ABSTRACT
Political, social and cultural settings and circumstances (after Ausgleich and at the turn of the century; Jews in the Monarchy and in Hungary; Jews and natives; Vienna and Budapest compared; social, political and cultural polarisation in Hungary; the status and role of radical groups and intellectual radicalism; main debates between socialists, social democrats and radicals; conservative criticism on them).
A complex, wide-ranging family (Jewish origin, Pollacsek and Schlesinger ancestors, Polanyi’s father Pollacsek Mihály and his enterprise, the whole family network).
Intellectual influences family, broader relatives, schools, Mach, friends as Lukacs, Popper, etc., debates and disputes with them.
Polanyi as a leader of Galileo circle (Ady’s role in it) and a journalist at Szabadgondolat. Analysis of his writings.
Polanyi in the Hungarian politics (radical party; Oscar Jaszi’s role; his activity during the October Revolution and the Dictatorship of Proletariat; Polanyi in Hungarian emigrant politics in Vienna; Bécsi Magyar Újság; his reflections on 1945, communism, 1956 and the Kádár regime).
The young Polanyi and the “late Polanyi”. Elements of continuity and discontinuity between the two phases.
