The life journey of a rural printer and publisher in the age of dualism

Abstract

In Hungary, the Compromise with Austria in 1867 marked the beginning of the widespread use of printed news. The first local newspapers appeared in small rural towns, and within a few years, they became the main means of shaping public opinion. This was also the case in Szentes, a town in southern Hungary with a population of 30,000, where the modern press was created by János Cherrier, of French and German parents. However, if we consider the printer’s entire entrepreneurial career, we can see a much richer one. Cherrier was born in Nagyősz near Timisoara, and his life is interesting not only because he worked in several very distant settlements in the Carpathian Basin (Leva, Nitra, Gyöngyös, Szentes, Budapest, Kunszentmiklós), and was the first to set up a printing plant and publish local press products in several places. This is a remarkable life story, because the printer suffered many setbacks and found himself in desperate situations, yet he was always able to recover, often at great financial and moral risk. Although he never achieved lasting success anywhere, his life’s work as a whole has few equals among the press entrepreneurs of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy.