Analysis: Realism in the Balance by György Lukács

Realism in the Balance is a thought-provoking essay written by György Lukács in 1938. It was written while Lukács lived in Soviet Russia and was first published in a German literary journal.

Lukács contended that human beings are essentially socio-historical beings. In order to describe the human condition in an illuminating manner, the writer must tell stories and create characters that reflect the socio-historical determinants of real life. In his essay, Lukács also blames modernism for alienating “an already alienated audience” and pushes for realist art that can genuinely show “the economic system responsible for turning human beings to things”.

Lukács further defends “traditional” realism of authors when compared to the rising Modernist movements. Modernism, which essentially promoted self-consciousness as well as irony concerning social and literary traditions, is a movement which Lukács felt was essential as historic necessity and yet not developed and refined enough to be viewed as revolutionarily powerful.

“A campaign against realism, whether conscious or not, and a resultant impoverishment and isolation of literature and art is one of the crucial manifestations of decadence in the realm of art.”

Lukács believed that it is traditional realism which could ultimately lead to the Marxist revolution and help the middle class with their battle against feudalism.

Lukács took a Marxist approach to explain the importance of literary realism and the authors themselves to bring about a change in the conditions of the working class by providing direction and educating them about social relations. In this regard, Realism is imperative in order to provide the sense of social totality, something which movements like Modernism could never achieve with a kind of work which “manifests itself immediately and on the surface”.

Writers which followed Realism produced better and more aesthetic works as compared to Modernism.

Thus, in the essay Lukács supports the works of Balzac, Thomas Mann, and Georgi Dimitrov and discards the Modernist school of thoughts possessing any potential for inciting revolutions. The essay comes across as a comparative study between Modernism and Literary Realism and how Realism should not be overthrown or abandoned for the sake of Modernism as it is still relevant and important for the society.

“If literature is a particular form by means of which objective reality is reflected, then it becomes of crucial importance for it to grasp that reality as it truly is, and not merely to confine itself to reproducing whatever manifests itself immediately and on the surface.”

A Brief Look on György Lukács' Life and Works

György Lukács was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher, literary critic, historian, writer and aesthetician. An avid supporter of Marxian school of thought, Lukács was one of the founders of the Western Marxism movement and also developed the theory of reification. 

He was born in an affluent Jewish family. It was only later when he turned to Marxism and started promoting Karl Marx’s views. In 1918, he joined the Hungarian Communist Party. Lukács served as commissar for culture and education in the Hungarian communist regime of Kun Bela. Unfortunately, the regime was overthrown in 1919 after which Lukács moved to Vienna and remained there for about a decade. 

He was also a member of the Hungarian underground movement and edited the review Kommunismus. During this period, he also wrote the book, History and Class Consciousness (1923) where he developed a unique and fresh perspective on Marxist philosophy of history and laid the basis for his critical literary tenets by linking the development of form in art with the history of the class struggle. Lukács never agreed upon Marxism simply being a purely scientific field and thus actively advocated the philosophical side of Marxism. 

Strikingly, he held that, even if all of Marx’s predictions were false, Marxism still would retain its validity as a perspective on life and culture. In his later critiques of literature, Lukács showed himself partial to the great bourgeois realist novelists of the 19th century, a preference that was denounced by proponents of the prevailing official doctrine of Socialist Realism in the Soviet Union.

Except for a brief period in 1930–31, during which he attended the Marx-Engels Institute in Moscow, Lukács lived in Berlin from 1929 to 1933. In 1933 he once again left Berlin for Moscow to attend the Institute of Philosophy. During this period, he wrote a famous essay titled, “Realism in the Balance” (1938) in which he defends the "traditional" realism of authors like Thomas Mann in the face of rising Modernist movements, such as Expressionism, Surrealism, and Naturalism. Practitioners of these movements, such as James Joyce, placed an emphasis on displaying the discord and disenchantment of modern life through techniques that highlight individualism and individual consciousness, such as stream of consciousness. In his essay, Lukács presents a complex, nuanced view of these movements and their relation to what he feels is "true" realism: On the one hand, Lukács feels that such movements are a historical necessity, but he also strongly expresses the sentiment that these new artistic movements lack what he views as revolutionary power. 

In 1945 he moved back to Hungary, where he became a member of parliament and a professor of aesthetics and the philosophy of culture at the University of Budapest. In 1956 he was a major figure in the Hungarian uprising, serving as minister of culture during the revolt. He was arrested and deported to Romania but was allowed to return to Budapest in 1957. Although stripped of his former power and status, he produced a steady output of critical and philosophical works. Lukács wrote more than 30 books and hundreds of essays. Among his works are Soul and Form (1911), a collection of essays that established his reputation as a critic; The Historical Novel (1955); and books on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Vladimir Lenin, Karl Marx and Marxism, and aesthetics.