The Social Background and Preliminary Studies of Students from Hungary Studying in Vienna at the turn of the 19th and 20th Century

Abstract

At the turn of the century, 4795 students from Hungary enrolled at the seven civil universities and colleges in Vienna. A remarkable number of peregrinates arrived from the following contiguous regions of Hungary: the counties of the western borderland, those of the southern borderland, and the counties of Transsylvania, inhabited mainly by Saxons. Many students came from Budapest, Kolozsvár and Szepes county as well. Compared with the denominational composition of the population of Hungary in that period, the rate of Israelite and evangelic students was larger among the peregrinates. Strikingly few students belonged to the denominations connected to the Hungarian ethnic group, i.e. Reformed and Unitarian. The native speakers of Hungarian formed the largest group among the peregrinates from Hungary, and the German speakers formed the second largest group. The rate of Serbian speaking students exceeded, however, that of Roumanian and Slovakian speakers fell behind of their proportion in the population of Hungary at that time. The parents of most students were merchants/tradesmen or intellectuals. Many students came from families of officials or had a title of nobility. Few of them, however, were offsprings of farmers. The larger part of the students enrolled at an institution of higher education in Vienna after studies at secondary school (or at a similar institution) and the smaller part of them after studies at a university or technical college. The majority of those who had studied at other universities came from universities in Hungary and the smaller portion of them from universities abroad.