The paper is meant to introduce a symposium on aesthetics in Hungary today. Through a brief survey of the Hungarian aesthetic tradition, which goes back to the eclectic “university aesthetics” of the late 18 th century and produced a number of prominent figures such as Georg Lukács and his disciples in the “Budapest School” in the 20th century, the paper seeks to point out some key characteristics of this tradition and to reflect on the intellectual landscape of contemporary aesthetics in (...) Hungary, diversified by many fields of study, methods and subdisciplines. (shrink)

Lessons from the Footnotes: The Reception of Burke’s Aesthetics and Social Theory in Szerdahely’s Conception of Aesthetics and Schedius’s Theory of Philokalia This article discusses the early phase of the Hungarian reception of the aesthetic views of Edmund Burke. It does so by considering two reference works on aesthetics, one by György Alajos Szerdahely (1740–1808), the other by Johann Ludwig Schedius (1768–1847). Both authors were, in their day and later, well known amongst the scholars of Europe. Their reference works became (...) university textbooks, and should therefore not now be neglected. The specialist literature has, however, to this day one-sidedly interpreted their conceptions as eclectic mixtures of German, English, and French works on aesthetics. In this article, the author seeks to surmount the poor methodology and unsatisfactory conclusions concerning the reception of foreign authorities in Hungarian aesthetics. She does so by using the example of Burke, reconstructing the context of the places that he is mentioned, presenting them as period topoi, and analysing the narrative strategies of the two Hungarian authors. These approaches allow her more profoundly to explore the relationship between Burke’s Enquiry and the two reference works. In the foreground of the comparison are the key terms ‘beauty’ and ‘the sublime’, the use of narration and metaphor, and also reflections on art, society, and sociability. (shrink)

A review of Tomáš Hlobil’s Geschmacksbildung im Nationalinteresse. Vol. 2. Der Abschluss der frühen Prager Universitätsästhetik im mitteleuropäischen Kulturraum 1805–1848.