GEORG LUKÁCS IN HEIDELBERG: A CROSSROAD BETWEEN THE ACADEMIC AND POLITICAL CAREER

The following paper tried to summarize Georg Lukács’s possibilities at the turn of the century in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and in Germany. Lukács began his early career in an uncertain era and searched for a ground, where his philosophy is “accepted”. It seemed after several attempts, like the journal Szellem or the Thália that Heidelberg is the centre of intelligentsia, where Lukács can be recognized for his philosophy and where he can find a steady ground for his thoughts. His idea was to habilitate in the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, although the Faculty of Philosophy denied his application from several reasons: Lukács was an outsider in Heidelberg, who could not prove himself with a systematic work, he comes from a foreign country in the time of the war and besides that, he is a Jew. Lukács’s failed attempt to habilitate in Heidelberg is interesting from three points of view: (1) history of philosophy; for instance how philosophy became vocation or what reasons led Lukács to Germany (2) history of ideas; how the position of intelligentsia changed and reshaped during the war and (3) history of university, how the war reshaped the universities. The paper tries to reflect the outcomes of other studies and mentions the archive documents of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University Archives of Heidelberg.