Oeuvre under the spell of the social development of agricultural market towns and farmsteads. On the specificities of Ferenc Erdeis analyses of the social structure

The paper studies the analyses of social structure done by Ferenc Erdei from the beginning of his career to the end of World War II, a period when he was a highly influential sociographer. The interpretation of texts points out that Erdei interpreted the society through the perspective of the development of the peasantry of the agricultural market towns of the Great Plain regarded by him as the only depository of Hungarian bourgeois development. It was this social development that represented 'peasant authenticity' for him, forgetting that its emergence in fact could be explained by the special situation of the system of settlement of the given region and period of the Plain, and as such it is rather doubtful that it could express the essence of all Hungarians. On the other hand, the paper studies the roots of Erdei's ideological analysis and argues for pointing out that in fact all his writings of the period can be regarded as functions of his political ideas. The original intention of image of the society of the writings does not simply aim at describing the specificities of the society but the interpretation of society is basically determined by Erdei's political concepts. The paper draws the conclusion that the writings of Erdei determining Hungarian thinking in social science to this day show differences in the professional quality of his argumentation, but there is no difference in the basically mistaken assumption of their aim.