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11. Double Mimesis: Georg Lukács’s Philosophy of Music
- University of Wisconsin Press
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When addressing a topic such as music and philosophy in the thought of Georg Lukács, one must begin by dispelling certain objections and biases. Paramount among them are the following: first, can the Hungarian Georg (György) Lukács really be regarded as part of a specifically German history of music philosophy? Second, were this man’s aesthetic reflections not informed by a stubbornly Stalinist perspective that is undeserving of scholarly consideration? Third, what, if anything, did this expert on the function of “realism” in literature actually know about music? And does this form of art figure prominently in his work—as in the writings of Ernst Bloch and Theodor W. Adorno—or is it of only marginal importance? The first objection would seem to be the most serious, since Luk ács was, in fact, Hungarian. However, culturally descended from the Austro-Hungarian Empire of the Hapsburg monarchy, he and other members of the Jewish cultural elite—such as his parents, who, prior to 1914, are known to have hosted Thomas Mann at their home—felt as closely connected to German culture as to that of Hungary. But this tradition was not his only link to German culture, since Lukács also spent 244 11 Double Mimesis Georg Lukács’s Philosophy of Music significant portions of his life in Heidelberg, Vienna, and Berlin; sought to establish himself as a professor at a German university; wrote many of his philosophical and aesthetic works in German; and, toward the end of his life, was happy to see his book Die Eigenart des Ästhetischen (The specificity of the aesthetic) published first in Germany, which he regarded as the “old center of philosophical aesthetics.”1 Furthermore, who could be so narrow-minded as to see in Albert Schweitzer nothing more than a Frenchman from Alsace, in Franz Kafka merely a Jew from Prague, or in Paul Celan only a lyric poet from Bukovina—rather than regarding them all as members of a more broadly defined German culture? Turning to the second objection, a concern with Lukács’s political outlook, we find that on careful scrutiny all accusations prove to be unfounded. Whether one considers the charges originating in NATO countries where Lukács was denounced as a “Stalinist dogmatist” (Adorno) and a “preacher of terror” (Daniel Bell), or those originating in countries that belonged to the Warsaw Pact, where he was branded a “traitor” and a “revisionist” because of his support for the Hungarian uprising of 1956—such accusations ultimately amount to nothing more than journalistic fiction.2 To be sure, from the end of World War I until his death in 1971, Lukács was a steadfast advocate of socialism, but he also was in perpetual conflict with the Communist Party, both in Hungary and in Germany, because of his stubborn insistence on a “democratic socialism,” especially as articulated in his Blum Theses of 1928 and then again in his objections to the Stalinist orthodoxy of the Hungarian Communist Party in 1949. It was therefore only logical that during the Hungarian uprising of 1956 he would join the Imre Nagy cabinet as secretary of education, a decision that nearly cost him his life. From that point forward, he was a persona non grata throughout the Eastern bloc, which meant that he was forced to publish his writings almost exclusively with the West German Luchterhand Verlag rather than with the East Berlin Aufbau Verlag, as he had done before. What is more, the alternative characterization of Lukács as a blind defender of “socialist realism ” is equally untrue and can only be understood as part of a larger Cold War strategy to discredit all proponents of socialist ideas. While Lukács did make a few tactical concessions in this regard, his major works on aesthetics all are firmly grounded in a truly Marxist understanding of a cultural heritage in terms of its dialectical appropriation and are almost entirely void of Stalinist reductionism and sociological vulgarizations. Double Mimesis 245 [3.85.85.246] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 11:17 GMT) With regard to the third objection concerning the extent of Lukács’s acquaintance with music, one need only point out that a great deal of chamber music was played in his home,3 that he had close contact with Béla Bartók, and that he possessed extensive knowledge of the writings on music by Hegel, Max Weber, Bloch, and Adorno. What is more, the notion that one must be...