Karl Polanyi described himself as having lived the ‘world life’ of a serial émigré. Following his move from Budapest to Vienna in 1919, he then, in 1934, and again under political pressure, emigrated from Vienna to England before finally ending up in the United States.
Chris says: “It was his wife, Ilona Duczyńska, who was the real revolutionary. She was the deeper shade of red within their relationship. It’s often the case with us academics. We’re fairly staid, we’re fairly boring; we think too deeply to be too interesting, but we often have much more interesting partners and I think this was certainly the case for Karl Polanyi.”
Ilona Duczyńska and Karl Polanyi married in 1920.