Count Ödön Széchenyi in Constantinapole (1874-1922)

Abstract

Though the active role in the foundation of the Hungarian Voluntary Fire Brigade and the Budapest Castle Hill Funicular of Count Ödön Széchenyi are well known facts in Hungary, and even his role in the modernization of the Turkish Fire Brigades is known, but very few information is available relating his duty and tasks, civil and family life in Constantinople in the Hungarian articles which deals with his activities. The insufficiency of information becomes
more obvious if we consider that he spent nearly 50 years of his life in the Ottoman capital, while his wife was from the local Greek minority and even the life of his children interweaved in several ways with the local Ottoman elite. The aim of this article is to shed some lights on the little known aspects of Count Széchenyi Ödön’s life on the shore of the Bosphorus with using both Turkish and Hungarian sources.from the period.