“Garden-School, Garden City and Garden-Hungary” – Pedagogical and Life Reforms Alternatives in Hungary between the Two World Wars

Abstract

The paper brings into focus the Hungarian pedagogical and life reform concepts in the interwar period. The reform alternatives criticized the modernism and reflected their negative influences. Most of these tendencies looked for the solution of land reform and social problems. The attention of Hungarian intellectuals turned to rural Hungary. Proponents of the “New Education” saw the solution in folk education and wanted to create a new middle class out of poor peasantry. The official reform and theoretical concepts aimed at preserving the agrarian character of Hungary for the future. The garden (nature, countryside) was a common theme among the initiatives. The study presents three achievements of the period: the garden city of Budapest (Wekerle settlement), the Garden-School (Szeged) and the Garden-Hungary concept as a third way theory in the form of “Quality Socialism” (by László Németh). All these educational and social reforms reinterpreted the categories of nation and folk. results of reform pedagogical the