The Institute of Philosophy of the Research Center for the Humanities of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences kindly invites you to the upcoming talk of its seminar series:

Gábor Kovács

"National essence and modernity in the interwar Hungarian national characterology" (given in Hungarian)

Date and Venue of the lecture: 18th February 2014, 4.00 pm, Institute of Philosophy, Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 30. Országház Street, 2. floor, "Pepita" room.

The notion of national essence arose from the auto- and hetero-stereotypes helping the orientation of human communities in their environment but national characterology played a special role in the interwar Central and Eastern-European cultures, including Hungary. The modernity-crisis arisen after the First World War intertwined with the crisis of modernization and the idea of national essence seemed to be a reliable orientation-point in an unreliable, fluid reality. The lecture focuses upon the concept(s) of modernity in the different branches of interwar Hungarian national characterology. The subject needs contextualisation: Hungarian thought on national essence grew out from cultural criticism. Especially German cultural criticism interlocked with ‘conservative revolution’ inspired the Hungarian approaches. The wider context, in both countries, was the culture of defeat (the notion was introduced By Wolfgang Schivelbusch).