A nemzeti radikális politika és a társadalomtudományos érvelés kettőssége Erdei Ferenc faluszociográfiájában
The Duality of National Radical Politics and Social Scientific Argumentation in Ferenc Erdei’s Village Sociography

Summary/Abstract: Surveys of Erdei’s sociographical activity has so far seen the work “Magyar falu” (The Hungarian Village), written after the dissolution of the movement of popular sociography, as one of his most mature and expert works, where the author goes beyond the analysis of the previous era which was based on the ideal of the community of the civilized homestead market town. Arguing with previous interpretations, the paper, through a social structural analysis of the book, makes an attempt to rethink the view of society expressed in this definitely important work and at the same time tries to find its place in Erdei’s oeuvre. It demonstrates that while due to his political analysis Erdei makes an attempt to describe society in a model of a twofold structure (village and town society), from the multi-dimensional aspects of Magyar falu a more complex social structural analysis can be unfolded. Still the paper calls attention to the fact that despite the forward-looking views doubtlessly discernible in Magyar falu the view of society in the book is basically determined by the author’s peculiar set of values and his political analysis resulting from that. The aim of the book was not the characterization of Hungarian society, rather it was written for political purposes. And this idea is organized around the unjustifiably idealized social development of the homestead market towns of the Hungarian plain. Consequently, the major content of the book can be seen as a continuation of that interpretation of society that was typical in the heydays of popular sociography. That is, Magyar falu is another version of the homestead market town utopia written many times before, while that expertise in social sciences that was regarded as one of its merits is barely manifested in the work.

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