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Karl Korsch (August 15, 1886 – October 21, 1961) was a German Marxist theoretician. Along with György Lukács, Korsch is considered to be one of the major figures responsible for laying the groundwork for Western Marxism in the 1920s. ==Life== Karl Korsch was born in the small rural village of Tostedt (near Hamburg) to Carl August Korsch and his wife Therese on August 15, 1886. Although Karl’s father worked as a secretary in a city hall bureau, he was deeply devoted to studying the philosophy of Leibniz in his private life. Always longing for something more urban and intellectual, Carl August made the decision to relocate his family west to a village just outside of Meiningen when Karl was eleven years old. The move not only allowed the elder Korsch to obtain employment at a local bank (where he eventually rose to the position of vice president), it also gave his children the opportunity to receive a better education. Karl, who showed great intellectual promise at a young age, excelled as a student during his years of schooling at Meiningen. Beginning in 1906, Korsch successively attended universities in Munich, Geneva, and Berlin, studying various subjects in preparation for a more concentrated study in the field of law. Korsch then entered the University of Jena (incidentally, the same university that awarded Karl Marx his doctorate in philosophy in 1841) to begin working on his law degree in 1908. When he was not occupied with his studies, Korsch was extremely active in the ''Freie Studenten'', a left-of-center student group which pushed for further liberalization of the school’s code of behavior. Korsch also found time to become editor of the student newspaper, to which he also contributed articles. In addition, Korsch organized and participated in lectures that featured prominent socialist speakers such as Eduard Bernstein and Karl Liebknecht. Surprisingly, all of these extracurricular activities did not seem to have the slightest detrimental effect on Korsch’s academic performance since he managed to graduate from the University of Jena’s law school with the highest honors in 1911. It was around this time that Korsch met Hedda Gagliardi, whom he would eventually marry. Korsch received a grant in 1912 to travel to England and work on translating and writing a commentary to a legal text by Sir Ernest Schuster. During this time, Korsch became a member of the Fabian Society, a reform-minded socialist organization. Korsch’s stay in England came to an end in the summer of 1914 when he received orders to report to his military regiment at Meiningen for maneuvers. Despite being opposed to a war that he knew was on the horizon, Korsch nevertheless made the decision to return to his native country because in the words of his wife: “He wanted to be with the masses, and they would be in the army.” At the start of the war, Korsch initially held the rank of lieutenant but was quickly demoted to sergeant for daring to voice his objections to the German Army’s invasion of neutral Belgium. However, these disciplinary measures did little to shake Korsch of his pacifist convictions; throughout the war, he refused to carry any sort of weapon into battle. According to Hedda Korsch, Karl’s rationale for going into combat unarmed was “that it made no difference, since you were just as safe with or without a weapon: the point was that you were safe neither way.” Instead of fighting, Korsch made it his personal mission to save as many lives as he could. As the conflict wore on, Korsch was decorated several times and was even re-promoted to the rank of captain. More important than these official accolades, Korsch’s strong moral character and reputation for bravery under fire helped him garner the respect of many of the men in his company. When widespread unrest began to sweep through the German military in 1917, this company established a soldiers’ soviet with Korsch being elected by his fellow soldiers to serve as one of this soviet’s delegates. This "red company" was one of the last to be demobilized, a process which occurred in January 1919. From 1917 to 1933, he was active in leftwing politics in Germany, leaving on the night of the Reichstag fire. After a brief stay in England and Denmark, he and his wife settled in the USA in 1936, teaching at Tulane University, New Orleans, and working at the International Institute for Social Research, New York. Karl Korsch died in Belmont, Massachusetts on October 21, 1961. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Karl Korsch」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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