RECONSIDERATION

Stefan Zweig: A Witness

to the Collapse of Europe
Mordecai Roshwald

STEFAN ZWEIG (1881-1942) belongs to the

pasta past not distant enough to measure him against the wider setting of
Western civilization, yet not close
enough to be remembered by the bulk of
contemporary humanity. In other words,
he might have been relegated to that
blind spot of the past which is erased and
forgotten. If this is his lot, it must be
reversed. Zweig deserves to be remembered, reconsiderednot only for his
sake, but also for the benefit of the present
and future generations.
Zweig could be best described as a
man of letters in the broad and comprehensive sense, what is nowadays conveyed by a less felicitous term, a "generalist." His writings, diverse in both form
and theme, include poetry, numerous
novellas, a major novel, studies of historical figures (literary and otherwise), drama.
The topics range from anonymous "little"
men to individuals who shaped history.
His writings encompass real persons and
situations, and imaginary stories presented in a realistic way. He reproduced
in a polished literary form exotic legends,
and described in a vivid manner his own
life and time. It could be said that he
followed the adage nihil humani mihi
alienum.
MORDECAI ROSHWALD taught for twenty-five years
at the University of Minnesota.

He was not a lonely humanist writer

struggling for acceptance and recognition in an alien world. Zweig was a successful and popular writer ever since, at
the age of nineteen, he started contributing to the prestigious Viennese paper, the
Neue Freie Presse. His books were selling
very well in the German-speaking countries, as well as in translations in some
forty languages. His dramas were produced in leading theaters and some of his
stories were made into films. He could live
quite well on his royalties and reap the
fruits of his literary success. Indeed, to a
degree, he did that.
Yet it is not out of a happy life that most
literary achievements are forged. For,
despite the initial idyllic conditions, there
are elements of deep sadness and tragedy
in Zweig's subsequent times and life,
which found their expression in his literary workwhether fictional, semi-fictional, or autobiographical. It is this painting in chiaroscuroall too often more
oscuro than chiaro, the darkness prevailing over lightthat lends weight to
Zweig's legacy.
His self-perception was a composite of
various elements. He was born in Vienna,
at that time the capital of the AustroHungarian Empire; his mother tongue,
which he cultivated and in which he
wrote, was German. This made him a "citizen"a cultural citizenof the German359

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speaking world. Being a native of the

Austro-Hungarian Empire, and thus a subject of the Emperor, he owed political
allegiance to the multi-national state. This,
at least in his case, was not a mere legal
technicality. For Zweig, like many other
loyal subjects, was attached and devoted
to the peculiar political entity, consisting of many national-ethnic elements:
Germans, Italians, Czechs, Poles,
Ruthenians, Croats, Hungarians, Slovaks.
This ethnic melange added a distinctive
flavor to Zweig's national awareness. It
differed from German, French, or Italian
nationalism, in that it was based on ethnic pluralism. Zweig and many others saw
this as a distinction and a privilege. For
the diversity of ethnic and cultural elements createdor were believed to createan essentially tolerant and easygoing nationalism, a collective awareness
benefitting from the diversity of disparate cultures that stimulated each other. It
is this multicultural ambience which contributed to Zweig's self-awareness as a
European, as a member of a polity of the
advanced and advancing civilization, the
spearhead of human progress. Then he
was born into a well-to-do Jewish family.
Although his family was rather assimilated and he had little Jewish education,
he was aware of his roots, and proudly
acknowledged them.
The various components of Zweig's
affiliation and identity did not create any
conflicts of loyalty. The diverse elements
blended harmoniously and Zweig, like
many others, felt such belonging to different "republics" of humanity to be an assetcultural, social, human. This conviction could thrive in Vienna, the capital of
the Empire, its vibrant cultural center, a
place of intellectual and artistic ferment,
a city which could claim to be all-European more than any other capital in Europe. Thus, to Zweig's many loyalties one
should add his Viennese local patriotism,
which he eagerly expressed.
Zweig was born into an affluent, re-

spected, and enlightened family, which

facilitated his education and respected
his intellectual inclinations. There was
no pressure to steer him into the direction of a practical career. He could follow
his interests and study philosophy and
history, rather than law or medicine, and
engage in literary ventures. This freedom
did not spoil the young man, for he
plunged into an energetic life of literary
activity and remained a diligent and productive writer throughout his lifein
happy times and in periods of utmost
depression.
The outset of Zweig's life, prior to World
War I, promised a life of prosperity and
fulfilment in an era of consistent human
progress. Zweig describes this era in one
of his last books, The World of Yesterday.
The original title Die Welt von Gestern is
significantly complemented by the subtitle Erinnerungen eines Europders [Reminiscences of a European]. The book is a
remarkable autobiography of the writer
and his time: the personal and the historical are inextricably linked.
The years preceding the Great War are
described by Zweig as the age otSicherheit,
which means both certainty and security.
The sense of security was bound with the
trust in stabilitypolitical, economic,
social. Personal life was carefully planned
and proceeded according to pre-determined goals concerning personal advancement, income and expenditure,
holidays and the like. Insurance guaranteed the future. Moreover, there was trust
in scientific and technological progress,
and thus the future looked brighter than
the present. Social progress was advancing at its own pace and ever wider circles
of society were gradually encompassed
in political and personal benefits. Earlier
times, replete with wars and conflicts,
were regarded as manifestations of barbarism, never to recur. It is against the
background of such inveterate optimism
that the subsequent disillusionments
have to be measured. Indeed, writing from
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the depth of disenchantment, Zweig admits not to have completely discarded

the trust developed in the times of his
childhood:
Even from the abyss of horror, in which
today we grope around, half-blind with a
disturbed and broken soul, I always look
again to those old images of stars which
glistened over my childhood, and console
myself with the inherited confidence, that
this relapse will appear at one time merely as
an interval in the eternal rhythm of the
onward march.1

World War I, or, as it was called prior to

its sequel, the Great War, was atraumatic
awakening from the blissful dream of the
turn of the nineteenth century. The initial
public enthusiasm for the war and its
"just cause," by which Zweig himself was
swept, was followed by the carnage on
the battlefields, the misery and suffering
of the population in the regions pillaged
by the Russian invaders, and the consequent shock. Zweig turned into an opponent of war, along with his French friend
and famous writer, Romain Rolland (18661944). War was recognized as a reversal of
civilization, as the enemy of progress, of
humanity, of the basic creed of an enlightened Europe. As the carnage went on, it
seemed as if the world, as Zweig knew it
and identified with it, disintegrated and
collapsed. And with the downfall of the
world, his world, Zweig himself, as a writer
and ahuman being, was deeply wounded.
He lost what by now appeared to have
been his innocent beliefs, as did many of
his contemporaries. He could not anymore see the world as it had appeared to
be before the great calamity. The beautiful, harmonious, predictable world
changed into an indescribable horror.
If, gradually, the horror somewhat subsided in the post-war years, and a streak of
optimism asserted itself in Zweig's overall disposition, a new blow came from an
unexpected source. It was the rising to
power of Hitler and his Nazi Party in Ger-

many. Zweig was affected by it also in a

personal way, when his books were
burned, together with the works of other
"undesirable" writers, in Berlin in May
1933. He was, of course, guilty of two
cardinal sins. One, that being a Jew, he
polluted the German culture by writing in
German. The obvious means of preserving the purity of the Teutonic creation
and spirit was to ban Jewish books from
German readership. The other sin was
having been born a Jew, which was to be
punished by the murder of millions of
Zweig's kinsmen some years later. Mercifully, he did not live to witness that stage
of horror.
The banning of Zweig's books from
Germany hurt him deeply. He was cut off
from his main readership at the peak of his
success. His role as a writer, his raison
d'etre, the justification of his existence as
he saw it, was undermined. For he took his
writing seriously. It was the expression of
his personality, it was the extension of his
self. Though the translations of his books
were not affected, it was the German original which secured the intimate contact
with the readersmostly Germans. He
was condemned to exile from his cultural
milieu.
Then came a further blow that swept
the ground from under the feet of Zweig
and the Jews of Austria, in a more basic,
elemental way. It was the Anschluss, the
annexation of Austria by Nazi Germanyin
1938. A year later Europe plunged into
World War II. These dramatic stages of
seemingly unavoidable catastrophe had
a cataclysmic impact on Zweig, as is manifest from his works at the time, as well as
from his correspondence. Indeed, the
external events played havoc with his
mind and eventually led to his suicide.
Zweig sums up his life-experience in
the Preface to The World of Yesterday
his personal tragedy and the tragedy of
his generation. He points out the extraordinary burden allotted to him and his
contemporaries by history. Like a con-

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tinuous volcanic eruption, the political

upheavals of Europe unsettled them in
their innermost being. As he puts it, "as an
Austrian, as aJew, as awriter, as ahumanist and a pacifist, I have always been standing right there where the earth-quakes
were the fiercest. Three times they have
overthrown my home and existence, severed me from everything that once had
been and was gone, and with dramatic
force thrown me into the void, into the
already familiar 'I know not what.'"2 At the
time of writing these words Zweig could
not know the degree of depravity of Nazi
Germany and the depth of misery which it
was to inflict on millions who were at the
very crater of the volcano. Thus, his plight
was almost benign by comparison. Nonetheless, it was real, felt acutely, and expressed vividlyboth in direct statements and in fiction. One does not have to
descend into the lowest levels of the inferno in order to sense the misery, the
plight, the estrangement. Indeed, at the
lowest levels one may be past the capacity of intellectual reflection and cogent
argument.
The contrast between the past and the
present, revealed in Zweig's personal
plight, is drawn in clear and decisive
strokes:

Zweig expresses his pain and despair

not only in general terms, and not merely
in presenting his own plight. He also addresses the misfortunes of other individualshunted, denigrated, persecuted.
Here is his description of scenes in Vienna,
following the annexation by the Nazis:
"Now it was not merely theft and plunder,
but every private lust for revenge was
given free rein. University professors had
to scrub the streets with bare hands, pious grey-bearded Jews were dragged into
the temple and forced by hooting youths
to kneel and to shout in unison 'Heil
Hitler.' Innocent people were hounded
like rabbits...." If before this new regime
the murder of a single man would shock
the world, now a single man did not count
at all.4
Zweig's heart went out to the downtrodden and persecuted Jews, his kinsmen, but his sympathy was also extended
to human beings as such. Thus he writes
in one of his letters: "People speak so
lightly of bombardment, but when I read
of houses collapsing, I collapse with
them."5
If one may be tempted to speculate
that it was the horror of the Nazi conduct
and of World War II that awakened the
humane sentiments of Zweig, his own
testimony
shows that he was moved to
I was born in 1881 in a great and mighty
such
compassion
much earlier, by witEmpire, in the Hapsburg monarchy...: it has
nessing
human
suffering
in World War I.
been wiped out without a trace. I grew up in
Referring
to
his
experiences
in the Great
Vienna, the two-thousand-year-old supernational metropolis, and had to leave it like War, he writes: "Today I know: without all
that I suffered then during the war, through
a criminal, before it was degraded to a
German provincial city. My literary work, in feelings of participation and anticipation
the language 1 wrote it, was burned to ashes [mitfiihlend, vorausfiihlend], I would have
in the very land where my books had made
remained the writer I had been before the
friends of millions of readers. Thus I belong
war, 'pleasantly moved' [angenehm
nowhere anymorea stranger everywhere,
bewegt],... but never seized, grasped, hit in
a guest at best. Moreover, Europe, the homemy bowels.... In trying to help others, I
land that is my heart's choice, is lost to me,
have helped myself."6 Much as Zweig apever since it for the second time suicidally
preciated the self-contained domain of
tore itself to pieces in a fraternal war. Against
aesthetics, his overriding passion became
my will, 1 have become a witness to the most
the wish to help humanity. As he wrote to
terrible defeat of reason and the wildest
triumph of brutality in the chronicle of times .3
Remain Rolland in 1918: "My aim would
be one day to become not a great critic or
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a literary celebrity but a moral authority."7

Compassion and moral commitment
are characteristic of Zweig's Jewish contemporary writers, such as Arthur
Schnitzler, Franz Werfel, Josef Roth, Jakob
Wassermann, and, in a more veiled manner, Franz Kafka. This penchant may have
been linked to Jewish tradition and even
to the moral exhortations of the Bible and
the impassioned appeals of the Prophets.
Zweig's moral commitment and sense
of compassion are reflected in many of his
writings, notably in his only novel,
UngedulddesHerzens, or Beware ofPityin
the English translation. Indeed, Zweig
offers a philosophical description of the
meaning of compassion, as a motto to his
book. It succinctly sums up what is elaborated in the story, as in his many other
writings.
For there are two kinds of compassion. One,
the weak-spirited and sentimental, which is
really only impatience of the heart to get rid
as fast as possible of the painful involvement in an alien calamity, a compassion
which is not compassion at all, but an instinctive defence of one's own soul from the
alien suffering. And the other one, the only
one that countsthe unsentimental, but
creative compassion, that knows what it
wants, and is determined patiently and compassionately to endure it all to the limit of
one's capacity, and even beyond it.8

Yet, with all the compassion and all the

moral fervor, Zweig did not delude himself as to the power of the commitment,
the good will, the printed word, the logos,
the idea, to confront reality and shape it
effectively. He was far from being the optimist who decides on the strength of his
good intentions that reality must conform to the demands of morality and reason. If anything, he was more easily swayed
to pessimism and despair than to optimism and hope. This is reflected in an
indirect manner by an aside on the nature
of the chess game. It appears in one of his
last writings, a novella which is perhaps

his best, Die Schachnovelle [in English

The Royal Game].
We need not, in the present context,
outline the story, which takes place
against the background of the Nazi takeover of Austria and the methods employed
by the Nazis to attain their objectives
also in respect of a Catholic lawyer, as in
this case. The tottering and the collapse
of civilization inform the story throughout. The setting is one often encountered
in the novels of Graham Greene. What we
want to highlight is a detached, philosophical analysis of chess game by Zweig
which has implications forindeed symbolizeshis vision of the human condition, or the precarious situation of humanity with respect to reality.
I knew from my own experience about the
mysterious attraction of the "royal game,"
the only game invented by man, which in a
sovereign manner places itself outside
[entzieht sich] the tyranny of chance and
accords its laurels to the spirit only.... Is it
not also a science [Wissenschaft], an art
[Kunst], a unique tie [Bindung] of opposites; very old and yet eternally new, mechanical in its arrangement and effective
only through imagination, limited in a geometrically rigid space, and yet limitless in its
combinations, always developing and yet
sterile, a kind of thinking which leads to
nothing, a mathematics which calculates
nothing, an art without works...and nonetheless proved to be longer lasting in its
being and presence [Sein undDasein] than
all the books and works, the only game that
belongs to all thenations and all the times....9

Zweig's attitude to chess is palpably

ambivalent: he admires its universality
and timelessness, but deplores that this
self-contained perfection is impotent to
affect life, to be a force for the good. This
appears to be a complaint about the separation between logic and reality, between
logos and life, between the world of ideas
and the lot of man. Ultimately, Zweig may
well express here the frustration of the
men of spiritwhether philosophers,

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writers, or other individuals bent on doing goodin being unable to affect the
condition of humanity and to avert the
self-imposed calamities.
Was there any domain in which Zweig
could have found anchor? Was there any
belief which could offer him a refuge from
the despair of an open-eyed idealist, striving for good and reason and facing evil
and madness? Conceivably, his Jewish
roots and affiliation might have offered
him support and a spiritual way out of the
despair, if not a physical refuge. Looking
into his writings, such an eventuality cannot be ruled out. There is an explicit
testimony as to his Jewish consciousness, stated in an interview in 1931: "Although I do not come from a rigorously
Jewish family, I have been vitally interested in Jewish problems all my life, vitally aware of the Jewish blood that is in
me, ever since I have been conscious of
it."10
There is a clear element of pride in
Zweig's Jewish consciousness, when he
describes his own Viennese Jewish milieu, and expands his comments to Jews
in general. The Jewish, seemingly bourgeois, notion of the "good family" [gute
Familie], he writes, is not to be confused
with thequesttoberich, usually regarded
as the typical aim of the Jew.
Nothing is further from the truth [asserts
Zweig]. [Riches are only] a means to the true
aim.... The essential wish of the Jew, his
immanent ideal, is the ascent into the spiritual, onto a higher cultural stratum. Already
in the eastern orthodox Judaism...this supremacy of the will to the spiritual over the
merely material finds a concrete expression: the devout, the biblical scholar, is a
thousand times more esteemed in the community than the rich man.

Thus, the poorest peddler will spare no

effort and sacrifice to enable at least one
son to pursue higher studies, and a family
will pride itself if it can claim a connection to a scholar, a professor, a musi-

ciana man of higher culture."

Zweig delves deeper into Judaism in
his poetical drama Jeremias [Jeremiah],
written in 1915-1917 during the painful
experience of the Great War. !t was a
pacifist response to the ongoing slaughter, and, at the same time, an attempt to
deal with the distinct plight of the Jews.
But Zweig also attempts to find a universal answer and consolation in the prophetic message, or in the message as he
understands it.
One issue which Zweig raises is the
perennial problem of the relationship
between Might and Right. The answer he
offers accords with the prophetic message and with Judaism at large. The claim
of Might to control human destiny is denied in the name of the rule of God and the
principles of Right and divine justice. In
the drama, Jeremiah after the fall of Jerusalem is offered a position of honor and
privilege by the victorious Babylonian
ruler, in recognition of the prophet's opposition to Israel's revolt and his prediction of the disaster to follow. Jeremiah
spurns the king's offer as conveyed by his
messengers. He does so out of commiseration with his people's lot, and because he
disdains the Babylonian king's ruthlessness and cruelty: "I shall not enter the
palace, in which the steps are scrubbed
by the daughters of my master, turned
into servants.... 1 do not want favour from
the cruel, nor mercy from the merciless...."12 The messengers' outrage at
Jeremiah's defiance of the "king of kings"
meets with a scornful comment on the
evanescence of human might and its carrier, the king: "Who is he that 1 ought to be
afraid of him?... Is he not a human worm
and does not death wait behind his sleep
and decay in his body?"13 Moreover, the
king is evil and retribution awaits him:
"Greatly has he enslaved Israel, but he will
be enslaved sevenfold.... Woe to the confounder [Verstorer], for he will be confounded, and woe to the plunderer, for he
will be plundered!"14

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Yet, how does this defiance of might

and punishment of the mighty and wicked
console the victims of iniquity and cruelty? How does the eventual downfall of
ambitious kings and tyrants resolve the
problem of suffering on the part of the
vanquished? What is the prophecy of
consolation for Israel and for the meek of
the earth? Here Zweig resorts to the idea
that there is some meaning in suffering.
For Israel, the people of God, becomes
aware of Him only in the depth of suffering ["erst in der Tiefe des Leidens werden
wirseinergewahr"]. "Whom He loves, him
He pushes down into the depths of life."
[ "Wen er liebt, den stosst er hinab in die
Tiefe des Lebens."]K Thus, the conclusion is to submit to the suffering and see
in it redemption:
Suffering is a test and test is an elevation,
Humiliation brings us close to God,
Every fall brings us higher into His domains,
For only the vanquished know about Him.16
[Leiden istPrufung und Prilfung Erhebung,
Erniedrigung macht uns gottesnah,
JederSturz ftihrt hoher in seine Reiche,
Denn nur die Besiegten wissen urn ihn. ]

While the Might-Right issue is tackled

in the Israelite-prophetic spirit, the praise
of suffering and its religious justification
is closer to the spirit of Christianity. That
Zweig resorts to such an answer may well
be due to his despairing of the resolution
of the Might-Right issue in a satisfactory
way. Yet it is noteworthy that Zweig suggests a Zionist interpretation and solution of the Jewish predicament in an invented legend, which he published in
1937,entitledDer6egra6eneLeuc/iter/T/ie
Buried Candelabrum].
The story itself need not concern us
only its symbolical message. It revolves
round the golden Menorah (candelabrum), part of the Roman loot from the
Temple in Jerusalem. The Menorah sym-

bolizes the Jewish faith and hope and is

pursued with devotion by Jews who want
to protect it from alien looters, after Rome
itself became the victim of conquest by
the Vandals. Ultimately the Menorah is
buried in the land of Israel, awaiting there
the national redemption. That it is the
candelabrum, the carrier of eternal light,
that is buried underground, may have a
symbolical meaning: the Jewish light, and
hope, is buried in the earth, awaiting the
moment of the return of the people to
their land, when the Menorah will be lit
again and the suffering of the people
ended.
Yet Zweig does not leave the meaning
hidden, inviting the reader's interpretation. The story conveys the message in a
dream of the protagonist, an old man
totally committed from childhood to the
preservation of the holy object. In his
dream he sees a large groaning crowd, an
entire people, on the march from time
immemorial. He murmurs to himself:" 'No
one should be kept [wandering] like this....
No people can continue to live without
home and without goal.... A light must be
kindled for them....' "n And, indeed, at the
conclusion of the dream, he sees the
wandering people at rest in a land fruitful
and peaceful, a land of vineyards, fields of
grain and flowers. "Now the Lampstand
rose higher in the sky and shone more
gloriously. Its lights were like the light of
the sun, illuminating sky and land to the
very horizon."18
In this story Zweig seems to identify
with traditional orthodox Judaism, seeing the exile as a catastrophe and hoping
for a messianic delivery. There is no redemption outside the land of Israel, in
the diaspora. The calamity is the consequence of the alienation of the people
from their land. By the same token, the
story conveys the Zionist message: only
by returning to the land of Israel and reestablishing there a normal life, tilling
the ancestral land, will the plight of the
Jews come to an end, a happy end. Zweig

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may not have embraced the Zionist, let

alone the traditional-orthodox, belief
wholeheartedly. Yet, the fact that he chose
to write this story at one of the darkest
hours of his and of European Jewry's life,
indicates that he looked for a message of
consolation in Judaism. There seemed to
be no glimmer of hope for his Austrian
and European allegiance in 1937; Judaism, with its long experience of gloom and
doomand, at the same time, of resilience
and survivalextended a helpful hand,
which Zweig grasped in desperation.
Yet Zweig was neither an orthodox Jew
nor a committed Zionist. His ties with his
Jewish heritage were not strong enough
to counter his despair of the European
world, which was the air he breathed.
Also the reality of the military success of
Nazi Germany and all it meant for the
future of Europephysically and spirituallycould not be erased by any sentiment or yearning. The worldhis world
was collapsing.
Zweig remained well-to-do and was not
in personal danger, having escaped to
England, and subsequently moved to Brazil, where he was held in high regard and
where he wrote a book about that country. Yet the life of a refugee who lost his
spiritual anchor, who was torn out of his
world, whose past was erased and whose
future was all but hopeless, seemed deprived of any worth. As he put it to a
friend: "What sense is there in living on as
one's own shadow?"19
As Zweig was approaching his sixtieth
birthday, his resigned and dejected mood
grew ever stronger. While in good physical health, he suffered from the sickness
of the age and of the calamity which
seemed to loom larger by the day. The
horrors of war, the great advancement of
the German armies into Russia, and the
fall of Singapore at the hands of the Japanese armyall seemed to point to a likely
victory of the Axis powers. And so, after
his sixtieth birthday, he committed suicide, jointly with his wife, in their home in

Petropolis, Brazil. In a letter he left, dated

February 22,1942, he refers to "the world
of my own language [which ] has been lost
and my spiritual homeland, Europe,
[which] has destroyed itself." His long
years of homeless wandering have exhausted him. "So I hold it better to conclude in good time and with an erect
bearing a life for which intellectual labour
was always the purest joy and personal
freedom the highest good on this earth."20
In what way is Stefan Zweig relevant to
our time and age, besides leaving a literary legacy which holds a place of honor in
European literature of the first half of the
twentieth century? The most obvious
answer to this question points to the
tragedy of a man of letters whose personal life was intertwined with the high
culture of the era and the brute forces
bent on annihilating the achievements of
humanity. The quest of beauty and of
decency, the cultivation of a good life and
fair society, was brutally assailed by two
world wars and wanton cruelty, with the
forces of evil and unreason obtaining the
upper hand over the traditions of good
sense and cultural creativity. Zweig, in
his personal life and in the way he perceived and articulated the calamities of
his era, reflects the tragic history of the
half century in a remarkable way.
But it is not only the world of yesterday
that Zweig brings to our attention. For
even if yesterday is past and gone, tomorrow always waits in the wings, ready to
make its appearance. By looking at the
world of yesterday, we may be warned
about the world of tomorrow. Seemingly,
the present situation is quite different.
Europe seems to have learned its lesson.
The final form of the European entity has
not yet been determined, and its extent
has not yet been defined, but armed hostility in Western and Central Europe is
virtually unimaginable. Indeed, even the
menace of war between Western Europe
and its Eastern neighbor, the mighty Russian power, has receded. The expectaFall 2002

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tions of Zweig in his early years of a peaceful Europe seem to be finally vindicated.
Can, then, the nightmare of the intervening decades be erased, and the gloomy
forebodings of Zweig in his later years
swept away?
Alas, this does not seem to be the case.
For the forces of evilto put it in metaphysical termshave not been annihilated. They may have left the European
arena, or most of it, but they have regrouped and made their appearance in a
new form. They do not march in ostentatious army formations, but they hide in
shadowy places and strike with murderous stealth at unexpected locations.
Moreover, they can take advantage of
advanced technology to inflict catastrophic damage.
In comparing the world of yesterday,
as presented by Zweig, with the present
situation, we may look with satisfaction
at the material progress and social advancement of Europe and Western Civilization. Zweig would have been happy to
see the higher standard of living and its
fairer distribution in the advanced part of
the world. That is what he anticipated
one-hundred years ago.
This gratifying picture does not extend into the domain of cultural life. In
this respect one may look with longing to
a time and place like the Vienna of Zweig's
youth, when the city enjoyed a first-class
theatre and opera, as well as lighter entertainment of high quality, when gifted

writers created literary works of great

merit, when humanistic education
shaped the aesthetic sensibilities of the
generation.
Then there is the example of Zweig and
several of his contemporaries who represent the ideal of the socially involved
writer, of the concerned artist, of the compassionate man of ideas. In an age when
publishing increasingly becomes an industry, writing a commercial undertaking, and excellence is measured by financial rewards, one can only cast a nostalgic look at a time when writing was evaluated by its intrinsic worth and the remuneration was incidental to literary worth.
Is all this a cause for despair? Not necessarily. Zweigwas inclined to pessimism,
though it has to be conceded that he had
good reasons for such an attitude. Our
own confrontation with born-again evil
puts us on alert, and justly so. The more
aware we are of the menace, the better
the chances of overcoming it.
As to the cultural malaise, it is not
universally recognized as such in an age
which is wary of "judgmental" statements.
Unless the creations of writers, musicians,
and entertainers are subjected to a substantive evaluation, and are not judged
solely by their financial success, there is
not even a beginning of a reversal of
present cultural trends. Perhaps looking
backwards to Zweig's World of Yesterday
may help us to lay the foundation for a
saner and better World of Tomorrow.

I.Stefan Zweig, Die Welt von Gestern, 1944. English

translation, The World of Yesterday, 1944, The
Viking Press, New York 1945, 18 [5]. The translation in our text does not necessarily follow the
English version, but the location in that version is
indicated in brackets. 2. Op. cit., 1 [v.]. 3. Op. cit.,
8 [vi.]. 4. Op. cit., 460-461 [405-406]. 5. Quoted from
D.A. Prater, European of Yesterday, Oxford, 1972,
352. 6. Die Welt von Gestem, 291 [253-254]. 7. D.A.
Prater, 107. 8. Stefan Zweig, Ungedulddes Herzens
(Stockholm, 1943). 9. Schachnouelle, 1942. Quoted
here, in the present writer's translation, from Das
Stefan Zweig Buch (Frankfurt am Main, 1981), 350.

10. D.A. Prater, 190. 11. Die Welt von Gestern, 2526 [11-12]. 12. Stefan Zweig, Jeremias, Eine
dramatische Dichtung in neun Bildem. Quoted from
Stefan Zweig, Die Dramen (Frankfurt am Main,
1964), 483.13. Op. cit., 483.14. Op. cit., 484.15. Op.
cit., 496. 16. Op. cit., 500. 17. Der begrabene
Leuchter (Vienna, 1937). Quoted from the English
translation. The Buried Candelabrum, in Stefan
Zweig, Jewish Legends (New York, 1987), 110-111.
18. Op. cit., 114-115. 19. D.A. Prater, 300. 20. The
original wording can be found in Das Stefan Zweig
Buch, 339.

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