Early Sociology Workshops, 1900–1918

Abstract

This chapter looks at the up-and-coming generation of creative intellectuals, confronted with the overcrowding of their professions and a political crisis: the defeat of the liberal oligarchy at the 1905 elections and the mounting tide of illiberalism, anti-Semitism and Catholic attacks on the secular state. Committed to cultural innovations (such as a modern press, new theaters and Sezession art), they needed to organize reflections on the future of their semi-feudal country which was in crisis. This led to the foundation of the journal Huszadik század (1900) and the Society for Social Science (1901). In 1906 the Society was divided into two, one with a nationalist and another one with a Western-type universalist agenda. The latter, supported by freemason lodges, would provide leading participants in the ‘democratic revolution’ (October 1918) and its Bolshevik aftermath.