Identity Statement

Reference Code

HU OSA 439

Title

Gertrud Bortstieber Personal Papers

Date(s)

1900 - 1963

Description Level

Fonds

Extent and medium (processed)

20 Archival boxes, 2.5 linear meters

Context

Name of creator(s)

Bortstieber, Gertrud

Administrative / Biographical history

Gertrud Bortstieber (other forms of her name are: Ottilie Gertrud Bortstieber, Jánosi Imréné, Jánosi Gertrud, Gertrud Janosi, Jánossy Gertrud, Яносси Гертруда Людвиговна, Lukács Jánosi Gertrud, Lukács Györgyné, Lukács Gertrud, Lukács Gertrúd, Lukácsné), was born in Vágújhely (Nové Mesto nad Váhom, Slovakia), on March 2, 1882, into a secular Jewish family. Her father, Lajos (Ludwig), was a medical doctor, head of the local school board, and a freemason. Her mother, Natália (Natalie), was a piano teacher and member of feminist associations. Natália's brother Ferenc (Franz), was, too, a music instructor.

The only girl in her class, Bortstieber did her high school baccalaureate in 1900 at the Állami Főreáliskola (Main Realgymnasium) in Pozsony (Bratislava, Slovakia). Following its 1895 opening to female students, Gertrud Bortstieber was among the first women to enroll at the Budapest University of Sciences (today: Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem), where she attended courses in mathematics and in physics.

In 1908, Bortstieber converted to Catholicism and married astronomer Imre Jánosi, with whom she had two sons: Lajos (1912), and Ferenc (1914). The family lived in Mátyásföld, in the vicinity of Budapest. After a few years, Jánosi fell ill, and Bortstieber became increasingly interested in the workers’ movement. In 1918, she started a relationship with the literary critic, aesthetician and philosopher György Lukács (also known as Georg Lukács, 1885-1971), who in that same year—admittedly under Bortstieber’s influence—joined the Communist Party. In 1919, Bortstieber and Lukács’s daughter Anna was born.

Because of the role he played in the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic, in the autumn of 1919 Lukács went into exile and settled in Vienna. Following the death of Imre Jánosi in early 1920, Gertrud Bortstieber and her three children, too, moved to Vienna (Hütteldorf), where the Lukács-Bortstieber couple and the children would spend, with some interruptions, the rest of the decade.

Bortstieber married György Lukács in late 1923, in Vienna.

During the Vienna years, Bortstieber got acquainted with the works of Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemburg, Otto Bauer and Nikolai Bukharin. A member of the Austrian Communist Party, Bortstieber attended, and later lectured at, clandestine evening school seminars in both Austria and Germany.

In 1930, Lukács and Bortstieber moved, not entirely voluntarily, to Moscow, then to Berlin (1931-1933), and then again to Moscow (1933-1945), leaving the children behind in Vienna and in Berlin to study. While in Moscow, in addition to executing secretarial duties for Lukács, Bortstieber earned a living as a translator and editor of works on mathematics and socialist economy. She also managed to bring over her younger son Ferenc, and her daughter Anna, to Moscow. Lajos, who studied physics in Vienna, and later in Berlin, ended up in England, and then in Ireland, where he remained until his return to Budapest in 1950.

In 1945, the Soviet leadership permitted the couple to return to Hungary. While her husband became, for a short time, involved in the cultural apparatus of the new People’s Republic, Bortstieber continued doing secretarial work for Lukács, including the typing up of Lukács’s writings, and managing Lukács’s correspondence with editors. After 1950, all three children of Bortstieber lived in Hungary, where her two sons, Lajos and Ferenc, had successful careers in physics and in economics, respectively. After her return from the Soviet Union, Anna—Lukács and Bortstieber's daughter—became a chemical engineer.

In November, 1956, following the crushing of the Hungarian Revolution, Bortstieber and her husband took refuge at the Yugoslav Embassy in Budapest. From here, along with other members of Imre Nagy's circle, Bortstieber and Lukács were deported to Snagov, Romania.




After their return to Hungary (April 1957), Bortstieber and Lukács lived a withdrawn life in their Budapest apartment. Bortstieber continued assisting Lukács in his work, while also devoting much focus to her ever growing family.

Gertrud Bortstieber passed away on April 28, 1963, in Budapest.

Archival history

Between 1971 and 2018, the documents constituting subfonds HU OSA 439-1 were kept in the Lukács Archive established in Lukács and Bortstieber's apartment at No. 2 Belgrád rakpart, in Budapest. Since its creation in 1971, and until its closing in 2018, the Lukács Archive was an organizational unit of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. During much of this time, it functioned under the supervision of the Academy's Institute of Philosophy, which Lukács helped establish back in 1957. Between 1991 and 2006, and from 2011 to 2018, the Lukács Archive was subordinated to the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. On the closing of the Lukács Archive on May 25, 2018, please read further on the website of the [Lukács Archive International Foundation](https://www.lana.info.hu/en/front-page/). For information regarding other materials formerly held by the Lukács Archive in Lukács and Bortstieber's apartment, please visit this dedicated webpage on the website of the [Hungarian Academy of Sciences](https://konyvtar.mta.hu/index.php?name=lukacs). In the summer of 2018, the heirs of Gertrud Bortstieber withdrew Bortstieber’s papers from the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. In October 2019, they donated the Bortstieber papers—a total of 18 archival boxes—to Blinken OSA. In October 2020, the heirs of Gertrud Bortstieber donated further documents to Blinken OSA (subfonds HU OSA 439-2). These documents have never been part of the Bortstieber papers kept in the Lukács Archive, and are therefore likely unknown to researchers. Although they fit neatly into the original collection structure established by Lukács Archive archivist Ferenc Csóka at the beginning of the 1970s, they have been archived as a separate subfonds.

Content and Structure

Scope and Content (Abstract)

The fonds contains the papers of matematician, economist and translator Gertrud Bortstieber (1882-1963), second wife of aesthetician, philosopher and literary critic György Lukács (also known as Georg Lukács, 1885-1971).

Scope and Content (Narrative)

The personal papers of Gertrud Bortstieber cover a wide range of genres and topics. They include educational, professional or Communist party attestations, curricula vitae, writings, various notes and translations authored by Gertrud Bortstieber, as well as extensive correspondence with Bortstieber's family and her circle of friends and professional contacts.

The fonds is an important historical source in its own right. At the same time, it complements all other known sources on György Lukács, particularly with its vast amounts of information on Gertrud Bortstieber's role in the creation and dissemination of Lukács's oeuvre.

The main languages of the documents are (in this order): German, Hungarian, and Russian. A small number of documents are in English, French, Italian, and Romanian.

The fonds is organized in two subfonds. Subfond HU OSA 439-1 consists of the 18 green archival boxes originating from the Lukács Archive. Subfonds HU OSA 439-2 is made up of the accruals (mostly family correspondence) received from Gertrud Bortstieber's heirs in 2020. The latter materials are now preserved in 2 standard archival boxes typically used at Blinken OSA.

Accruals

Not Expected

Conditions of Access and Use

Conditions governing access

Not Restricted

Languages

English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Romanian; Moldavian; Moldovan, Russian

Allied Materials

Publication note

The life and eventual closing of the Lukács Archive was thoroughly documented by Hungarian photographer Gabriella Csoszó.

In May 2021, Blinken OSA archivist Mark László-Herbert wrote a blog post about the Bortstieber collection.

On June 26, 2021, Blinken OSA hosted a series of panels on the situation of public collections in Hungary, moderated by Márton Gulyás of Partizán. In this recording available on Youtube, the discussion of the situation of the Lukács Archive begins at 1:43:20.

Description Control

Archivist's note

Processed by Mark László-Herbert, March 31, 2022.