Budapest: The Boundary between West and East
Note on Bram Stoker's “Dracula”:
In the very first paragraph of the book, the journal of Jonathan Harker (the solicitor protagonist) describes passing through Budapest, on his train journey from London to Bistria in northern Romania (to meet his client - Count Dracula) thus:

“Buda-Pesth seems a wonderful place, from the glimpse which I got of it from the train and the little I could walk through the streets. I feared to go very far from the station, as we had arrived late and would start as near the correct time as possible. The impression I had was that we were leaving the West and entering the East; the most Western of splendid bridges over the Danube, which is here of noble width and depth, took us among the traditions of Turkish rule.”

It seems evident that Stoker had never visited the city. It is the older city of Buda - on the West bank of the Danube, which might be considered more "eastern" than the largely "western" 19th century city of Pest on the East bank (“Dracula” was published in 1897). And what little architecture remains from the Turkish occupation (in the 16th and 17th centuries) is all on the Buda side. All the same, we think that Stoker can be excused on the grounds of artistic license. His evocation is certainly memorable, as is the book, which is an excellent read.

Back