Record of a Life: An Autobiographical Sketch

by György Lukács, István Eörsi (Editor), Rodney Livingstone (Translator)

This revealing autobiography of the Hungarian Marxist philosopher Georg Luk�cs is centered on a series of interviews that he gave in 1969 and 1971, shortly before his death on 4 June 1971.

Stimulated by the sympathetic yet incisive questioning of the interviewer, the Hungarian essayist Istv�n E�rsi, Luk�cs discusses at length the course of his life, his years of political struggle, and his formation and role as a Marxist intellectual. From a highly evocative account of his childhood and school years, Luk�cs proceeds to discuss his political awakening; the debates within the socialist movement over the First World War form the prelude to an assessment of Tactics and Ethics, written in 1919; from there the discussion turns to Luk�cs's early major contribution to Marxist philosophy, History and Class Consciousness.

After considering at length the years of emigration in Vienna and the Soviet Union, Luk�cs finally recalls his return to Hungary after the Second World War, and his new position as a revolutionary left critic of actually existing socialism. "By socialist democracy," he wrote in 1970, "I understand democracy in ordinary life, as it appears in the Workers' Soviets of 1871, 1905 and 1917, as it once existed in the socialist countries, and in which form it must be re-animated."

This Record of a Life, which includes an introduction by Istv�n E�rsi, furnishes a compelling tribute to a remarkable man.

Genres: History, Philosophy

204 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

György Lukács was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher, aesthetician, literary historian and critic. He is a founder of the tradition of Western Marxism, an interpretive tradition that departed from the Marxist ideological orthodoxy of the Soviet Union. He developed the theory of reification, and contributed to Marxist theory with developments of Karl Marx's theory of class consciousness. He was also a philosopher of Leninism. He ideologically developed and organised Lenin's pragmatic revolutionary practices into the formal philosophy of vanguard-party revolution.

His literary criticism was influential in thinking about realism and about the novel as a literary genre. He served briefly as Hungary's Minister of Culture as part of the government of the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic.

Reviews

[luk zur · Rating 5 out of 5]

Po polsku wyszło w 2021 r., nakładem Instytutu Wydawniczego Książka i Prasa pt. „Przeżyte myślenie. Życiorys utrwalony na taśmie magnetofonowej”, w przekładzie - rzecz jasna z węgierskiego - Ireny Makarewicz (i z ciekawymi dodatkami: listami Lukácsa do Adama Schaffa oraz bibliografią przekładów Lukácsa na język polski). Ale mało kto o tym wie, bo książka była dystrybuowana tak jakby pokątnie - mam jej egzemplarz tylko dlatego, że skontaktowałem się z tłumaczką.

A szkoda, bo to arcyciekawa rzecz, na którą składa się szkic Lukácsa do autobiografii oraz wywiad rzeka z Lukácsem, w którym filozof dopytywany przez Istvána Eörsiego i Erzsébeta Vezéra rozwija to, co szkicowo/lakonicznie napisał w tym szkicu (to, czego nie komentuje/nie rozwija, też jest oczywiście ważne).

https://www.instagram.com/p/DEuPlUZOB...

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lukacs’ autobiography, which provides excellent insight into his intellectual development and the politics of the Eastern European communist movement before and after World War II. There are many gems contained therein. Lukacs has harsh words for Zinoviev (and Bela Kun as a “typical Zinoviev disciple), Radek, Manuilsky, Bukharin, and Trotsky. He rejects his own rejection of the dialectics of nature in History and Class Consciousness, and instead makes the dialectics of nature into a crucial pillar of his analysis of Marxism as ontology (77). Lukacs sees value in Stalin’s philosophical attacks on the Bukharin mechanists as well as the Deborin School’s Plekhanov-inherited positivism (86). There are interesting observations about traditionally “Stalinist” figures like Dimitrov and the lesser-known Pavel Yudin, both of whom were close to Stalin but kept alive the more liberal Literary Critic journal run by Lukacs and kept him from prison (96-99).

Lukacs continues his criticism of Engels, which is finally boiled down to the following: “The most important distortion, without which Stalinism would not have been possible, is in the way that Engels, and after him a number of Social Democrats, interpreted the idea of social determinism from a standpoint of logical necessity, as opposed to the actual social context of which Marx speaks” (105). I remain unconvinced, as I think he is overstating Engels’ determinism and ignoring his more dialectical writings in Origin of the Family, and not drawing a deep qualitative distinction between Engels and Social Democrats is a problem. As to his ultimate method, Lukacs says, “Following Marx I conceive of ontology as philosophy proper, but as philosophy based on history…Marx established that historicity is the fundamental concept of social being, and as such of all beings. This I hold to be the most important part of Marxian theory.”

If you are familiar with Lukacs’ work, there is something of value here in finally coming to an understanding of the views which Lukacs held at the end of his life, how he in the end appraised History and Class Consciousness, and how he viewed the history of the Marxist movement from 1919 to his death. If you are unfamiliar with him, it is a good place to start in humanizing him and gaining familiarity with his political and intellectual journey.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of this is taken up by a long interview that is used to supplement lukacs' own summarised biography(also included) and expand and clarify a few things that aren't given much detail in that text. a lot of his historical perspective and assement of his own work and various other figures and parties is quite interesting, although i must admit some of the finer details on debates and lines within the hungarian communist party were a bit outside of my direct interest. fairly fascinated by his characterisation of stalinism as putting tactics ahead of strategy.

[Dermonduebersoho · Rating 5 out of 5]

Der deutsche Titel ist "Gelebtes Denken"

[csillagkohó · Rating 4 out of 5]

verrassend interessant en entertainend, al moet je ook wel op voorhand geïnteresseerd zijn omdat dit best veel details over je uitstort