Short- and long-term publication plans

 

LANA’s role, or better, mission, in the present situation is to prevent that the materials originally preserved in the Lukács Archive (LAK) which served research – Lukács’s manuscripts, letters, the connected documents and literature – get lost for Lukács researchers and sink in the storages of the Academy’s library. Thus, we try to continue what used to be LAK’s responsibility – now without an institutional background and without salaried employees. For this aim we need such research programs and publication plans which involve LAK’s collection or are promising in terms of discovering documents that are relevant for LAK. In addition, we of course need colleagues, researchers, whose agenda helps the realization of LANA’s goals. LANA is ready to support their work.

Several research projects follow from LAK’s former activity (the research of the under-researched period of Lukács’s life; the history of his reception, the re-publication of those Lukácsian works that play a special role in his reception). However, the definition of the research agendas is up to Hungarian and international researchers, not up to LANA. At the same time, it is LANA’s task to find supporters and to participate – potentially as initiator – in the coordination of such projects.

Short term plans
That being said, we have publication plans for continuing the work began in LAK. These materials have been put together and their publication is feasible in a foreseeable time:

1. Lukács-biography
Éva Fekete was the editor of the Lukács-oeuvre series of Magvető publishing house and one of the publishers of the correspondence of the young Lukács. Fekete’s biographical monograph written in 1977 has not been published at that time. It is still (even when reading four decades later) a valid and needed book. The manuscript awaits copy-editing and preparation for printing.

2. The last hand
Similarly to the manuscript of Lukács’s biography, several publications of the young Lukács (in copies preserved by his sister, Mária Lukács) have been discovered in the heritage of Éva Fekete – including a thus far unknown review. Lukács made the corrections of these texts on these copies. Since such versions corrected by the author are to be regarded as the final versions, this is a material worthy of publishing.

3. Lukács’s political publications, articles written 1920-1929
These Lukácsian works have been researched and collected by Miklós Mesterházi already in the 1980s and they have been translated. However, since the publication of the Lukácsian oeuvre in series was paused in 1988, this collection has not been published. 2013 brought about an opportunity for a final editing stage and for the online publication of the articles from 1920-1922. Soon the full collection will be ready for publication.

In the long run
LANA inherited some of the research plans from LAK as the preserver of Lukács’s heritage and as a research community. They involve further collection of materials and prerequire access to materials stuck in LAK and to the materials moved to the Academy’s library (KIK).

1. Volume of Lukács-interviews
LAK collected and arranged all the interviews made with Lukács after 1945 in one collection. Most of them were originally published in German, Hungarian, Italian, French and American journals. They could be included in one online published volume in their original language, after the necessary copy-editing work.

2. Systematic (chronological) publication of all Lukácsian works written in his Moscow period (1930-1945).

3. Critical edition (with a detailed editor’s foreword and explanatory notes) of Lukács’s political studies, articles and interviews from 1956-1971 in one volume.

4. A selected volume of Lukács’s correspondence from 1945-1971 with special regard to Lukács’s philosophical professional and political ties in Hungary and abroad.

5. Publication of the entire correspondence of the young Lukács. The preparation involves the discovery – through international cooperation – of the letters of Lukács’s correspondents.

Digital Lukács Archive in the long run
Independently form the status of the struggle for the Lukács Archives, it is necessary to render its collections digitally accessible, while making online support of researchers and communication with them possible.

1. Continuous update of LANA’s website

2. Publicaiton of Lukács’s manuscripts and correspondence (in an edited form)

3. Online publication of Lukács’s key works in various languages.

4. Publication of the online version of the new editions of Lukácsian works and secondary literature on them.