Jiří Musil and the East European Origins of the New Urban Sociology

• Published in: Sociologický časopis Vol. 48; no. 6; pp. 1156 - 1163
• Main Author: Szelenyi, Ivan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Prague AV ČR Czech Academy of Sciences - Institute of Sociology 01.01.2012; AV ČR - Akademie věd České republiky - Sociologický ústav; Sociologický ústav Akademie Věd České Republiky; Institute of Sociology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic
• Subjects: Capitalism; Cities; Czech Republic; Ethnicity; Europe; Human ecology; Inequality; Literature; Musil, Jiri; Public housing; Social psychology; Social Sciences; Social structure; Socialism; Sociology; Training; TRIBUTE TO JIŘÍ MUSIL; Urban planning; Urban Sociology; Urbanism; Czech Republic; Czechoslovakia
• ISSN: 0038-0288; 2336-128X

It must have been mid-September 1963. The author's train arrived from Budapest in the middle of the afternoon at Hlavni nadrazi in Prague. This was his first ever trip to Prague. He had just joined the newly created Sociological Research Group of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and he was on his way to turn himelf into a sociologist. He was 'trained' -- it was not much of a training -- as an economist at what used to be Karl Marx University of Economics, spent some time at the Hungarian Bureau of Statistics, where in its excellent library he began to read sociological literature and published in 1962 one not too exciting literature review on the 'sociology of leisure', which instantly turned me instantly into a sociologist. A young, tall, good-looking man was standing on the platform holding a sign with his name on it. He shook hands with Jiri Musil which his host introduced himself, in a deep, warm voice.