Maria Markus was born in Poland in 1936 and received her education in philosophy at Lomonosow University in Moscow (1952-7), where she met and married Gyorgy Markus - one of her classmates - and followed him to Hungary upon graduation. Marisa's moving away meant also moving away from philosophy. Though she obtained a job at the Institute of Philosophy of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, she slowly drifted away from philosophy and joined Miklos Szanto in a small 'sociology group' in the same Institute. Marisa also started to work in industrial sociology and began her collaboration with Andras Hegedus, a former prime minister who, after a short exile in the USSR, began to learn sociology.