Hungarian history is prominently featured in "Prague", emerging via the novel's major Hungarian characters, particularly Nádja. About one quarter of the novel deals exclusively with the history of the Horváth family's publishing house – through Habsburg rule, the 1848 Revolution, a pre-World War I "golden age" (characterized, despite its charms, by cultural squabblings and anti-Semitism), then decades of turmoil through the World Wars and Soviet occupation.