Metropolitan Ervin Szabó Library

This guide to the Metropolitan Ervin Szabo Library in Budapest traces the short life of Ervin Szabo, a translator of Marx and Engels who spent his years building a radical idea: a public library ordinary Hungarians could actually use. It also follows Count Frigyes Wenckheim, whose architect filled this building with gold leaf and floor-to-ceiling mirrors for a family's private parties, and the count's death that left the palace's future in question. During the war years, Szabo's own library became a hub for smuggled anti-war pamphlets.