Intellectuals among the workers. Reflection on the social question in the years 1845–1849 on the example of the development of the thought world and the political fate of two printers (Stephan Born and Karl Scherzer)
Abstract
The following study aims to capture the thought development of two members of the "seeking generation" coming of age intellectually and politically in the 1840s. The study traces the reflection on the social question of two skilled printers, journalists and, in the Revolution, politicians, Stephan Born (1824-1898) and Karl Scherzer (1821-1903).
The study is based on the assumption that the social question became one of the central themes of the Central European public sphere shortly before 1848, which contributed to a large extent to the concretization of the content of the forming political ideologies. In a contemporary context, the views on the social question of the two actors in the years 1845-1849, when the topic was intensively addressed, are traced and analysed.
The different stages of their lives and intellectual development in the period are analysed in chronological order. In the first part is devoted to their family background and intellectual resources, in the second part their first attempts at journalistic reflection on the social question are traced, and in the third part their views and fates in the revolution, when both stood at the forefront of workers' organizational efforts.