Szabadkőművesség és modernizáció Magyarországon

According to the thesis of the paper Hungarian Freemasonry contributed to the processes that laid the foundations for modernization in Hungary in two periods: in the last third of the 18th century, and between 1886 and 1914. The question posed in the conference call for papers is very relevant to its influence and role: does a critical attitude towards the status quo mean disrupting the established order, or is it one possible response to the instability of the troubled order? This constructive criticism, as the call suggests, does not merely reject, criticize, or deny the old world, but rather formulates statements, content, and programs in opposition to it. What we previously thought or believed to be good, just, true, and beautiful turns out not to be so: what is good, just, true, and beautiful is now different. Masonic lodges were workshops for developing such ideas. I use modernization as a contemporary analytical concept: 18th-century sources use this term as reference to innovation and the need for change, while at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the concept of modernity was used primarily in relation to innovative developments in arts and social sciences.

Keywords: modernization, freemasonry, social criticism