Psychoanalysis and Modernity
The work of Freud has significantly influenced the development of the Enlightenment, understood here in a broader sense as the formation of modernity, in two ways. To begin with, Freud constructed an image of man that replaced the Cartesian self-conception with his own, shadier and more complicated view, which fused Enlightenment and Romantic-postromantic models. Furthermore, among all scientific disciplines psychoanalysis has probably followed the most daring route of inquiries concerning the concept of reality. It should therefore not be a surprise that we can find different, sometimes diametrically opposed interpretations of the concepts of reality and truth in the five texts which make up this section. It opens with an interview with dr. István Székács, the living classic of Hungarian psychoanalysis. In the first essay, – "The Changing Status of Reality in Psychoanalysis" – Csaba Szummer introduces four different attitudes towards the concept of reality in Freud’s studies. In "Nietzsche and Freud" Antal Bókay then examines how these two authors have changed the way in which modernity comprehended truth and human existence. The third text – Péter György Hárs „Psychoanalysis: beyond the modern principle of scientistic joy" – investigates the prospects of postmodern science, wishing to endue our thinking with a new identity and new faculties of orientation. In the fourth study, finally, Ferenc Erôs discusses a period in the reception of psychoanalysis in social psychology, stretching from Freud to Jürgen Habermas, to the second generation of the Frankfurt School.

The Peculiarity of Russian History
Two intricately related themes are introduced here. The first deals with the virtues and limitations of different, competing ideas concerning the peculiarity of the historical development of Russia, the second is a detailed reconstruction of Russian self-reflection on this deviation. Alexander Ianov (New York) discusses three different traditions in the description of the Russian peculiarity – the ‘Tartaric’, the ‘Byzantine’ and the ‘patrimonial’ model -, then briefly summarizes his own point of view. Alexander Ahiezer (Moscow), whose book caused a sensation in Russian intellectual life as soon as it appeared in 1991 presents, here a summary of his main theses, which together could be regarded as constituting a fourth interpretation of the Russian idiosynchrasy. Boris Groys (Köln) then gives an original analysis of the background of the so-called slavophile-westernist debate, a crucial episode in Russian self-reflection. Andrzej Walicki (USA) reviews the Russian intellectual tradition before 1917, which determined much of what still was to come, and pays special attention to the history of the intellectual movement that opposed the radical tradition and constituted its rival. The section is completed with comments from Hungarian authors. Zoltán Sz. Biró states that the way Russia evolved proved detrimental to the formation of a societal order which is based on civil and political freedom. Lastly Tamás Krausz points to the influence of ‘civilization racism’ and russophobia in judgements about Russia’s being difference.

Public Opinion Research by Telephone
On the occasion of its ten-year existence, the Social Science Research Information Centre (Tárki) organized a scientific conference, on February 17, 1995. One of the aims of the conference was to give an overview of the most important changes in Hungarian economy, society and politics over the last ten years, furthermore to give Hungarian social scientists an opportunity to discuss some current problems concerning the teaching of research methodology. The texts included in this section are edited excerpts from a round-table discussion entitled ‘How to do opinion research by telephone in Hungary?’. Participants represented the Hungarian Gallup Institute, Medián, Szonda Ipsos and the host Tárki. The discussion was introduced by József Tarjányi, as is this written version.
e-way
On the pages Replika devotes to cyberspatial existence, this time we transmit Robert Adriann’s "Infobahn Blues", which explains the difference between the meanings of ‘cyberspace’ and ‘infobahn’, and points to the role these metaphors play in the social understanding of the phenomenon they describe. Lance Strate’s article enters cybertime, the still little discussed notion of time in the world of computer networks, and illuminates its deviations from ‘real time’.