{"id":2970,"date":"2019-05-12T09:52:00","date_gmt":"2019-05-12T13:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.commonsensesociety.org\/?p=2970"},"modified":"2023-10-16T10:05:21","modified_gmt":"2023-10-16T14:05:21","slug":"john-lukacs-left-his-mark-on-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.commonsensesociety.org\/nl\/2019\/05\/12\/john-lukacs-left-his-mark-on-history\/","title":{"rendered":"John Lukacs Left His Mark on History"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Hungarian exile deflated communism and other horrors of the 20th century.<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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EXCERPT<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018Knowledge of the past is the very opposite of a burden,\u201d wrote John Lukacs in 2000, summing up the idea that defined his work as a historian. He wrote more than 30 books on communism, fascism, populism, World War II and the worsening shape of Western civilization. He died May 6 at 95.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Born in Budapest to a Catholic father and a Jewish mother, he came face to face with Nazism and communism before his 22nd birthday. After Nazi Germany occupied Hungary in 1944, he was conscripted into a forced-labor battalion. He managed to escape the Nazis, only to see his homeland become a Soviet puppet state after the war. He fled to America in 1946.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022\u2022\u2022<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lukacs taught generations of students and readers to approach every subject first by wrestling with its history. His most noteworthy philosophical book, \u201cHistorical Consciousness: The Remembered Past,\u201d urges students to grapple with historical facts and people, not abstractions. In this way, Lukacs argues against those who imbue the past with their own pet ideas, cutting to the core of so many isms, Marxism first among them, that claim to understand humanity\u2019s past, present and destiny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lukacs found popular success with his books on World War II and Winston Churchill, one of his heroes. He relished defending Western civilization. \u201cI knew, at a very early age,\u201d Lukacs wrote, \u201cthat \u2018the West\u2019 was better than \u2018the East\u2019\u2014especially better than Russia and Communism.\u201d But he also believed he was living through the West\u2019s decline, its culture becoming more vulgar and its people unable to understand, much less appreciate, their cultural inheritance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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At the time of publishing, Marion Smith was executive director of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Originally published in The Wall Street Journal<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lukacs argues against those who imbue the past with their own pet ideas, cutting to the core of so many isms, Marxism first among them, that claim to understand humanity\u2019s past, present and destiny.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":2971,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-op-ed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nJohn Lukacs Left His Mark on History - Common Sense Society<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"He wrote more than 30 books on communism, fascism, populism, World War II and the worsening shape of Western civilization.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.commonsensesociety.org\/nl\/2019\/05\/12\/john-lukacs-left-his-mark-on-history\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"nl_NL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"John Lukacs Left His Mark on History\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"He believed he was living through the West\u2019s decline, its culture becoming more vulgar and its people unable to understand, much less appreciate, their cultural inheritance.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.commonsensesociety.org\/nl\/2019\/05\/12\/john-lukacs-left-his-mark-on-history\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Common Sense Society\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-05-12T13:52:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-10-16T14:05:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.commonsensesociety.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/5.12.19-Smith-WSJ.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"585\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"mana\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"John Lukacs Left His Mark on History\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\""Knowledge of the past is the very opposite of a burden." 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