György Lukács

Hungarian marxist philosopher and literary critic (1885–1971)

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Lived 1885–1971, aged 86

Wikipedia
57 languages
Cross-language footprint
Era
1885–1971
Aged 86
Awards
5
recognised works

Summary

Updated 2026-09-08

He turned Marxism into a lens for reading novels and built the theory that explains how capitalism makes people treat each other like objects. The Hungarian philosopher who spent decades walking the tightrope between Stalin's orthodoxy and his own intellectual independence.

Biography

About

Born Bernát György Löwinger in 1885, he became one of the founders of Western Marxism — the branch that broke from Soviet ideological lockstep. He developed the theory of reification and advanced Marx's ideas on class consciousness, then formalized Lenin's revolutionary tactics into a philosophy of vanguard-party action. In 1919 he served as Minister of Culture in Hungary's brief Soviet Republic, which lasted only from March to August. His real mark came as a literary critic: he reimagined realism and the novel as a genre through Marxist theory. For decades he was the preeminent Marxist intell…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from György Lukács

György Lukács

said1968

Only the dialectical conception of ... reality as a social process ...

— p. 13

György Lukács

said1968

Unmediated concepts ... veil the relations between objects. ...

— pp. 13-14

György Lukács

said1968

In Marx the dialectical method aims at understanding society as a whole.

— p. 28

György Lukács

said1968

Bourgeois thought judges social phenomena conscious or unconsciously, naïvely or subtly, consistently from the standpoint of the individual.

— p. 28

György Lukács

said1968

Critical philosophy implies above all historical criticism. It dissolves the rigid, unhistorical, natural appearance of social institutions; it reveals their historical origins.

— p. 47

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