Areopolisz történelmi és társadalomtudományi tanulmányok Szerkesztők

Zsolt Gyarmati:
The Half-public Domain at the Beginning of the 20^th Century
The Café of Cluj

The everyday life of the past represents one of the least known spaces in the Hungarian historiography of Romania. Moreover, the problem of public, half-public and private places in the urban medium has not been treated yet. The café - representing a characteristic form of half-public domain - had a well delimited role in the everyday urban life of the 19^th century, and the first decades of the 20^th century. In this sense we can affirm that we are dealing with one of the most beautiful remembrances left behind by the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. The function of this “institution” is closely bound with the problems of the living space, fact which gave a plus motivation for people to spend most of their time in the public or half-public sphere.

The present study is trying to reconstruct some of the aspects related to life of the Cluj cafés of the last decade of the dualist regime. For instance: the stock-taking, the charting of cafés, their classification, the social background of visitors, what the café could offer, the games of chance practiced there, the role of women in this milieu.

In this paper - due to its pioneering character - we can meet more questions than answers but the colourful tableau of this life segment of the Cluj everyday life of those days gets a rough draft.