The Sonntagskreis ( hu, Vasárnapi Kör, italic=no, "Sunday Circle") was an intellectual discussion group in

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

, Hungary, between 1915 and 1918. The main focus of the group was on the relationship between ideas and the social and historical context of those ideas, a line of thought that led towards the later concepts of "

social history of art The history of art focuses on objects made by humans for any number of spiritual, narrative, philosophical, symbolic, conceptual, documentary, decorative, and even functional and other purposes, but with a primary emphasis on its aesthetics, ae ...

" and "

sociology of knowledge The sociology of knowledge is the study of the relationship between human thought and the social context within which it arises, and the effects that prevailing ideas have on societies. It is not a specialized area of sociology. Instead, it deal ...

The Sonntagskreis group

The Sonntagskreis was founded in the autumn of 1915 by

Béla Balázs Béla Balázs (; 4 August 1884 in Szeged – 17 May 1949 in Budapest), born Herbert Béla Bauer, was a Hungarian film critic, aesthetician, writer and poet of Jewish heritage. He was a proponent of formalist film theory. Career Balázs was th ...

, Lajos Fülep,

Arnold Hauser *Arnold Hauser (art historian) Arnold Hauser (8 May 1892 in Timișoara – 28 January 1978 in Budapest) was a Hungarian-German art historian and sociologist who was perhaps the leading Marxist in the field. He wrote on the influence of change in ...

György Lukács György Lukács (born György Bernát Löwinger; hu, szegedi Lukács György Bernát; german: Georg Bernard Baron Lukács von Szegedin; 13 April 1885 – 4 June 1971) was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher, literary historian, critic, and aesth ...

, and Károly (Karl) Mannheim; in December of that year Balázs noted the success of the group in his diary. Others members of the group at various times included Frigyes (Frederick) Antal, Béla Fogarasi,

Tibor Gergely Tibor Gergely ( August 3, 1900 – January 13, 1978) was a Hungarian-American artist best known for his illustration of popular children's picture books. His work was part of the painting event in the art competition at the 1928 Summer Olympics ...

, Edit Gyömrői, Edit Hajós, , , Anna Lesznai, , Mihály (Michael) Polányi, László Radványi, Emma Ritoók, Anna Schlamadinger, Ervin Šinko, Vilmos Szilasi, Károly Tolnay (Charles de Tolnay) and János (Johannes) Wilde. Admission to the group required the assent of all existing members; members could bring guests to meetings. The group generally met on Sunday afternoons at Balázs's flat, and discussed literature and philosophy.

The Free School of Humanist Studies

In the spring of 1917 members of the group founded the , or "Free School of Humanist Studies", which for two semesters in 1917 and 1918 organised lectures in a school building in Budapest. Guest lecturers included Béla Bartók,

Zoltán Kodály Zoltán Kodály (; hu, Kodály Zoltán, ; 16 December 1882 – 6 March 1967) was a Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, pedagogue, linguist, and philosopher. He is well known internationally as the creator of the Kodály method of music edu ...

and Ervin Szabó.

The Sonntagskreis group

The Free School of Humanist Studies

References

Further reading