associations), and the economic growth in those decades, rather than any rise in burial costs. Still, the success of friendly societies as insurance organisations does not seem to have resulted in a vivid associational life, even if some evidence for democratic procedure has been found, such as the election of the leaders and the dismissal of corrupt officials.

Combining macro statistical, quantitative techniques and prosopographical methods, the article examines the "demand side" of the secondary schools in Pressburg (Pozsony), one of the major schooling towns in Hungary in the first half of the 19th century. Having lost its national central institutions in the 1780s, attacked directly by the French troops during the French Wars and affected badly by the prosperous economy of the nearby metropolis Vienna, the town (now Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia) was a stagnating provincial centre in that time Hungary. One of its social characteristics was the presence of a large number of students in grammar schools and higher education (law and theology), both for Catholic and Protestant (Lutheran) people. The article reveals that during the five decades as a whole only Lutheran higher education increased in terms of the number of the students enrolled. The growth of all other parts of education turned into decrease after the renewal of the Hungarian Parliamentary sessions in Pressburg in 1825 (after a 13-year-long period of absolutistic government), probably due to the rising prices and the worsening life conditions in town. In general, all schools recruited their students from a fairly large area, but Lutheran schooling attracted more students than its Catholic counterpart from outside the town and from churches different from its own. During the period of growth in Pressburg schools a trend of "democratisation" went on in terms of the origin of students resulting in a fall in the proportion of noble and an increase in that of bourgeois, or rather "burgher", origin, but this trend stopped and returned after about 1825. The higher rate of bürgerliche students among Lutherans may reflect the differences in social structure between the two denominations but it also accompanies a tendency of finishing more classes of school among Protestants which can be attributed to different strategies of the use of schooling. The analysis of students from Lutheran Pressburg-born burgher families shows the general presence of a model of a diversified strategy which directed sons within the same families to different positions in society, and the related level of schooling, from artisan and merchant trades to the high professions.