Emigration from the Old Empire to Hungary in the 18th Century as Being Reflected by Contemporary Communication

Abstract

This contribution is not about the causes and reasons of emigration from the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation to the lands of the Hungarian Crown in the18th century. Rather, the focus is on the question of how the contemporaries communicated about this emigration. More precisely, it is about which problems appeared to be so important to those involved in the migration process that, in certain contexts, they were condensed into metaphors or verbal images by way of which they could argue without the need to give more detailed reasons for their decisions and positions.23 The analysed metaphors and verbal images represent several levels of communication, such as the level of communication between Emperor and Empire, between authorities and those willing to emigrate, and between emigrants and those staying home.