Magyar szociológiatörténeti füzetek, 2. (Budapest, 1986)

Summary

Biographical Data

1848 March 21st. The father, Mihály Pollacsek, was born in Dluha (which is today Dlhá nad Oravou, Czechoslovakia). He attended high school in Kassa (Kosice, also in Czechoslovakia today) and in the early 1870s he gained a degree in railroad engineering at the Zürich Eidgenössiche Technische Hochschule and in Edinburgh. As an "Ingenieur und Bauunternehmer" he constructed several railroads in Switzerland, Austria, Galicia and Hungary.

1862 His mother, Cecile Wohl, was born in Vilna (today Vilnius, U.S.S.R.). In 1879 she was sent to Vienna by her father, Alex Wohl, the learned and enlightened rabbi.

1881 Mihály Pollacsek and Cecile Wohl married. Six children were born of the marriage: Laura, Adolf, Károly (Karl), Zsófia, Mihály (Michael) and Pál. In the late 1880s the family moved to Budapest.

1886 October 25th. Károly Polányi, the third child, was born. He attended one of the best high schools in Budapest, where among his teachers there were several outstanding representatives of the Hungarian intellectual elite (Manó Beke, János Waldapfel, László Né- gyesy, Zoltán Gombocz and others). Leo Popper, the future philosopher, was also in the class. In the meantime his father's railroad construction business went bankrupt. Károly's schooling was partly financed by a scolarschip from the Jewish community of Budapest. The family spend their summers in a small town located in the Semmering, in Klamm (Austria), in the company of Anna Lvova and Samuel Klatschko. The Russian revolutionary Klatschko exerted great influence on the young man.

1890 The Society of Socialist Students was founded by his elder brother Adolf Polányi and his cousin Ödön Pór. While at high school Polányi became a member of the society.

183