Austrian literature
Encyclopedia
Austrian literature is the literature
written in Austria
, which is mostly, but not exclusively, written in the German language
. Some scholars speak about Austrian literature in a strict sense from the year 1806 on when Francis II
disbanded the Holy Roman Empire
and established the Austrian Empire
. A more liberal definition incorporates all the literary works written on the territory of today's and historical Austria, especially when it comes to authors who wrote in German. Thus, the seven volume history of Austrian literature by the editors Herbert Zeman and Fritz Peter Knapp is titled History of the Literature in Austria. The Austrian literature must be considered in close connection with German literature in general, and the borderline between proper German literature and the Austrian one is porous, due to rich and complex cultural exchanges.
There are and have been many tries to work out a complete definition of Austrian literature. Something most people can agree on is that there are certain differences and distinctive motives common in this literature which make it stand apart from other literary traditions.
From the 19th century onward, Austria contributed some of the greatest names in modern literature. It was the home of novelists / short-story writers Adalbert Stifter
, Arthur Schnitzler
, Franz Werfel
, Stefan Zweig
, Franz Kafka
, Thomas Bernhard
, Joseph Roth
, or Robert Musil
, of poets Georg Trakl
, Rose Ausländer
, Franz Grillparzer
, Rainer Maria Rilke
or Paul Celan
. Famous contemporary playwrights and novelists are Elfriede Jelinek
and Peter Handke
, well-known essayists are Robert Menasse
and Karl-Markus Gauß
. Yet, it is hard to speak of an Austrian literature prior to that period. In the early 18th century, Lady Mary Wortly Montague, whilst visiting Vienna, was stunned to meet no writers at all. For all of Austria's contributions to architecture, and having one of the most hallowed musical traditions in Europe, no Austrian literature made it to the classical canon until the 19th century.
A number of reasons can be given. Firstly, the arts were the preserve of the imperial court, who saw culture as a political tool, as propaganda. Fine baroque palaces, imperial portraits and commissions of music could all work very well to this aim, but literature was deemed less suitable, and thus not encouraged. Secondly was the late emergence of a German literature; whilst much as published in the German language, little had the calibre to become 'classic' until the late 18th century, when Goethe and Schiller began writing. In Austria, the imperial state also censored all books mercilessly; The Sorrows of Young Werther
, Goethe's novel depicting a young man's ecstatic love and suicide, spawned a string of copyat suicides across Germany, and many states banned the work, but Austrian authorities also banned Goethe's entire opus. It came mostly from Empress Maria Theresa's 'Chastity Commission', intended to uphold public morals, but it had the effect not only of creating a facade of decency, but a stunted intellectual front. But perhaps the greatest reason for Austria's late literary fruition was its cultural mindset. According to the cultural historian Carl Emil Schorske, 'profoundly Catholic, it was a deeply sensuous, plastic culture'. The outlook of a leisured aristocracy, it was copied by the lower classes. This mentality was not necessarily bad; the emphasis on beauty and fantasy was integral to establishing the imperial capital of Vienna
, and it made Vienna the greatest centre of music in Europe. But it was not the best ground for literary experiment. Nevertheless, the liberalisation of Austria in the late 19th century created a more dynamic cliamte for writing, which soon produced a flowering.
This article tries to provide some definitions which together may give a better understanding of authors and literature in Austria and its territorial predecessors, referring to all published works as well as those with classic status.
In the Middle Ages, there was a homogeneous zone along the Danube river, spanning from Bavaria down to the eastern territories. Travellers and bards moved along this route, bringing with them new influences. At the same time Alps had their forbidding little valleys, which were virtually untouched - they developed their own regional culture.
This is important, because it remains characteristic through the centuries. On the one hand, there were writers strictly in the tradition of a region (like towns, countries etc.), language or culture, on the other hand there was a continuous influence on each others writing and thinking.
The multi-ethnic Habsburg Monarchy
, Austrian Empire
and eventually Austro-Hungarian Empire should therefore not be reduced to the German parts of the empire. There were large ethnic or religious minorities in nearly all regional capitals, like Prague
, Budapest
or Vienna
- microcosmoses with their own traditions and characteristics.
Franz Kafka
may be a good example: while in some of his writings he was declaring himself to be "German" this was meant more in relation to the ethnic minority living in Prague than as a declaration for another part of the empire. So perhaps he was a "German-speaking-secular-Jewish-born-in-Prague-Austro-Hungarian-Austro-Czech writer" - a term which best shows the difficulties that are to be faced.
Besides the national differences between the provinces, there were also different regions which influenced the writing style. There were Alps with their distinctive traditions, the deep woods, the coastal regions around Trieste (now Italy and Slovenia) and the Croatian islands, which served as the Austro-Hungarian equivalent to the French Côte d'Azur, a centre for writers, painters and other artists.
and Vienna
and wrote most of his Meditations
there; nevertheless, it is a work generally classified within the Greek canon.
Celtic culture
represents a substrate also in Austrian popular culture and in literature. Celtic myths and legends are seen as the starting point for many characters of fairy tales and popular legends, as well as sources for literary topics in medieval times.
Since the major body of Austrian literature has been written in German, usually its beginning is set with the arrival of the Bavarian tribes, which brought the language with them that later became German.
Materials were expensive and their production difficult. Therefore nearly only works of value - and that often meant religious texts - were written down. In addition most texts were also translated into Latin before they were put down (e.g. Germanic tribal laws).
Different sources however suggest that there also existed aristocratic historical records (like Heldenlieder), lyric folklore (dance, love songs, spells). Only by accident individual texts were preserved in monasteries. Examples for this are the "Merseburger Zaubersprüche", two Germanic spells being the only written proofs for pagan religion in the German speaking lands. The "Hildebrandslied" is important as voucher of Germanic hero literature.
The first German texts were written to translate Latin religious books around 750 in the early Middle Ages
. The Benedictine
communities in Melk
and Salzburg
were carrying on notable literary and religious activities. Ava
(1060–1127), who was the first known female writing in German, wrote in this religiously inspired tradition and lived in the territories which were then and now within borders of Austria.
was a new form, dealing with their live. The topics of the ballads were also more worldly with themes ranging from love and war to political criticism. There was a lot of travelling along the Danube river, with travelling bards (Minnesänger) bringing news and new songs. The towns were getting rich and independent. The first representatives of this movement and first known male writers in German were Der von Kürenberg
and Dietmar von Aist
(12th century). At the end of 12th century one of the most important literary works of the times, Nibelungenlied
, emerged. It was created by an unknown minnesang poet most probably in the territories of Austria. As the tradition of minnesang grew, the older poets started teaching younger ones. For example probably the most known German bard Walther von der Vogelweide
(13ht century) learnt his craft from Reinmar von Hagenau
at the court in Vienna. Among other known minnesang poets are Neidhart
, Jans der Enikel
, Ulrich von Liechtenstein
, and Oswald von Wolkenstein
.
In the 12th century, satire
was also developing. Seifried Helbling
was an example of a writer who wrote texts of this type.
Later on the minnesang, that was cultivated by knights, became a craft practiced by burghers – meistersinger
s. Its centre was more to the west, in Nuremberg
. Michael Beheim
was a meistersinger poet strongly connected with the court in Vienna
. Yet another form that developed at that time was drama
. Especially, presentations of Passion
were regularly played. Das Wiener Passionsspiel is worth mentioning here.
An Austrian representative of the Holy Grail
literature is Heinrich von dem Tuerlîn (also written Türlin). He wrote the poem Diu Crône
, which has about 30,000 lines. The edition of the original text in Middle High German has completed recently by the Viennese Germanists Fritz Peter Knapp, Manuela Niesner (Part I, Altdeutsche Textbibliothek, Tübingen 2000), Alfred Ebenbauer and Florian Kragl (Part II, Altdeutsche Textbibliothek, Tübingen 2005), who are preparing a translation to Modern German.
, with his rediscovery of the ancient cultures and ideals spread from Italy
throughout Europe. Emperor Maximilian I
was a big supporter of this movement. He managed to gather around his court in Vienna
humanists such as Conrad Celtes
– the founder of Collegium Poetarum or in the later time poet laureat Vadian (Joachim von Watt) who wrote in Latin. Eleonore of Austria translated to German a widely read French adventure novel Pontus et la belle Sidonie. Big figures of the Catholic Church of that time Nicholas of Cusa
and Petrus Canisius
were connected with Austrian court and a few of their works wrote in German.
's religious and comical works. and Catharina Regina von Greiffenberg's religious poetry.
As a reaction to the Protestant movements of the Reformation, which rocked the Catholic-led Habsburg territories, many Catholic schools emerged on the territories of Austria. These colleges led by the Jesuit order developed plays and opera
s that were Italian in style and impressed most by their luxurious equipment. Sermons were an important genre of baroque literature, rooted as it was in the Counter-Reformation
. The mentioned above Benedictine monk Abraham a Sancta Clara was a notable preacher of the times. A Jesuit, Georg Scherer
, is another example of a monk the sermons of whom were published and had a wider audience.
Another literaric form were improvised plays called "Hanswurstspiele". This direction was represented by Josef Anton Stranitzky, Gottfried Prehauser, Joachim Perinet and Josef Felix von Kurz-Bernardon.
Examples of baroque epic are the chivalric fiction and "Schelmenromane" of Johann Beer
, which represent a realistic description of the reality at that time.
around 1720, philosophy and the need of literature to educate the reader (Lehrdichtung, Bildungsroman) were two new and strong motivations for literature.
Aristotle
and his school of thinking was revived. These ideas developed on the territories of Austria during the rule of Maria Theresa
and her son Joseph II
. Around 1790 the ideas of Enlightenment were firmly rooted and the ancient classic cultures (Greek and Roman) were the inspiration for poets, artists, architects and writers. Harmony and Beauty were some of the ideals of that time.
The Austrian literature also was under the strong influence of Freemasonry
and strongly connected with the criticism towards clergy. All these circumstences caused that the literature started to be more educative and instructional. The satire started to be one of the most frequently used literary genres.
The literary life of Enlightenment concentrated around an almanac
Wienerischer Musen-Almanach. It was started in 1777 (from 1786 under a changed title Wiener Musen-Almanach) by Joseph Franz von Ratschky and Gottlieb von Leon. Aloys Blumauer
was also its editor since 1781 (he even edited a few editions alone).
A notable place in the Austrian literature of this period has Johann Baptist von Alxinger who wrote chivalric
epics
Doolin von Maynz (1787) and Bliomberis (1791) which were inspired by the tradition of Freemasonry
. Alxinger also wrote poetry based on anticlerical
ideas.
The writings of a might-have-been monk Johann Pezzl also had a profile of this kind. He wrote journalistic and epic texts.
Classical vision of poetry promoted by Joseph Schreyvogel strongly influenced later authors (for instance Franz Grillparzer
). Schreyvogel improved considerably the quality of the Austrian theatre. He was a dramatic adviser at the Wiener Burgtheater from 1814-32.
Another important dramatist was Johann Nepomuk von Kalchberg, but historical themes of his dramas give his work the flavour of Romanticism
.
era around 1820 (mostly writers from the nobility). With the Napoleonic Wars
going on, a lot of people wanted literature which took them away in a fantasy world. A lot of religious writing was also providing people with new hope. Klemens Maria Hofbauer, Eduard von Bauernfeld
and Franz Grillparzer
are but three of the writers influenced by these events. The German writer Karl Wilhelm Friedrich von Schlegel
also lived and worked in Vienna around 1809.
Between the years 1815, the end of the Napoleonic Wars
, and 1848, the year of the European revolutions
the Biedermeier
contrasted with the Romantic
era which preceded it partly. Biedermeier can be identified with two trends in early 19th-century history.
The first trend is growing urbanisation and industrialisation leading to a new urban middle class. The early Lied
er of Schubert, which were performable at the piano without substantial musical training, serve as examples. Further, Biedermeier writers were mainly middle-class, as opposed to the German Romantics, who were mainly drawn from the nobility. The second trend is the growing political oppression following the end of the Napoleonic Wars prompting people to concentrate on the domestic and the non-political.
, and 1848, the year of the European revolutions
and contrasts with the Romantic
era which preceded it.
Biedermeier can be identified with two trends in early 19th-century German history.
The first trend is growing urbanization and industrialization leading to a new urban middle class. The early Lied
er of Schubert, which were performable at the piano without substantial musical training, serve as examples. Further, Biedermeier writers were mainly middle-class, as opposed to the Romantics, who were mainly drawn from the nobility.
The second trend is the growing political oppression following the end of the Napoleonic Wars prompting people to concentrate on the domestic and (at least in public) the non-political. The strict publication rules and the censorship
had the consequence, that the main topics written about were unpolitical, e.g. Historical Fiction or Books about the quiet life in the countryside. This does not mean that there was not a lot of political discussion going on, but it happened at home and in the presence of close friends. This explosive situation finally led to the revolutions in Europe in the year 1848.
Poets of that time in Austria were Nikolaus Lenau
(1802–1850) and Franz Grillparzer
. The latter is often mentioned as a representative of Austrian Classicism in literature.
Playwrights at that time were Franz Grillparzer
(1791–1872), Friedrich Halm (1806–1871), also an accomplished writer of "Novellen" (novellas / short stories), Johann Nepomuk Nestroy
(1801–1862) and Ferdinand Raimund
(1790–1836). Grillparzer wrote tragedies in the tradition of the "Weimarer Klassik", Nestroy and Raimund were representatives for the "Wien
er Volksstück" mainly played at the Viennese theater "Volkstheater Wien".
Charles Sealsfield
- a pseudonym of Karl Postl - lived a long time in the US and wrote novels set in the Wild West. On the other hand he managed to write about Austria and to criticize the Austrian absolutism
during Biedermeier without being recognized by Austrian authorities.
The end of Biedermeier is marked by the writings of Adalbert Stifter
(1805–1868). His first work Nachsommer
was published in 1857, but was still believed to be on of the finest works of biedermeier. Stifter not only influenced Peter Rosegger
but also German writers like Ganghofer
, Heyse, Freytag
, Wildenbruch and later authors (the time of "Bürgerlichen Realismus") like Storm
, Fontane
and through them Thomas Mann
and Hesse
.
, Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
and the already mentioned Adalbert Stifter
. Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach is known for her psychological novels and novellas as well as for her social engagement. Ferdinand Kürnberger
was a novelist, such as Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
, who became famous with Venus in Furs - the erotic behavior he described, would later be called masochism according to his name.
Another writer to mention is Bertha von Suttner
. She wrote social novels whose literary quality usually is not appreciated highly by literary critiques and Germanists, but Suttner received the Nobel Prize
for Peace for her novel Die Waffen nieder (Lay down your arms) in 1905.
While in Germany Realism paved the way for Naturalism, a similar literary movement has never developed in Austria. Instead, the successors were Jugendstil and Expressionism
.
The Jugendstil movement was primarily a cultural movement of architecture
and decorative arts. On the other hand, especially the Viennese Jugendstil was marked by the presence of artists of every genre, thus also compositors and writers. The Viennese writers, such as Arthur Schnitzler
and Stefan Zweig
, are often mentioned in this context. Arthur Schnitzer may be named a very typical writer of that time. He wrote his major works between 1890 and the end of World War I
, namely novels, short stories and theater plays.
A very important center of Austrian literature during the ca. 20 years before the end of World War I was Prague
. It was the center of many German-speaking, mostly Jewish, authors who did not only give important impulses to the entire Austrian and partly even to world literature, but represent a very important part of Austrian literature; their influence endured until the 1930s. Authors to mention are Oskar Baum
, Max Brod
, Franz Kafka
, the journalist Egon Erwin Kisch
, Gustav Meyrink
, Robert Musil
, Rainer Maria Rilke
, Franz Werfel
, and Oskar Wiener.
Expressionism was presented primarily by the poet Georg Trakl
and the dramatist and narrator Hugo von Hofmannsthal
, both originating from Salzburg
.
The end of World War I reduced Austria to a very small and mainly German-speaking country. Some Austrian (and German writing) authors opted for the new emerging countries, such as Kafka and Werfel for Czechoslovakia, others migrated, such as Robert Musil to Berlin
and Vienna
, Rainer Maria Rilke to Vienna and later Paris
, Elias Canetti
to Vienna. The political rupture and the fact that this small German-speaking Austria had lost most of its territory, industry and agriculture, led to the fatal conviction of many Austrians that only a union with Germany would be able to save the country from a total downfall, a conviction which paved the way to the later annexation by Hitler in 1938. The texts of some writers give an insight to this conviction. Hence, Robert Musil and Hugo von Hofmannsthal expressed their "German centric" point of view, while others, such as Stefan Zweig and Franz Werfel, strictly spoke up for Austria and Austrian tradition and culture.
The time between the two world wars gave way to a very rich literature in Austria. Robert Musil
wrote the well-known novel The Man without Qualities, Stefan Zweig
published a multitude of essays, stories and novels, Karl Kraus
edited the magazine Die Fackel (The Torch), for which he wrote almost all articles by himself, Franz Werfel
wrote some of his best novels, e.g. The Forty Days of Musa Dagh
which narrates the Armenian tragedy of 1915, and after Franz Kafka's death, his life-time friend Max Brod began to publish Kafka's unfinished novels. Later Nobel Prize winner Elias Canetti
studied and lived in Vienna and wrote his only novel Auto-da-Fe; before the Anschluss
he fled to England. In analogy to Musil's Kakania (from the anagram for the k. u. k., i.e. imperial and royal monarchy till 1918), Fritz von Herzmanovsky-Orlando created Tarockania for the weird figures of his humorous novels and stories.
came into power after the Austrian Civil War and revitalized censorship. A more important influence on Austrian literature resulted however from Nazi empowerment in Germany in 1933. It has to be understood that not only the majority of German speaking readers live in Germany, but almost all large and important publishers for literature in the German language are situated in Germany as well. In 1933 it came to a breakup at the P.E.N.
conference in Dubrovnik. The members discussed an official protest against the prosecution of writers and the burning of books by the Nazis. In consequence the German delegation left the conference and referred to the organization's principle not to interfere with politics. Some members of the Austrian delegation solidarized with the Germans, while others supported the resolution. This breakup continued afterwards in Vienna and led to a separation of liberal and "German nationalistic" authors; the latter left the Austrian PEN Club and later worshipped Hitler and his annexation of Austria. Nazi Germany observed the events carefully, boycotted immediately the liberal authors, who couldn't go on publishing in Germany and lost most of their readers and income. After the annexation, these authors were prosecuted as well as their German counterparts since years, and many of them, especially the Jewish, were murdered or forced to emigration.
Stefan Zweig
flew to Brazil, Franz Werfel
escaped to the US together with the German writer Heinrich Mann
, Elias Canetti
to England. Others, like Jura Soyfer
, were killed by the Nazis. In 2007, the Theodor Kramer
Society published an anthology of Austrian poetry written in exile, under the title In welcher Sprache träumen Sie? (In which language do you dream?). The editors present 278 authors whose names in many cases have been wiped out. The better known among them are Ilse Aichinger
, Franz Theodor Csokor
, Albert Drach, Albert Paris Gütersloh
, Hermann Hakel, Theodor Kramer
, Josef Luitpold Stern, Felix Pollak
, Paula von Preradović
, Joseph Roth
, Hilde Spiel, Wilhelm Szabo, Hans Weigel
, Stefan Zweig
.
During the Nazi dictatorship, which had factually wiped out the Austrian state, the Austrian PEN Club was in exile in London and continued its work in Austria from 1946 on. Until 1973, PEN was the only Austrian writers' organization of importance.
combined much different movements. While some authors were in search for reorientation, such as Ilse Aichinger
, Ingeborg Bachmann
, Heimito von Doderer
, Gerhard Fritsch and Hans Lebert, others came back from concentration camps, such as Jean Améry
, from former (in times of monarchy) Austrian territories, such as Rose Ausländer
and Paul Celan
, or from exile, such as Hans Weigel
and Friedrich Torberg
, while others again did not come back from exile, such as Hermann Broch
or Franz Werfel
. On the other hand, some former "Nazi" writers kept their positions, such as Max Mell, Franz Nabl and Karl Heinrich Waggerl. The latter and other, catholic, writers began to form a very conservative block within the Austrian literature. Through the Austrian PEN Club they even seemed to control statal subsidies for literature as well as literary awards till the 1970s.
Some authors had good relations to the Group 47
based in Germany or were members. Among them Ilse Aichinger
who published the novel Die größere Hoffnung (Greater Hope) and the narrator and poet Ingeborg Bachmann
. Both were awarded the Group 47 Prize for Literature. Other Austrian members of the Group 47 were Paul Celan
and Erich Fried
. While Celan, after some time in Vienna, went to live in Paris, Fried moved to Berlin. In 1954, the Wiener Gruppe
(Group of Vienna) was formed by H. C. Artmann
and others. Friedrich Achleitner
, Konrad Bayer
, Gerhard Rühm and Oswald Wiener belonged to the group, as well as Ernst Jandl and Friederike Mayröcker.
Hans Lebert wrote the novel Wolfshaut (Wolf's Skin), in which he described a fictional village named Schweigen (Silence), an allegory for the silence of many Austrians after the Nazi dictatorship, who pretended to know nothing about what had happened in their country.
Several volumes of Diaries contain the war memories of Heimito von Doderer
. However, this author got best-known for his novels, which he designed meticulously, for example The Studlhofstiege, The Demons, The Waterfalls of Slunj, and The Merowingians. Doderer influenced many other authors with his novelistic art, e.g. Robert Schindel.
(GAV). Among its founders and first members, you find names, such as Barbara Frischmuth
, Peter Handke
, Ernst Jandl
, Alfred Kolleritsch, Friederike Mayröcker
, Michael Scharang, etc. Eventually, the GAV became the largest writers' association in Austria, with more than 500 members.
The end of the 1960s and eventually the 1970s were characterized by experimental theater plays. Peter Handke
tried out new ways of theater communication with his play Offending the Audience in 1966. Kaspar and The Ride Across Lake Constance are two further examples. Ernst Jandl
and Friederike Mayröcker
wrote a new sort of experimental poetry, Konkrete Poesie, at a first glance working rather with the sounds of speech than with semantics.
One of the most important writers after World War II
was Thomas Bernhard
(1931–1989). He wrote nine novels, several books of stories and short prose as well as some autobiographical works, and numerous plays. Repeatedly, his works triggered public controversies, since Bernhard constantly attacked a typical Austrian manner of treating the Nazi past in simply ignoring what had happened. One of the dramas is called Heldenplatz, an open allusion to Vienna's central imperial place, from which Adolf Hitler
had held his first speech after the country's annexation by Nazi German troops, in front of hundreds of thousands of cheering Austrians.
Marianne Fritz (1948–2007) got known as a novelist. Her third novel, Dessen Sprache du nicht verstehst (Whose speech you don't understand), was published in 1985. On more than three thousand pages, Fritz describes a linguistic and fictional universe that deals with the decline of the Austrian empire. More than that, she used a very artificial language breaking many linguistic norms, in order to achieve a much more rhythmic speech. Marianne Fritz intensified this individual esthetics with her fourth and fifth novel, which jointly have more than ten thousand pages.
During the 1980s, especially after the political scandal around former UN secretary and eventually Austrian federal president Kurt Waldheim
, a new and more distinctive Jewish literature formed. Robert Schindel published the novel Gebirtig, which deals with a contemporary Jewish society within Austria and the difficult memories of the Shoah
. Robert Menasse
is known for his novels and especially for his essay
s on Austria. Another author who works with Jewish topics, is Doron Rabinovici
.
Christoph Ransmayr
mixes historical facts with fiction. The acclaimed novel Morbus Kithara creates a scenario, in which Austria did not get aid from the Marshall Plan
after World War II
and was condemned to become an exclusively agrarian country. On this background, the author writes about the time after the war, about ex-soldiers, ex-nazis and concentration camp survivors, and thus depicts the complexity of post-war Austria.
Josef Haslinger
wrote the novel Opernball, in which he described a fictitious attack at the Vienna Opera Ball
, in which all attendants, incl. the entire Austrian government, is killed by combat gas. This attack brings a new fascist party to power, which a handful of idealistic journalists try to tell to the world. Haslinger is also the author of an essay about the Waldheim affair. Also Milo Dor
, a born Serb who wrote all of his books in German and became a very important figure in Austria's literary scene, chose the danger of ultra right wing parties as topic for one of his narrative texts, Wien, Juli 1999. Other books describe the destiny of immigrants after the world war.
Essay
s have also a tradition in Austrian literature. While the roots may be found with Franz Grillparzer, Hermann Bahr
and especially Karl Kraus, one of the most important essayists after World War II
is Jean Améry
whose oeuvre primarily consists of essays, articles and critiques. The historian and scholar Friedrich Heer
is the author of about fifty thousand pages, most of them essays on Austrian and European topics, on history and philosophy as well as on religion and literature. A younger representative of Austrian essayism is Karl-Markus Gauß
who writes for several newspagers and magazines in Austria, Switzerland and Germany. His books speak about Central and Eastern European peoples, cultures and literatures. He is also the editor in chief of the magazine Literatur und Kritik
.
Authors in the Slovene language, originating in Carinthia, are Florjan Lipuš
, Cvetka Lipuš
and Janko Messner. Usually they write either exclusively in Slovene, or in Slovene and German. Another famous Carinthian writer, Peter Handke
, has translated several works from Slovene to German.
In 1981, Elias Canetti
(1905–1994) received the Nobel Prize
for Literature. While his birth place today belongs to Bulgaria
, he spent much time, especially between the two world wars, in Vienna and wrote all books in German. After his (forced) emigration to London
, he became a British subject. The last years of his life, he lived in Zurich
, Switzerland
. The most important works are the novel Auto-da-Fe, the essay Crowds and Power, and his vast Diary. Three volumes of memoirs give an insight of Austrian society until World War II
and describe the contacts the author had within the literary scene.
In 2004, Elfriede Jelinek
(*1946) received the Nobel Prize for Literature for her "musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that, with extraordinary linguistic zeal, reveal the absurdity of society's clichés and their subjugating power". She lives in Vienna and Munich. Her works comprise novels, such as The Piano Teacher, Lust and Die Kinder der Toten (Children of the Dead), as well as theater plays, such as Clara S., Burgtheater and Bambiland. However, in the 1960s she began to write poetry
and stories.
, Peter Handke
, Peter Henisch, Elfriede Jelinek
, Gerhard Roth
, Robert Schneider
, still publish regularly, there are rich literary movements, mostly driven by a younger generation. In some cases, literary magazines play an important role in gathering writers and fostering their works.
and Erostepost are published in Salzburg
, Manuskripte, Sterz, Schreibkraft
and Lichtungen in Graz
, Wespennest
and Kolik in Vienna
, Cognac & Biskotten in Innsbruck
, DUM in Lower Austria
. They count among the most traditional and important literary magazines in contemporary Austria.
Publishing houses to mention are Residenz, Droschl, Haymon, Zsolnay and Deuticke. Residenz played an important role during the 1970s and 1980s, when numerous important Austrian writers were published there. Especially smaller publishers, such as Arovell, Drava, FZA-Verlag, Mitter, Otto Müller, Pichler, Ritter, Skarabaeus, Sonderzahl, Wieser, etc. bring emerging and younger authors to the public. On the other hand, many Austrian writers publish their books in Germany, which offers much larger and powerful publishing houses. Of course, the economic regrouping of publishing houses and their mergers have also an influence on Austrian publishers. Thus, Zsolny and Deuticke already belong to the German publishing group Hanser.
, Wiener Werkstattpreis
, Anton-Wildgans-Preis, and Manuskripte-Preis belong to this aspect of Austrian literature.
The scholar Klaus Zeyringer states that public subsidies represent the backbone of today's literary production and especially publishing in Austria, and this would be one reason why the frame conditions obviously differ from those in Germany. Public subsidies add to the funding of publishing houses, literary magazines, public events, book publications, and to the income of writers. Zeyringer points out that on one hand this custom enables also the publication of non-mainstream and complicated literary works but on the other hand reduces the awareness of the necessity of adequate marketing activities of many cultural organizations, including publishers.
, Günter Eichberger, Olga Flor, Karin Geyer, Thomas Glavinic
, Constantin Göttfert
, Egyd Gstättner, Klaus Händl
, Ludwig Laher, Gabriel Loidolt, Wolfgang Kauer, Daniel Kehlmann
, Michael Köhlmeier
, Melamar, Wolfgang Pollanz, Doron Rabinovici
, Gudrun Seidenauer, Linda Stift, Vladimir Vertlib, Christine Werner
, Peter Paul Wiplinger
. Usually, these authors do not only publish in Austria, but also in Germany and Switzerland.
that put together different ethnicities, mentalities and cultures. Today, this element has shrunk enormously but is still not wiped out. Thus, novelist Zdenka Becker emigrated from Slovakia
, Dimitré Dinev
from Bulgaria
, and Vladimir Vertlib was born in Ukraine
. Very often their topics have to do with immigration
and interculturality.
There is some literature written by members of the autochthonous minorities in Austria. To mention the daughter of Florjan Lipuš, the poet Cvetka Lipuš
, who has lived in the US for several years. Her poetry has been published in Slovene and in German.
Another aspect is the fact that some authors have chosen to live in other countries than Austria, while still writing literature in the German language. Their experiences living in another country do have some impact on their writing. For example, Marlene Streeruwitz and Ann Cotten
live in Berlin
, Raoul Schrott
lived several years in Ireland and also Christoph Ransmayr
has moved there.
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
written in Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, which is mostly, but not exclusively, written in the German language
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
. Some scholars speak about Austrian literature in a strict sense from the year 1806 on when Francis II
Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor
Francis II was the last Holy Roman Emperor, ruling from 1792 until 6 August 1806, when he dissolved the Empire after the disastrous defeat of the Third Coalition by Napoleon at the Battle of Austerlitz...
disbanded the Holy Roman Empire
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a realm that existed from 962 to 1806 in Central Europe.It was ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor. Its character changed during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, when the power of the emperor gradually weakened in favour of the princes...
and established the Austrian Empire
Austrian Empire
The Austrian Empire was a modern era successor empire, which was centered on what is today's Austria and which officially lasted from 1804 to 1867. It was followed by the Empire of Austria-Hungary, whose proclamation was a diplomatic move that elevated Hungary's status within the Austrian Empire...
. A more liberal definition incorporates all the literary works written on the territory of today's and historical Austria, especially when it comes to authors who wrote in German. Thus, the seven volume history of Austrian literature by the editors Herbert Zeman and Fritz Peter Knapp is titled History of the Literature in Austria. The Austrian literature must be considered in close connection with German literature in general, and the borderline between proper German literature and the Austrian one is porous, due to rich and complex cultural exchanges.
Origin and background
From the 19th century onward, Austria contributed some of the greatest names in modern literature. It was the home of novelists / short-story writers Adalbert Stifter
Adalbert Stifter
Adalbert Stifter was an Austrian writer, poet, painter, and pedagogue. He was especially notable for the vivid natural landscapes depicted in his writing, and has long been popular in the German-speaking world, while almost entirely unknown to English readers.-Life:Born in Oberplan in Bohemia , he...
, Arthur Schnitzler
Arthur Schnitzler
Dr. Arthur Schnitzler was an Austrian author and dramatist.- Biography :Arthur Schnitzler, son of a prominent Hungarian-Jewish laryngologist Johann Schnitzler and Luise Markbreiter , was born in Praterstraße 16, Leopoldstadt, Vienna, in the Austro-Hungarian...
, Franz Werfel
Franz Werfel
Franz Werfel was an Austrian-Bohemian novelist, playwright, and poet.- Biography :Born in Prague , Werfel was the first of three children of a wealthy manufacturer of gloves and leather goods. His mother, Albine Kussi, was the daughter of a mill owner...
, Stefan Zweig
Stefan Zweig
Stefan Zweig was an Austrian novelist, playwright, journalist and biographer. At the height of his literary career, in the 1920s and 1930s, he was one of the most famous writers in the world.- Biography :...
, Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...
, Thomas Bernhard
Thomas Bernhard
Thomas Bernhard was an Austrian novelist, playwright and poet. Bernhard, whose body of work has been called "the most significant literary achievement since World War II," is widely considered to be one of the most important German-speaking authors of the postwar era.- Life :Thomas Bernhard was...
, Joseph Roth
Joseph Roth
Joseph Roth, born Moses Joseph Roth , was an Austrian journalist and novelist, best known for his family saga Radetzky March about the decline and fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and for his novel of Jewish life, Job as well as the seminal essay 'Juden auf Wanderschaft' translated in...
, or Robert Musil
Robert Musil
Robert Musil was an Austrian writer. His unfinished long novel The Man Without Qualities is generally considered to be one of the most important modernist novels...
, of poets Georg Trakl
Georg Trakl
Georg Trakl was an Austrian poet. He is considered one of the most important Austrian Expressionists.- Life and work :Trakl was born and lived the first 18 years of his life in Salzburg, Austria...
, Rose Ausländer
Rose Ausländer
Rose Ausländer , maiden name Rosalie Beatrice Scherzer, was a Jewish German- and English language poet. She was born in Bucovina, and lived in U.S.A, Romania, and Germany....
, Franz Grillparzer
Franz Grillparzer
Franz Seraphicus Grillparzer was an Austrian writer who is chiefly known for his dramas. He also wrote the oration for Ludwig van Beethoven's funeral.-Biography:...
, Rainer Maria Rilke
Rainer Maria Rilke
René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke , better known as Rainer Maria Rilke, was a Bohemian–Austrian poet. He is considered one of the most significant poets in the German language...
or Paul Celan
Paul Celan
Paul Celan was a poet and translator...
. Famous contemporary playwrights and novelists are Elfriede Jelinek
Elfriede Jelinek
Elfriede Jelinek is an Austrian playwright and novelist. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2004 for her "musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that, with extraordinary linguistic zeal, reveal the absurdity of society's clichés and their subjugating power."-...
and Peter Handke
Peter Handke
Peter Handke is an avant-garde Austrian novelist and playwright.-Early life:Handke and his mother lived in the Soviet-occupied Pankow district of Berlin from 1944 to 1948 before resettling in Griffen...
, well-known essayists are Robert Menasse
Robert Menasse
Robert Menasse is an Austrian writer.As an undergraduate, Menasse studied in Vienna, Salzburg and Messina. In 1980 he completed his PhD thesis "Der Typus des Außenseiters im Literaturbetrieb...
and Karl-Markus Gauß
Karl-Markus Gauß
Karl-Markus Gauß is an Austrian contemporary writer, essayist and editor. He lives in Salzburg.- Biography :Gauß has a degree for German Philology and History from the University of Salzburg. He very early published literary essays, primarily in the magazine Wiener Tagebuch ...
. Yet, it is hard to speak of an Austrian literature prior to that period. In the early 18th century, Lady Mary Wortly Montague, whilst visiting Vienna, was stunned to meet no writers at all. For all of Austria's contributions to architecture, and having one of the most hallowed musical traditions in Europe, no Austrian literature made it to the classical canon until the 19th century.
A number of reasons can be given. Firstly, the arts were the preserve of the imperial court, who saw culture as a political tool, as propaganda. Fine baroque palaces, imperial portraits and commissions of music could all work very well to this aim, but literature was deemed less suitable, and thus not encouraged. Secondly was the late emergence of a German literature; whilst much as published in the German language, little had the calibre to become 'classic' until the late 18th century, when Goethe and Schiller began writing. In Austria, the imperial state also censored all books mercilessly; The Sorrows of Young Werther
The Sorrows of Young Werther
The Sorrows of Young Werther is an epistolary and loosely autobiographical novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, first published in 1774; a revised edition of the novel was published in 1787...
, Goethe's novel depicting a young man's ecstatic love and suicide, spawned a string of copyat suicides across Germany, and many states banned the work, but Austrian authorities also banned Goethe's entire opus. It came mostly from Empress Maria Theresa's 'Chastity Commission', intended to uphold public morals, but it had the effect not only of creating a facade of decency, but a stunted intellectual front. But perhaps the greatest reason for Austria's late literary fruition was its cultural mindset. According to the cultural historian Carl Emil Schorske, 'profoundly Catholic, it was a deeply sensuous, plastic culture'. The outlook of a leisured aristocracy, it was copied by the lower classes. This mentality was not necessarily bad; the emphasis on beauty and fantasy was integral to establishing the imperial capital of Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, and it made Vienna the greatest centre of music in Europe. But it was not the best ground for literary experiment. Nevertheless, the liberalisation of Austria in the late 19th century created a more dynamic cliamte for writing, which soon produced a flowering.
This article tries to provide some definitions which together may give a better understanding of authors and literature in Austria and its territorial predecessors, referring to all published works as well as those with classic status.
The search for a definition
The main problem of defining a dynamic development may be that any definition will fall short of the various currents which lead to a certain type of literature. Through the centuries, there have been many different approaches, but most of them have been criticised to be biased - cultural, ideological or political. The Austrian literature developed out of a symbiosis of different regional traditions and languages.In the Middle Ages, there was a homogeneous zone along the Danube river, spanning from Bavaria down to the eastern territories. Travellers and bards moved along this route, bringing with them new influences. At the same time Alps had their forbidding little valleys, which were virtually untouched - they developed their own regional culture.
This is important, because it remains characteristic through the centuries. On the one hand, there were writers strictly in the tradition of a region (like towns, countries etc.), language or culture, on the other hand there was a continuous influence on each others writing and thinking.
The multi-ethnic Habsburg Monarchy
Habsburg Monarchy
The Habsburg Monarchy covered the territories ruled by the junior Austrian branch of the House of Habsburg , and then by the successor House of Habsburg-Lorraine , between 1526 and 1867/1918. The Imperial capital was Vienna, except from 1583 to 1611, when it was moved to Prague...
, Austrian Empire
Austrian Empire
The Austrian Empire was a modern era successor empire, which was centered on what is today's Austria and which officially lasted from 1804 to 1867. It was followed by the Empire of Austria-Hungary, whose proclamation was a diplomatic move that elevated Hungary's status within the Austrian Empire...
and eventually Austro-Hungarian Empire should therefore not be reduced to the German parts of the empire. There were large ethnic or religious minorities in nearly all regional capitals, like Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
, Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
or Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
- microcosmoses with their own traditions and characteristics.
Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...
may be a good example: while in some of his writings he was declaring himself to be "German" this was meant more in relation to the ethnic minority living in Prague than as a declaration for another part of the empire. So perhaps he was a "German-speaking-secular-Jewish-born-in-Prague-Austro-Hungarian-Austro-Czech writer" - a term which best shows the difficulties that are to be faced.
Besides the national differences between the provinces, there were also different regions which influenced the writing style. There were Alps with their distinctive traditions, the deep woods, the coastal regions around Trieste (now Italy and Slovenia) and the Croatian islands, which served as the Austro-Hungarian equivalent to the French Côte d'Azur, a centre for writers, painters and other artists.
Antiquity
If we speak about literature of today's Austrian territory, it is to point out there have been some writings in ancient times, notably in Latin and Greek. On the other hand, the native Celts indigenous to the area had no written language, and thus left no texts. On the other hand, it can be argued that Austrian soil hosted one of the great works of Roman literature; the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius lived several years in CarnuntumCarnuntum
Carnuntum was a Roman army camp on the Danube in the Noricum province and after the 1st century the capital of the Upper Pannonia province...
and Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
and wrote most of his Meditations
Meditations
Meditations is a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor 161–180 CE, setting forth his ideas on Stoic philosophy....
there; nevertheless, it is a work generally classified within the Greek canon.
Celtic culture
Celt
The Celts were a diverse group of tribal societies in Iron Age and Roman-era Europe who spoke Celtic languages.The earliest archaeological culture commonly accepted as Celtic, or rather Proto-Celtic, was the central European Hallstatt culture , named for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt, Austria....
represents a substrate also in Austrian popular culture and in literature. Celtic myths and legends are seen as the starting point for many characters of fairy tales and popular legends, as well as sources for literary topics in medieval times.
Since the major body of Austrian literature has been written in German, usually its beginning is set with the arrival of the Bavarian tribes, which brought the language with them that later became German.
From the beginnings to the end of the early Middle Ages (about 750-1170)
Before and during the early Middle Ages poetry was spread verbally most of the time. Out of this reason it has been lost nearly completely. The texts conserved are limited to the scripts in monasteries.Materials were expensive and their production difficult. Therefore nearly only works of value - and that often meant religious texts - were written down. In addition most texts were also translated into Latin before they were put down (e.g. Germanic tribal laws).
Different sources however suggest that there also existed aristocratic historical records (like Heldenlieder), lyric folklore (dance, love songs, spells). Only by accident individual texts were preserved in monasteries. Examples for this are the "Merseburger Zaubersprüche", two Germanic spells being the only written proofs for pagan religion in the German speaking lands. The "Hildebrandslied" is important as voucher of Germanic hero literature.
The first German texts were written to translate Latin religious books around 750 in the early Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
. The Benedictine
Benedictine
Benedictine refers to the spirituality and consecrated life in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict, written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century for the cenobitic communities he founded in central Italy. The most notable of these is Monte Cassino, the first monastery founded by Benedict...
communities in Melk
Melk
Melk is a city of Austria, in the federal state of Lower Austria, next to the Wachau valley along the Danube. Melk has a population of 5,222 ....
and Salzburg
Salzburg
-Population development:In 1935, the population significantly increased when Salzburg absorbed adjacent municipalities. After World War II, numerous refugees found a new home in the city. New residential space was created for American soldiers of the postwar Occupation, and could be used for...
were carrying on notable literary and religious activities. Ava
Ava (poet)
The poet Ava , also known as Frau Ava, Ava of Göttweig or Ava of Melk, was the first named female writer in any genre in the German language.-Life:...
(1060–1127), who was the first known female writing in German, wrote in this religiously inspired tradition and lived in the territories which were then and now within borders of Austria.
High and Late Middle Ages (1170 - 1500)
With the crusades around 1160, the knights became more important and prosperous. The oral minnesangMinnesang
Minnesang was the tradition of lyric and song writing in Germany which flourished in the 12th century and continued into the 14th century. People who wrote and performed Minnesang are known as Minnesingers . The name derives from the word minne, Middle High German for love which was their main...
was a new form, dealing with their live. The topics of the ballads were also more worldly with themes ranging from love and war to political criticism. There was a lot of travelling along the Danube river, with travelling bards (Minnesänger) bringing news and new songs. The towns were getting rich and independent. The first representatives of this movement and first known male writers in German were Der von Kürenberg
Der von Kürenberg
Der von Kürenberg or Der Kürenberger was an middle-age poet, and one of the first named poets to write in Old High German language....
and Dietmar von Aist
Dietmar von Aist
Dietmar von Aist was a Minnesinger from a baronial family of Upper Austria, documented between 1140 and 1171,whose work is representative of the lyric poetry of the Danube region.-Life:...
(12th century). At the end of 12th century one of the most important literary works of the times, Nibelungenlied
Nibelungenlied
The Nibelungenlied, translated as The Song of the Nibelungs, is an epic poem in Middle High German. The story tells of dragon-slayer Siegfried at the court of the Burgundians, how he was murdered, and of his wife Kriemhild's revenge....
, emerged. It was created by an unknown minnesang poet most probably in the territories of Austria. As the tradition of minnesang grew, the older poets started teaching younger ones. For example probably the most known German bard Walther von der Vogelweide
Walther von der Vogelweide
Walther von der Vogelweide is the most celebrated of the Middle High German lyric poets.-Life history:For all his fame, Walther's name is not found in contemporary records, with the exception of a solitary mention in the travelling accounts of Bishop Wolfger of Erla of the Passau diocese:...
(13ht century) learnt his craft from Reinmar von Hagenau
Reinmar von Hagenau
Reinmar also known as Reinmar von Hagenau or Reinmar der Alte was the most important Minnesinger before Walther von der Vogelweide....
at the court in Vienna. Among other known minnesang poets are Neidhart
Neidhart
Neidhart is a surname that could refer to:*Neidhart von Reuental, a 13th century German minnesinger*Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart, a Canadian professional wrestler...
, Jans der Enikel
Jans der Enikel
Jans der Enikel, i.e. "Jans the Grandson" was a Viennese poet and historian of the late 13th century. He wrote a Weltchronik and a Fürstenbuch , both in Middle High German verse....
, Ulrich von Liechtenstein
Ulrich von Liechtenstein
Ulrich von Liechtenstein was a medieval nobleman, knight, politician, and minnesanger. He was born in 1200 in Murau, located in present day Austria. After the usual noble training as a page and a squire to Margrave Heinrich of Istria, he was knighted by Duke Leopold VI of Austria in 1223...
, and Oswald von Wolkenstein
Oswald von Wolkenstein
Oswald von Wolkenstein was a poet, composer and diplomat. In the latter capacity, he traveled through much of Europe, even as far as Georgia , and was inducted into the Order of the Dragon...
.
In the 12th century, satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
was also developing. Seifried Helbling
Seifried Helbling
Seifried Helbling was an Austrian poet.Helbling is the supposed author of 15 small books of poetry. These poems, composed between 1282 and 1300, are instructional satires written in the form of a dialogue between the poet and his servant. They thoroughly and wittily describe the current state of...
was an example of a writer who wrote texts of this type.
Later on the minnesang, that was cultivated by knights, became a craft practiced by burghers – meistersinger
Meistersinger
A Meistersinger was a member of a German guild for lyric poetry, composition and unaccompanied art song of the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries. The Meistersingers were drawn from middle class males for the most part.-Guilds:...
s. Its centre was more to the west, in Nuremberg
Nuremberg
Nuremberg[p] is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it is located about north of Munich and is Franconia's largest city. The population is 505,664...
. Michael Beheim
Michael Beheim
Michael Beheim was a wandering singer from the modern-day German state Baden-Württemberg. He is an author of a number of songs and two versed chronicles, Buch von den Wienern, Das Leben Friedrichs I von der Pfalz. -References:...
was a meistersinger poet strongly connected with the court in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
. Yet another form that developed at that time was drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
. Especially, presentations of Passion
Passion (Christianity)
The Passion is the Christian theological term used for the events and suffering – physical, spiritual, and mental – of Jesus in the hours before and including his trial and execution by crucifixion...
were regularly played. Das Wiener Passionsspiel is worth mentioning here.
An Austrian representative of the Holy Grail
Holy Grail
The Holy Grail is a sacred object figuring in literature and certain Christian traditions, most often identified with the dish, plate, or cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper and said to possess miraculous powers...
literature is Heinrich von dem Tuerlîn (also written Türlin). He wrote the poem Diu Crône
Diu Crône
Diu Crône is a Middle High German Arthurian poem of about 30,000 lines, dating from around the 1220s and attributed to Heinrich von dem Türlin...
, which has about 30,000 lines. The edition of the original text in Middle High German has completed recently by the Viennese Germanists Fritz Peter Knapp, Manuela Niesner (Part I, Altdeutsche Textbibliothek, Tübingen 2000), Alfred Ebenbauer and Florian Kragl (Part II, Altdeutsche Textbibliothek, Tübingen 2005), who are preparing a translation to Modern German.
Renaissance
Around 1600, the humanismHumanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
, with his rediscovery of the ancient cultures and ideals spread from Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
throughout Europe. Emperor Maximilian I
Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor
Maximilian I , the son of Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor and Eleanor of Portugal, was King of the Romans from 1486 and Holy Roman Emperor from 1493 until his death, though he was never in fact crowned by the Pope, the journey to Rome always being too risky...
was a big supporter of this movement. He managed to gather around his court in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
humanists such as Conrad Celtes
Conrad Celtes
Conrad Celtes , also Konrad Celtis and Latin Conradus Celtis , was a German Renaissance humanist scholar and Neo-Latin poet.-Life:...
– the founder of Collegium Poetarum or in the later time poet laureat Vadian (Joachim von Watt) who wrote in Latin. Eleonore of Austria translated to German a widely read French adventure novel Pontus et la belle Sidonie. Big figures of the Catholic Church of that time Nicholas of Cusa
Nicholas of Cusa
Nicholas of Kues , also referred to as Nicolaus Cusanus and Nicholas of Cusa, was a cardinal of the Catholic Church from Germany , a philosopher, theologian, jurist, mathematician, and an astronomer. He is widely considered one of the great geniuses and polymaths of the 15th century...
and Petrus Canisius
Petrus Canisius
Saint Petrus Canisius was an important Jesuit who fought against the spread of Protestantism in Germany, Austria, Bohemia, Moravia, , and Switzerland...
were connected with Austrian court and a few of their works wrote in German.
Baroque
The Thirty Years War had multiple effects on European literary trends; some writers based their work on the sufferings of the time, or withdrew into writings of a religious nature. Others responded with escapism, providing beautiful and peaceful worlds readers could flee to. The humorous stories (Schelmenromane) brought relief to the suffering people. This trend is apparent with Abraham a Sancta ClaraAbraham a Sancta Clara
Abraham a Sancta Clara , Austrian divine, was born at Kreenheinstetten, near Messkirch. His lay name was Johann Ulrich Megerle ....
's religious and comical works. and Catharina Regina von Greiffenberg's religious poetry.
As a reaction to the Protestant movements of the Reformation, which rocked the Catholic-led Habsburg territories, many Catholic schools emerged on the territories of Austria. These colleges led by the Jesuit order developed plays and opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
s that were Italian in style and impressed most by their luxurious equipment. Sermons were an important genre of baroque literature, rooted as it was in the Counter-Reformation
Counter-Reformation
The Counter-Reformation was the period of Catholic revival beginning with the Council of Trent and ending at the close of the Thirty Years' War, 1648 as a response to the Protestant Reformation.The Counter-Reformation was a comprehensive effort, composed of four major elements:#Ecclesiastical or...
. The mentioned above Benedictine monk Abraham a Sancta Clara was a notable preacher of the times. A Jesuit, Georg Scherer
Georg Scherer
Georg Scherer was a Roman Catholic pulpit orator and controversialist.Born at Schwaz, in Tyrol, Scherer entered the Society of Jesus in 1559. Even before his ordination he was famed for his preaching powers. For over forty years he labored in the Archduchy of Austria. To Scherer, in part, it owes...
, is another example of a monk the sermons of whom were published and had a wider audience.
Another literaric form were improvised plays called "Hanswurstspiele". This direction was represented by Josef Anton Stranitzky, Gottfried Prehauser, Joachim Perinet and Josef Felix von Kurz-Bernardon.
Examples of baroque epic are the chivalric fiction and "Schelmenromane" of Johann Beer
Johann Beer
Johann Beer also Bahr, Behr or Bär, was an Austrian author, court official and composer....
, which represent a realistic description of the reality at that time.
Enlightenment
With the start of EnlightenmentAge of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
around 1720, philosophy and the need of literature to educate the reader (Lehrdichtung, Bildungsroman) were two new and strong motivations for literature.
Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
and his school of thinking was revived. These ideas developed on the territories of Austria during the rule of Maria Theresa
Maria Theresa of Austria
Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina was the only female ruler of the Habsburg dominions and the last of the House of Habsburg. She was the sovereign of Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Bohemia, Mantua, Milan, Lodomeria and Galicia, the Austrian Netherlands and Parma...
and her son Joseph II
Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor
Joseph II was Holy Roman Emperor from 1765 to 1790 and ruler of the Habsburg lands from 1780 to 1790. He was the eldest son of Empress Maria Theresa and her husband, Francis I...
. Around 1790 the ideas of Enlightenment were firmly rooted and the ancient classic cultures (Greek and Roman) were the inspiration for poets, artists, architects and writers. Harmony and Beauty were some of the ideals of that time.
The Austrian literature also was under the strong influence of Freemasonry
Freemasonry
Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...
and strongly connected with the criticism towards clergy. All these circumstences caused that the literature started to be more educative and instructional. The satire started to be one of the most frequently used literary genres.
The literary life of Enlightenment concentrated around an almanac
Almanac
An almanac is an annual publication that includes information such as weather forecasts, farmers' planting dates, and tide tables, containing tabular information in a particular field or fields often arranged according to the calendar etc...
Wienerischer Musen-Almanach. It was started in 1777 (from 1786 under a changed title Wiener Musen-Almanach) by Joseph Franz von Ratschky and Gottlieb von Leon. Aloys Blumauer
Aloys Blumauer
Aloys Blumauer was an Austrian poet.-Biography:His works, which are chiefly coarse satires on the clergy and on the Jesuits , enjoyed a wide popularity...
was also its editor since 1781 (he even edited a few editions alone).
A notable place in the Austrian literature of this period has Johann Baptist von Alxinger who wrote chivalric
Chivalry
Chivalry is a term related to the medieval institution of knighthood which has an aristocratic military origin of individual training and service to others. Chivalry was also the term used to refer to a group of mounted men-at-arms as well as to martial valour...
epics
Epic poetry
An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...
Doolin von Maynz (1787) and Bliomberis (1791) which were inspired by the tradition of Freemasonry
Freemasonry
Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...
. Alxinger also wrote poetry based on anticlerical
Anti-clericalism
Anti-clericalism is a historical movement that opposes religious institutional power and influence, real or alleged, in all aspects of public and political life, and the involvement of religion in the everyday life of the citizen...
ideas.
The writings of a might-have-been monk Johann Pezzl also had a profile of this kind. He wrote journalistic and epic texts.
Classical vision of poetry promoted by Joseph Schreyvogel strongly influenced later authors (for instance Franz Grillparzer
Franz Grillparzer
Franz Seraphicus Grillparzer was an Austrian writer who is chiefly known for his dramas. He also wrote the oration for Ludwig van Beethoven's funeral.-Biography:...
). Schreyvogel improved considerably the quality of the Austrian theatre. He was a dramatic adviser at the Wiener Burgtheater from 1814-32.
Another important dramatist was Johann Nepomuk von Kalchberg, but historical themes of his dramas give his work the flavour of Romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
.
First half of 19th century
Around 1790 these ideas were firmly rooted and the ancient classic cultures (Greek and Roman) were the inspiration for poets, artists, architects and writers. Harmony and Beauty were some of the ideals of that time. There was a lot of philosophical and aesthetic writing which accumulated in the RomanticRomanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
era around 1820 (mostly writers from the nobility). With the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
going on, a lot of people wanted literature which took them away in a fantasy world. A lot of religious writing was also providing people with new hope. Klemens Maria Hofbauer, Eduard von Bauernfeld
Eduard von Bauernfeld
Eduard von Bauernfeld , Austrian dramatist, was born at Vienna.Having studied jurisprudence at the university of Vienna, he entered the government service in a legal capacity, and after holding various minor offices was transferred in 1843 to a responsible post on the Lottery Commission...
and Franz Grillparzer
Franz Grillparzer
Franz Seraphicus Grillparzer was an Austrian writer who is chiefly known for his dramas. He also wrote the oration for Ludwig van Beethoven's funeral.-Biography:...
are but three of the writers influenced by these events. The German writer Karl Wilhelm Friedrich von Schlegel
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich von Schlegel
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel was a German poet, critic and scholar. With his older brother, August Wilhelm Schlegel, he was a critical leader of German Romanticism.-Life and work:...
also lived and worked in Vienna around 1809.
Between the years 1815, the end of the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
, and 1848, the year of the European revolutions
Revolutions of 1848
The European Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Spring of Nations, Springtime of the Peoples or the Year of Revolution, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe in 1848. It was the first Europe-wide collapse of traditional authority, but within a year reactionary...
the Biedermeier
Biedermeier
In Central Europe, the Biedermeier era refers to the middle-class sensibilities of the historical period between 1815, the year of the Congress of Vienna at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, and 1848, the year of the European revolutions...
contrasted with the Romantic
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
era which preceded it partly. Biedermeier can be identified with two trends in early 19th-century history.
The first trend is growing urbanisation and industrialisation leading to a new urban middle class. The early Lied
Lied
is a German word literally meaning "song", usually used to describe romantic songs setting German poems of reasonably high literary aspirations, especially during the nineteenth century, beginning with Carl Loewe, Heinrich Marschner, and Franz Schubert and culminating with Hugo Wolf...
er of Schubert, which were performable at the piano without substantial musical training, serve as examples. Further, Biedermeier writers were mainly middle-class, as opposed to the German Romantics, who were mainly drawn from the nobility. The second trend is the growing political oppression following the end of the Napoleonic Wars prompting people to concentrate on the domestic and the non-political.
Biedermeier
Biedermeier refers to work in the fields of literature, music, the visual arts and interior design in the period between the years 1815 (Vienna Congress), the end of the Napoleonic WarsNapoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
, and 1848, the year of the European revolutions
Revolutions of 1848
The European Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Spring of Nations, Springtime of the Peoples or the Year of Revolution, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe in 1848. It was the first Europe-wide collapse of traditional authority, but within a year reactionary...
and contrasts with the Romantic
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
era which preceded it.
Biedermeier can be identified with two trends in early 19th-century German history.
The first trend is growing urbanization and industrialization leading to a new urban middle class. The early Lied
Lied
is a German word literally meaning "song", usually used to describe romantic songs setting German poems of reasonably high literary aspirations, especially during the nineteenth century, beginning with Carl Loewe, Heinrich Marschner, and Franz Schubert and culminating with Hugo Wolf...
er of Schubert, which were performable at the piano without substantial musical training, serve as examples. Further, Biedermeier writers were mainly middle-class, as opposed to the Romantics, who were mainly drawn from the nobility.
The second trend is the growing political oppression following the end of the Napoleonic Wars prompting people to concentrate on the domestic and (at least in public) the non-political. The strict publication rules and the censorship
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
had the consequence, that the main topics written about were unpolitical, e.g. Historical Fiction or Books about the quiet life in the countryside. This does not mean that there was not a lot of political discussion going on, but it happened at home and in the presence of close friends. This explosive situation finally led to the revolutions in Europe in the year 1848.
Poets of that time in Austria were Nikolaus Lenau
Nikolaus Lenau
Nikolaus Lenau was the nom de plume of Nikolaus Franz Niembsch Edler von Strehlenau , was a German language Austrian poet.-Biography:...
(1802–1850) and Franz Grillparzer
Franz Grillparzer
Franz Seraphicus Grillparzer was an Austrian writer who is chiefly known for his dramas. He also wrote the oration for Ludwig van Beethoven's funeral.-Biography:...
. The latter is often mentioned as a representative of Austrian Classicism in literature.
Playwrights at that time were Franz Grillparzer
Franz Grillparzer
Franz Seraphicus Grillparzer was an Austrian writer who is chiefly known for his dramas. He also wrote the oration for Ludwig van Beethoven's funeral.-Biography:...
(1791–1872), Friedrich Halm (1806–1871), also an accomplished writer of "Novellen" (novellas / short stories), Johann Nepomuk Nestroy
Johann Nestroy
Johann Nepomuk Eduard Ambrosius Nestroy was a singer, actor and playwright in the popular Austrian tradition of the Biedermeier period and its immediate aftermath...
(1801–1862) and Ferdinand Raimund
Ferdinand Raimund
Ferdinand Raimund was an Austrian actor and dramatist.- Life and work :...
(1790–1836). Grillparzer wrote tragedies in the tradition of the "Weimarer Klassik", Nestroy and Raimund were representatives for the "Wien
Wien
Wien is the German language name for Vienna, the city and federal state in Austria.* Wien , in Vienna, Austria* Theater an der Wien, a theater in Vienna located at the former river WienWien may also refer to:...
er Volksstück" mainly played at the Viennese theater "Volkstheater Wien".
Charles Sealsfield
Charles Sealsfield
Charles Sealsfield was the pseudonym of Austrian-American journalist Carl Anton Postl , an advocate for a German democracy and author of Romantic novels with American backgrounds and travelogues....
- a pseudonym of Karl Postl - lived a long time in the US and wrote novels set in the Wild West. On the other hand he managed to write about Austria and to criticize the Austrian absolutism
Absolutism (European history)
Absolutism or The Age of Absolutism is a historiographical term used to describe a form of monarchical power that is unrestrained by all other institutions, such as churches, legislatures, or social elites...
during Biedermeier without being recognized by Austrian authorities.
The end of Biedermeier is marked by the writings of Adalbert Stifter
Adalbert Stifter
Adalbert Stifter was an Austrian writer, poet, painter, and pedagogue. He was especially notable for the vivid natural landscapes depicted in his writing, and has long been popular in the German-speaking world, while almost entirely unknown to English readers.-Life:Born in Oberplan in Bohemia , he...
(1805–1868). His first work Nachsommer
Der Nachsommer
Der Nachsommer is a novel in three volumes by Adalbert Stifter. A 19th century Bildungsroman that describes the journey of an idealistic, sheltered young man from childhood to maturity, it combines aspects of Biedermeier thought with elements of German humanism to create what is generally...
was published in 1857, but was still believed to be on of the finest works of biedermeier. Stifter not only influenced Peter Rosegger
Peter Rosegger
Peter Rosegger was an Austrian poet from the province of Styria. He was a son of a farmer and grew up in the forests and fields. Rosegger went on to become a most productive poet and author as well as an insightful teacher and visionary...
but also German writers like Ganghofer
Ludwig Ganghofer
Ludwig Ganghofer was a German writer who became famous for his homeland novels.-Biography:Born in Kaufbeuren, he graduated from a gymnasium in 1873 and subsequently worked as a fitter in Augsburg engine works...
, Heyse, Freytag
Gustav Freytag
Gustav Freytag was a German novelist and playwright.-Life:Freytag was born in Kreuzburg in Silesia...
, Wildenbruch and later authors (the time of "Bürgerlichen Realismus") like Storm
Theodor Storm
Hans Theodor Woldsen Storm , commonly known as Theodor Storm, was a German writer.-Life:Storm was born in Husum, at the west coast of Schleswig than an independent duchy and ruled by the king of Denmark...
, Fontane
Theodor Fontane
Theodor Fontane was a German novelist and poet, regarded by many as the most important 19th-century German-language realist writer.-Youth:Fontane was born in Neuruppin into a Huguenot family. At the age of sixteen he was apprenticed to an apothecary, his father's profession. He became an...
and through them Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...
and Hesse
Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse was a German-Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. In 1946, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature...
.
Realism
Austrian writers of Realism are primarily the writer of short novels Ferdinand von SaarFerdinand von Saar
Ferdinand Ludwig Adam von Saar was an Austrian novelist, playwright and poet....
, Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
Baroness Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach was an Austrian writer. Noted for her excellent psychological novels, she is regarded—together with Ferdinand von Saar—as one of the most important German-language writers of the latter portion of the 19th century.She was born at the castle of Dubský...
and the already mentioned Adalbert Stifter
Adalbert Stifter
Adalbert Stifter was an Austrian writer, poet, painter, and pedagogue. He was especially notable for the vivid natural landscapes depicted in his writing, and has long been popular in the German-speaking world, while almost entirely unknown to English readers.-Life:Born in Oberplan in Bohemia , he...
. Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach is known for her psychological novels and novellas as well as for her social engagement. Ferdinand Kürnberger
Ferdinand Kürnberger
thumb|Ferdinand Kürnberger Ferdinand Kürnberger was an Austrian writer.He was one of the most influential writers of Viennese literature in the sixties and seventies of the 19th century...
was a novelist, such as Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
Leopold Ritter von Sacher-Masoch was an Austrian writer and journalist, who gained renown for his romantic stories of Galician life. The term masochism is derived from his name....
, who became famous with Venus in Furs - the erotic behavior he described, would later be called masochism according to his name.
Another writer to mention is Bertha von Suttner
Bertha von Suttner
Bertha Felicitas Sophie Freifrau von Suttner was an Austrian novelist, radical pacifist, and the first woman to be a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.-Biography:Suttner was born in Prague, Bohemia, the daughter of an impoverished Austrian Field Marshal,...
. She wrote social novels whose literary quality usually is not appreciated highly by literary critiques and Germanists, but Suttner received the Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
for Peace for her novel Die Waffen nieder (Lay down your arms) in 1905.
While in Germany Realism paved the way for Naturalism, a similar literary movement has never developed in Austria. Instead, the successors were Jugendstil and Expressionism
Expressionism
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
.
First half of the 20th century
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
and decorative arts. On the other hand, especially the Viennese Jugendstil was marked by the presence of artists of every genre, thus also compositors and writers. The Viennese writers, such as Arthur Schnitzler
Arthur Schnitzler
Dr. Arthur Schnitzler was an Austrian author and dramatist.- Biography :Arthur Schnitzler, son of a prominent Hungarian-Jewish laryngologist Johann Schnitzler and Luise Markbreiter , was born in Praterstraße 16, Leopoldstadt, Vienna, in the Austro-Hungarian...
and Stefan Zweig
Stefan Zweig
Stefan Zweig was an Austrian novelist, playwright, journalist and biographer. At the height of his literary career, in the 1920s and 1930s, he was one of the most famous writers in the world.- Biography :...
, are often mentioned in this context. Arthur Schnitzer may be named a very typical writer of that time. He wrote his major works between 1890 and the end of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, namely novels, short stories and theater plays.
A very important center of Austrian literature during the ca. 20 years before the end of World War I was Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
. It was the center of many German-speaking, mostly Jewish, authors who did not only give important impulses to the entire Austrian and partly even to world literature, but represent a very important part of Austrian literature; their influence endured until the 1930s. Authors to mention are Oskar Baum
Oskar Baum
Oskar Baum was a Czech music educator and writer.He became blind at the age of 11.- External links :* http://www.aktion-patenschaften.de/autoren/b02.htm...
, Max Brod
Max Brod
Max Brod was a German-speaking Czech Jewish, later Israeli, author, composer, and journalist. Although he was a prolific writer in his own right, he is most famous as the friend and biographer of Franz Kafka...
, Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...
, the journalist Egon Erwin Kisch
Egon Erwin Kisch
Egon Erwin Kisch was a Czechoslovak writer and journalist, who wrote in German. Known as the The raging reporter from Prague, Kisch was noted for his development of literary reportage and his opposition to Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime.- Biography :Kisch was born into a wealthy, German-speaking...
, Gustav Meyrink
Gustav Meyrink
Gustav Meyrink was the pseudonym of Gustav Meyer, an Austrian author, storyteller, dramatist, translator, and banker, most famous for his novel The Golem.-Childhood:...
, Robert Musil
Robert Musil
Robert Musil was an Austrian writer. His unfinished long novel The Man Without Qualities is generally considered to be one of the most important modernist novels...
, Rainer Maria Rilke
Rainer Maria Rilke
René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke , better known as Rainer Maria Rilke, was a Bohemian–Austrian poet. He is considered one of the most significant poets in the German language...
, Franz Werfel
Franz Werfel
Franz Werfel was an Austrian-Bohemian novelist, playwright, and poet.- Biography :Born in Prague , Werfel was the first of three children of a wealthy manufacturer of gloves and leather goods. His mother, Albine Kussi, was the daughter of a mill owner...
, and Oskar Wiener.
Expressionism was presented primarily by the poet Georg Trakl
Georg Trakl
Georg Trakl was an Austrian poet. He is considered one of the most important Austrian Expressionists.- Life and work :Trakl was born and lived the first 18 years of his life in Salzburg, Austria...
and the dramatist and narrator Hugo von Hofmannsthal
Hugo von Hofmannsthal
Hugo Laurenz August Hofmann von Hofmannsthal ; , was an Austrian novelist, librettist, poet, dramatist, narrator, and essayist.-Early life:...
, both originating from Salzburg
Salzburg
-Population development:In 1935, the population significantly increased when Salzburg absorbed adjacent municipalities. After World War II, numerous refugees found a new home in the city. New residential space was created for American soldiers of the postwar Occupation, and could be used for...
.
The end of World War I reduced Austria to a very small and mainly German-speaking country. Some Austrian (and German writing) authors opted for the new emerging countries, such as Kafka and Werfel for Czechoslovakia, others migrated, such as Robert Musil to Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
and Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, Rainer Maria Rilke to Vienna and later Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, Elias Canetti
Elias Canetti
Elias Canetti was a Bulgarian-born modernist novelist, playwright, memoirist, and non-fiction writer. He wrote in German and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981, "for writings marked by a broad outlook, a wealth of ideas and artistic power".-Life:...
to Vienna. The political rupture and the fact that this small German-speaking Austria had lost most of its territory, industry and agriculture, led to the fatal conviction of many Austrians that only a union with Germany would be able to save the country from a total downfall, a conviction which paved the way to the later annexation by Hitler in 1938. The texts of some writers give an insight to this conviction. Hence, Robert Musil and Hugo von Hofmannsthal expressed their "German centric" point of view, while others, such as Stefan Zweig and Franz Werfel, strictly spoke up for Austria and Austrian tradition and culture.
The time between the two world wars gave way to a very rich literature in Austria. Robert Musil
Robert Musil
Robert Musil was an Austrian writer. His unfinished long novel The Man Without Qualities is generally considered to be one of the most important modernist novels...
wrote the well-known novel The Man without Qualities, Stefan Zweig
Stefan Zweig
Stefan Zweig was an Austrian novelist, playwright, journalist and biographer. At the height of his literary career, in the 1920s and 1930s, he was one of the most famous writers in the world.- Biography :...
published a multitude of essays, stories and novels, Karl Kraus
Karl Kraus
Karl Kraus was an Austrian writer and journalist, known as a satirist, essayist, aphorist, playwright and poet. He is regarded as one of the foremost German-language satirists of the 20th century, especially for his witty criticism of the press, German culture, and German and Austrian...
edited the magazine Die Fackel (The Torch), for which he wrote almost all articles by himself, Franz Werfel
Franz Werfel
Franz Werfel was an Austrian-Bohemian novelist, playwright, and poet.- Biography :Born in Prague , Werfel was the first of three children of a wealthy manufacturer of gloves and leather goods. His mother, Albine Kussi, was the daughter of a mill owner...
wrote some of his best novels, e.g. The Forty Days of Musa Dagh
The Forty Days of Musa Dagh
The Forty Days of Musa Dagh is a 1933 novel by Austrian-Jewish author Franz Werfel based on the defense of a small community of Armenians living in the Musa Dagh of the Ottoman Empire in 1915 during the height of the Armenian Genocide. The book was originally published as Die Vierzig Tage des Musa...
which narrates the Armenian tragedy of 1915, and after Franz Kafka's death, his life-time friend Max Brod began to publish Kafka's unfinished novels. Later Nobel Prize winner Elias Canetti
Elias Canetti
Elias Canetti was a Bulgarian-born modernist novelist, playwright, memoirist, and non-fiction writer. He wrote in German and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981, "for writings marked by a broad outlook, a wealth of ideas and artistic power".-Life:...
studied and lived in Vienna and wrote his only novel Auto-da-Fe; before the Anschluss
Anschluss
The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....
he fled to England. In analogy to Musil's Kakania (from the anagram for the k. u. k., i.e. imperial and royal monarchy till 1918), Fritz von Herzmanovsky-Orlando created Tarockania for the weird figures of his humorous novels and stories.
Austrofascism and Nazi Dictatorship
Catholic and conservative AustrofascismAustrofascism
Austrofascism is a term which is frequently used by historians to describe the authoritarian rule installed in Austria with the May Constitution of 1934, which ceased with the forcible incorporation of the newly-founded Federal State of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938...
came into power after the Austrian Civil War and revitalized censorship. A more important influence on Austrian literature resulted however from Nazi empowerment in Germany in 1933. It has to be understood that not only the majority of German speaking readers live in Germany, but almost all large and important publishers for literature in the German language are situated in Germany as well. In 1933 it came to a breakup at the P.E.N.
International PEN
PEN International , the worldwide association of writers, was founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere....
conference in Dubrovnik. The members discussed an official protest against the prosecution of writers and the burning of books by the Nazis. In consequence the German delegation left the conference and referred to the organization's principle not to interfere with politics. Some members of the Austrian delegation solidarized with the Germans, while others supported the resolution. This breakup continued afterwards in Vienna and led to a separation of liberal and "German nationalistic" authors; the latter left the Austrian PEN Club and later worshipped Hitler and his annexation of Austria. Nazi Germany observed the events carefully, boycotted immediately the liberal authors, who couldn't go on publishing in Germany and lost most of their readers and income. After the annexation, these authors were prosecuted as well as their German counterparts since years, and many of them, especially the Jewish, were murdered or forced to emigration.
Stefan Zweig
Stefan Zweig
Stefan Zweig was an Austrian novelist, playwright, journalist and biographer. At the height of his literary career, in the 1920s and 1930s, he was one of the most famous writers in the world.- Biography :...
flew to Brazil, Franz Werfel
Franz Werfel
Franz Werfel was an Austrian-Bohemian novelist, playwright, and poet.- Biography :Born in Prague , Werfel was the first of three children of a wealthy manufacturer of gloves and leather goods. His mother, Albine Kussi, was the daughter of a mill owner...
escaped to the US together with the German writer Heinrich Mann
Heinrich Mann
Luiz Heinrich Mann was a German novelist who wrote works with strong social themes. His attacks on the authoritarian and increasingly militaristic nature of pre-World War II German society led to his exile in 1933.-Life and work:Born in Lübeck as the oldest child of Thomas Johann Heinrich Mann...
, Elias Canetti
Elias Canetti
Elias Canetti was a Bulgarian-born modernist novelist, playwright, memoirist, and non-fiction writer. He wrote in German and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981, "for writings marked by a broad outlook, a wealth of ideas and artistic power".-Life:...
to England. Others, like Jura Soyfer
Jura Soyfer
Jura Soyfer was an important Austrian political journalist and cabaret writer.-Life:...
, were killed by the Nazis. In 2007, the Theodor Kramer
Theodor Kramer
Theodor Kramer was an Austrian poet of Jewish origin. He was persecuted during the Second World War and fled to the United Kingdom. After his death his significant poetic output fell into obscurity, but has been rediscovered in recent decades. Several of his poems have been set to music.-...
Society published an anthology of Austrian poetry written in exile, under the title In welcher Sprache träumen Sie? (In which language do you dream?). The editors present 278 authors whose names in many cases have been wiped out. The better known among them are Ilse Aichinger
Ilse Aichinger
Ilse Aichinger is an Austrian writer noted for her accounts of her persecution by the Nazis because of her Jewish ancestry.- Life :...
, Franz Theodor Csokor
Franz Theodor Csokor
Franz Theodor Csokor was an Austrian author and dramatist, particularly well-known for his Expressionist dramas. His most successful and best-known piece is 3. November 1918, about the downfall of the K. u. k. monarchy...
, Albert Drach, Albert Paris Gütersloh
Albert Paris Gütersloh
Albert Paris Gütersloh was an Austrian painter and writer.Gütersloh worked as actor, director, and stage designer before he focused on painting in 1921....
, Hermann Hakel, Theodor Kramer
Theodor Kramer
Theodor Kramer was an Austrian poet of Jewish origin. He was persecuted during the Second World War and fled to the United Kingdom. After his death his significant poetic output fell into obscurity, but has been rediscovered in recent decades. Several of his poems have been set to music.-...
, Josef Luitpold Stern, Felix Pollak
Felix Pollak
Felix Pollak was an American poet and librarian.Pollak was born in Vienna, Austria in 1909 to Geza Pollak and Helene Schneider Pollak. A Jew and liberal anti-fascist, he studied law and theater at the University of Vienna, but emigrated to the United States after the occupation of Austria by Nazi...
, Paula von Preradović
Paula von Preradovic
Paula Preradović , known professionally as Paula von Preradović or by her married name as Paula Molden, was a Croatian and Austrian writer and narrator....
, Joseph Roth
Joseph Roth
Joseph Roth, born Moses Joseph Roth , was an Austrian journalist and novelist, best known for his family saga Radetzky March about the decline and fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and for his novel of Jewish life, Job as well as the seminal essay 'Juden auf Wanderschaft' translated in...
, Hilde Spiel, Wilhelm Szabo, Hans Weigel
Hans Weigel
Julius Hans Weigel was an Austrian Jewish writer and a theater critic . He lived in Vienna, except during the period between 1938 and 1945, when he lived in exile in Switzerland. He was a lifetime companion of the Austrian actress Elfriede Ott.- Biography :During the time before the Anschluss of...
, Stefan Zweig
Stefan Zweig
Stefan Zweig was an Austrian novelist, playwright, journalist and biographer. At the height of his literary career, in the 1920s and 1930s, he was one of the most famous writers in the world.- Biography :...
.
During the Nazi dictatorship, which had factually wiped out the Austrian state, the Austrian PEN Club was in exile in London and continued its work in Austria from 1946 on. Until 1973, PEN was the only Austrian writers' organization of importance.
After World War II - Group of Vienna
The literature after World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
combined much different movements. While some authors were in search for reorientation, such as Ilse Aichinger
Ilse Aichinger
Ilse Aichinger is an Austrian writer noted for her accounts of her persecution by the Nazis because of her Jewish ancestry.- Life :...
, Ingeborg Bachmann
Ingeborg Bachmann
Ingeborg Bachmann was an Austrian poet and author.-Biography:Bachmann was born in Klagenfurt, in the Austrian state of Carinthia, the daughter of a headmaster. She studied philosophy, psychology, German philology, and law at the universities of Innsbruck, Graz, and Vienna...
, Heimito von Doderer
Heimito von Doderer
Heimito von Doderer was a famous Austrian writer.- Life and work :...
, Gerhard Fritsch and Hans Lebert, others came back from concentration camps, such as Jean Améry
Jean Améry
Jean Améry , born Hanns Chaim Mayer, was an Austrian-born essayist whose work was often informed by his experiences during World War II...
, from former (in times of monarchy) Austrian territories, such as Rose Ausländer
Rose Ausländer
Rose Ausländer , maiden name Rosalie Beatrice Scherzer, was a Jewish German- and English language poet. She was born in Bucovina, and lived in U.S.A, Romania, and Germany....
and Paul Celan
Paul Celan
Paul Celan was a poet and translator...
, or from exile, such as Hans Weigel
Hans Weigel
Julius Hans Weigel was an Austrian Jewish writer and a theater critic . He lived in Vienna, except during the period between 1938 and 1945, when he lived in exile in Switzerland. He was a lifetime companion of the Austrian actress Elfriede Ott.- Biography :During the time before the Anschluss of...
and Friedrich Torberg
Friedrich Torberg
Friedrich Torberg is the pen-name of Friedrich Kantor, an Austrian writer.- Biography :...
, while others again did not come back from exile, such as Hermann Broch
Hermann Broch
Hermann Broch was a 20th century Austrian writer, considered one of the major Modernists.-Life:Broch was born in Vienna to a prosperous Jewish family and worked for some time in his family's factory, though he maintained his literary interests privately...
or Franz Werfel
Franz Werfel
Franz Werfel was an Austrian-Bohemian novelist, playwright, and poet.- Biography :Born in Prague , Werfel was the first of three children of a wealthy manufacturer of gloves and leather goods. His mother, Albine Kussi, was the daughter of a mill owner...
. On the other hand, some former "Nazi" writers kept their positions, such as Max Mell, Franz Nabl and Karl Heinrich Waggerl. The latter and other, catholic, writers began to form a very conservative block within the Austrian literature. Through the Austrian PEN Club they even seemed to control statal subsidies for literature as well as literary awards till the 1970s.
Some authors had good relations to the Group 47
Group 47
Gruppe 47 was an influential literary association in Germany after World War II. '47' Stands for the year of their creation, 1947.-Early history:The beginnings reach back to1946 when Alfred Andersch and Walter Kolbenhoff founded the literary...
based in Germany or were members. Among them Ilse Aichinger
Ilse Aichinger
Ilse Aichinger is an Austrian writer noted for her accounts of her persecution by the Nazis because of her Jewish ancestry.- Life :...
who published the novel Die größere Hoffnung (Greater Hope) and the narrator and poet Ingeborg Bachmann
Ingeborg Bachmann
Ingeborg Bachmann was an Austrian poet and author.-Biography:Bachmann was born in Klagenfurt, in the Austrian state of Carinthia, the daughter of a headmaster. She studied philosophy, psychology, German philology, and law at the universities of Innsbruck, Graz, and Vienna...
. Both were awarded the Group 47 Prize for Literature. Other Austrian members of the Group 47 were Paul Celan
Paul Celan
Paul Celan was a poet and translator...
and Erich Fried
Erich Fried
Erich Fried , an Austrian poet who settled in England, was known for his political-minded poetry. He was also a broadcaster, translator and essayist....
. While Celan, after some time in Vienna, went to live in Paris, Fried moved to Berlin. In 1954, the Wiener Gruppe
Wiener Gruppe
Wiener Gruppe was a small and loose avant-garde constellation of Austrian poets and writers, which arose from an older and wider postwar association of artists called Art-Club . The group was formed around 1954 under the influence of H. C. Artmann in Vienna and existed for about a decade...
(Group of Vienna) was formed by H. C. Artmann
H. C. Artmann
Hans Carl Artmann , also known as Ib Hansen, was an Austria-born poet and writer, most popular for his early poems written in Viennese , which however never after were to be the focus of his oeuvre.-Life and work:Artmann was born in Vienna as the son of shoe...
and others. Friedrich Achleitner
Friedrich Achleitner
Friedrich Achleitner is an Austrian poet and architecture critic.Achleitner studied architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna from 1950–1953. He joined the Wiener Gruppe in 1955, participated in their literary cabarets, and wrote dialect poems, montages, and concrete poems...
, Konrad Bayer
Konrad Bayer
Konrad Bayer was an Austrian writer and poet. A member of the Wiener Gruppe, he combined apparently irreconcilable elements—violence, hermeticism, pessimism, ecstasy, banality—and influences —into a bizarre linguistic solipsism which has held increasing fascination for German writers of...
, Gerhard Rühm and Oswald Wiener belonged to the group, as well as Ernst Jandl and Friederike Mayröcker.
Hans Lebert wrote the novel Wolfshaut (Wolf's Skin), in which he described a fictional village named Schweigen (Silence), an allegory for the silence of many Austrians after the Nazi dictatorship, who pretended to know nothing about what had happened in their country.
Several volumes of Diaries contain the war memories of Heimito von Doderer
Heimito von Doderer
Heimito von Doderer was a famous Austrian writer.- Life and work :...
. However, this author got best-known for his novels, which he designed meticulously, for example The Studlhofstiege, The Demons, The Waterfalls of Slunj, and The Merowingians. Doderer influenced many other authors with his novelistic art, e.g. Robert Schindel.
1970-2000
In 1973, a new writers' association was founded in Graz (Styria), mostly as a protest against the conservativism of P.E.N. and their controlling position, e.g. concerning literature prizes. The new association was called Grazer AutorenversammlungGrazer Autorenversammlung
The Grazer Autorinnen Autorenversammlung was founded under the name of Grazer Autorenversammlung in March 1973 and is one of the two major Austrian writers' association . H. C. Artmann was its first president...
(GAV). Among its founders and first members, you find names, such as Barbara Frischmuth
Barbara Frischmuth
Barbara Frischmuth is an Austrian writer of poetry and prose.She is a member of the Grazer Gruppe , along with Peter Handke.- Books :*Die Klosterschule, 1968...
, Peter Handke
Peter Handke
Peter Handke is an avant-garde Austrian novelist and playwright.-Early life:Handke and his mother lived in the Soviet-occupied Pankow district of Berlin from 1944 to 1948 before resettling in Griffen...
, Ernst Jandl
Ernst Jandl
Ernst Jandl was an Austrian writer, poet, and translator.- Poetry :Influenced by Dada he started to write experimental poetry, first published in the journal "Neue Wege" in 1952....
, Alfred Kolleritsch, Friederike Mayröcker
Friederike Mayröcker
Friederike Mayröcker is an Austrian poet.- Life :From 1946 to 1969 Mayröcker was an English teacher at several public schools in Vienna. In 1969 she took a release from working as a teacher and in 1977 she retired early.She started writing as a 15 year old...
, Michael Scharang, etc. Eventually, the GAV became the largest writers' association in Austria, with more than 500 members.
The end of the 1960s and eventually the 1970s were characterized by experimental theater plays. Peter Handke
Peter Handke
Peter Handke is an avant-garde Austrian novelist and playwright.-Early life:Handke and his mother lived in the Soviet-occupied Pankow district of Berlin from 1944 to 1948 before resettling in Griffen...
tried out new ways of theater communication with his play Offending the Audience in 1966. Kaspar and The Ride Across Lake Constance are two further examples. Ernst Jandl
Ernst Jandl
Ernst Jandl was an Austrian writer, poet, and translator.- Poetry :Influenced by Dada he started to write experimental poetry, first published in the journal "Neue Wege" in 1952....
and Friederike Mayröcker
Friederike Mayröcker
Friederike Mayröcker is an Austrian poet.- Life :From 1946 to 1969 Mayröcker was an English teacher at several public schools in Vienna. In 1969 she took a release from working as a teacher and in 1977 she retired early.She started writing as a 15 year old...
wrote a new sort of experimental poetry, Konkrete Poesie, at a first glance working rather with the sounds of speech than with semantics.
One of the most important writers after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
was Thomas Bernhard
Thomas Bernhard
Thomas Bernhard was an Austrian novelist, playwright and poet. Bernhard, whose body of work has been called "the most significant literary achievement since World War II," is widely considered to be one of the most important German-speaking authors of the postwar era.- Life :Thomas Bernhard was...
(1931–1989). He wrote nine novels, several books of stories and short prose as well as some autobiographical works, and numerous plays. Repeatedly, his works triggered public controversies, since Bernhard constantly attacked a typical Austrian manner of treating the Nazi past in simply ignoring what had happened. One of the dramas is called Heldenplatz, an open allusion to Vienna's central imperial place, from which Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
had held his first speech after the country's annexation by Nazi German troops, in front of hundreds of thousands of cheering Austrians.
Marianne Fritz (1948–2007) got known as a novelist. Her third novel, Dessen Sprache du nicht verstehst (Whose speech you don't understand), was published in 1985. On more than three thousand pages, Fritz describes a linguistic and fictional universe that deals with the decline of the Austrian empire. More than that, she used a very artificial language breaking many linguistic norms, in order to achieve a much more rhythmic speech. Marianne Fritz intensified this individual esthetics with her fourth and fifth novel, which jointly have more than ten thousand pages.
During the 1980s, especially after the political scandal around former UN secretary and eventually Austrian federal president Kurt Waldheim
Kurt Waldheim
Kurt Josef Waldheim was an Austrian diplomat and politician. Waldheim was the fourth Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1972 to 1981, and the ninth President of Austria, from 1986 to 1992...
, a new and more distinctive Jewish literature formed. Robert Schindel published the novel Gebirtig, which deals with a contemporary Jewish society within Austria and the difficult memories of the Shoah
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
. Robert Menasse
Robert Menasse
Robert Menasse is an Austrian writer.As an undergraduate, Menasse studied in Vienna, Salzburg and Messina. In 1980 he completed his PhD thesis "Der Typus des Außenseiters im Literaturbetrieb...
is known for his novels and especially for his essay
Essay
An essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition...
s on Austria. Another author who works with Jewish topics, is Doron Rabinovici
Doron Rabinovici
Doron Rabinovici is an Israeli-Austrian writer, historian and essayist. He was born in Tel Aviv in 1961 and moved to Vienna in 1964.-Overview:...
.
Christoph Ransmayr
Christoph Ransmayr is an Austrian writer.- Life :Born in Wels, Upper Austria Ransmayr grew up in Roitham near Gmunden and the Traunsee. From 1972 to 1978 he studied philosophy and ethnology in Vienna...
mixes historical facts with fiction. The acclaimed novel Morbus Kithara creates a scenario, in which Austria did not get aid from the Marshall Plan
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan was the large-scale American program to aid Europe where the United States gave monetary support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II in order to combat the spread of Soviet communism. The plan was in operation for four years beginning in April 1948...
after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and was condemned to become an exclusively agrarian country. On this background, the author writes about the time after the war, about ex-soldiers, ex-nazis and concentration camp survivors, and thus depicts the complexity of post-war Austria.
Josef Haslinger
Josef Haslinger
Josef Haslinger is an Austrian writer.Haslinger was born in Zwettl, Lower Austria. He studied philosophy, drama and Germanic studies...
wrote the novel Opernball, in which he described a fictitious attack at the Vienna Opera Ball
Vienna Opera Ball
The Vienna Opera Ball is an annual Austrian society event which takes place in the building of the Vienna State Opera on the Thursday preceding Ash Wednesday. Together with the New Year Concert, the Opera Ball is one of the highlights of the Viennese carnival season...
, in which all attendants, incl. the entire Austrian government, is killed by combat gas. This attack brings a new fascist party to power, which a handful of idealistic journalists try to tell to the world. Haslinger is also the author of an essay about the Waldheim affair. Also Milo Dor
Milo Dor
Milo Dor was a writer and translator. He described himself as "an Austrian, Viennese, and European of Serbian heritage."- Life :...
, a born Serb who wrote all of his books in German and became a very important figure in Austria's literary scene, chose the danger of ultra right wing parties as topic for one of his narrative texts, Wien, Juli 1999. Other books describe the destiny of immigrants after the world war.
Essay
Essay
An essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition...
s have also a tradition in Austrian literature. While the roots may be found with Franz Grillparzer, Hermann Bahr
Hermann Bahr
Hermann Bahr was an Austrian writer, playwright, director, and critic.-Biography:Born and raised in Linz, Bahr studied Philosophy, Law, Economics and Philology in Vienna, Czernowitz and Berlin. During a prolonged stay in Paris he discovered his interest in literature and art...
and especially Karl Kraus, one of the most important essayists after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
is Jean Améry
Jean Améry
Jean Améry , born Hanns Chaim Mayer, was an Austrian-born essayist whose work was often informed by his experiences during World War II...
whose oeuvre primarily consists of essays, articles and critiques. The historian and scholar Friedrich Heer
Friedrich Heer
Friedrich Heer was a historian born in Vienna. He received a PhD at the University in Vienna in 1938. Even as a student he came into conflict with pan-German thinking historians as a staunch opponent of National Socialism....
is the author of about fifty thousand pages, most of them essays on Austrian and European topics, on history and philosophy as well as on religion and literature. A younger representative of Austrian essayism is Karl-Markus Gauß
Karl-Markus Gauß
Karl-Markus Gauß is an Austrian contemporary writer, essayist and editor. He lives in Salzburg.- Biography :Gauß has a degree for German Philology and History from the University of Salzburg. He very early published literary essays, primarily in the magazine Wiener Tagebuch ...
who writes for several newspagers and magazines in Austria, Switzerland and Germany. His books speak about Central and Eastern European peoples, cultures and literatures. He is also the editor in chief of the magazine Literatur und Kritik
Literatur und Kritik
The Austrian literary magazine Literatur und Kritik was founded in April 1966 by the Austrian writers Rudolf Henz, Gerhard Fritsch, and Paul Kruntorad as successor of the literary publication Wort in der Zeit, which had existed since 1955.-Profile:Compared to its predecessor, Literatur und Kritik...
.
Authors in the Slovene language, originating in Carinthia, are Florjan Lipuš
Florjan Lipuš
Florjan Lipuš, born 4 May 1937 in Lobnig above Bad Eisenkappel, Austria, is a Carintian Slovene writer and translator. Since 1985 he has been a corresponding member of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts- References :...
, Cvetka Lipuš
Cvetka Lipus
Cvetka Lipuš is an Austrian poet writing in Slovenian.She was born in Bad Eisenkappel/Železna Kapla in the Austrian province of Carinthia as the daughter of the Carinthian Slovenian author Florjan Lipuš...
and Janko Messner. Usually they write either exclusively in Slovene, or in Slovene and German. Another famous Carinthian writer, Peter Handke
Peter Handke
Peter Handke is an avant-garde Austrian novelist and playwright.-Early life:Handke and his mother lived in the Soviet-occupied Pankow district of Berlin from 1944 to 1948 before resettling in Griffen...
, has translated several works from Slovene to German.
Nobel Prizes for Literature
Elias Canetti
Elias Canetti was a Bulgarian-born modernist novelist, playwright, memoirist, and non-fiction writer. He wrote in German and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981, "for writings marked by a broad outlook, a wealth of ideas and artistic power".-Life:...
(1905–1994) received the Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
for Literature. While his birth place today belongs to Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
, he spent much time, especially between the two world wars, in Vienna and wrote all books in German. After his (forced) emigration to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, he became a British subject. The last years of his life, he lived in Zurich
Zürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
. The most important works are the novel Auto-da-Fe, the essay Crowds and Power, and his vast Diary. Three volumes of memoirs give an insight of Austrian society until World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and describe the contacts the author had within the literary scene.
In 2004, Elfriede Jelinek
Elfriede Jelinek
Elfriede Jelinek is an Austrian playwright and novelist. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2004 for her "musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that, with extraordinary linguistic zeal, reveal the absurdity of society's clichés and their subjugating power."-...
(*1946) received the Nobel Prize for Literature for her "musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that, with extraordinary linguistic zeal, reveal the absurdity of society's clichés and their subjugating power". She lives in Vienna and Munich. Her works comprise novels, such as The Piano Teacher, Lust and Die Kinder der Toten (Children of the Dead), as well as theater plays, such as Clara S., Burgtheater and Bambiland. However, in the 1960s she began to write poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
and stories.
The 21st Century
While some of the well-known authors, such as FranzobelFranzobel
Franzobel is the pseudonym of the Austrian writer Stefan Griebl. He was born on March 1, 1967 in Vöcklabruck. He now lives in Vienna.- Books :* Der Wimmerldrucker. Ein Lexikaroman. Eigenverlag, 1990....
, Peter Handke
Peter Handke
Peter Handke is an avant-garde Austrian novelist and playwright.-Early life:Handke and his mother lived in the Soviet-occupied Pankow district of Berlin from 1944 to 1948 before resettling in Griffen...
, Peter Henisch, Elfriede Jelinek
Elfriede Jelinek
Elfriede Jelinek is an Austrian playwright and novelist. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2004 for her "musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that, with extraordinary linguistic zeal, reveal the absurdity of society's clichés and their subjugating power."-...
, Gerhard Roth
Gerhard Roth
Gerhard Roth is an Austrian writer.-Life:The son of a medical practitioner, Roth originally also wanted to study medicine himself, but soon focussed on literature. Initially, he earned his living as a computer programmer; he has been a freelance writer since 1976...
, Robert Schneider
Robert Schneider
Robert Peter Schneider is one of the co-founders of The Elephant 6 Recording Company, along with Will Cullen Hart, Bill Doss, and Jeff Mangum...
, still publish regularly, there are rich literary movements, mostly driven by a younger generation. In some cases, literary magazines play an important role in gathering writers and fostering their works.
Literary magazines and publishers
Literatur und KritikLiteratur und Kritik
The Austrian literary magazine Literatur und Kritik was founded in April 1966 by the Austrian writers Rudolf Henz, Gerhard Fritsch, and Paul Kruntorad as successor of the literary publication Wort in der Zeit, which had existed since 1955.-Profile:Compared to its predecessor, Literatur und Kritik...
and Erostepost are published in Salzburg
Salzburg
-Population development:In 1935, the population significantly increased when Salzburg absorbed adjacent municipalities. After World War II, numerous refugees found a new home in the city. New residential space was created for American soldiers of the postwar Occupation, and could be used for...
, Manuskripte, Sterz, Schreibkraft
Schreibkraft
Schreibkraft is an Austrian literary magazine, which has been founded in 1998 by the Literature Council of the Forum Stadtpark in Graz . The magazine prints feature articles. Since 1999 the edition schreibkraft is the publisher. Schreibkraft appears twice a year.Every issue has a specific topic...
and Lichtungen in Graz
Graz
The more recent population figures do not give the whole picture as only people with principal residence status are counted and people with secondary residence status are not. Most of the people with secondary residence status in Graz are students...
, Wespennest
Wespennest
The quarterly magazine Wespennest publishes texts and images by internationally renowned authors and artists as well as new literary talents...
and Kolik in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, Cognac & Biskotten in Innsbruck
Innsbruck
- Main sights :- Buildings :*Golden Roof*Kaiserliche Hofburg *Hofkirche with the cenotaph of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor*Altes Landhaus...
, DUM in Lower Austria
Lower Austria
Lower Austria is the northeasternmost state of the nine states in Austria. The capital of Lower Austria since 1986 is Sankt Pölten, the most recently designated capital town in Austria. The capital of Lower Austria had formerly been Vienna, even though Vienna is not officially part of Lower Austria...
. They count among the most traditional and important literary magazines in contemporary Austria.
Publishing houses to mention are Residenz, Droschl, Haymon, Zsolnay and Deuticke. Residenz played an important role during the 1970s and 1980s, when numerous important Austrian writers were published there. Especially smaller publishers, such as Arovell, Drava, FZA-Verlag, Mitter, Otto Müller, Pichler, Ritter, Skarabaeus, Sonderzahl, Wieser, etc. bring emerging and younger authors to the public. On the other hand, many Austrian writers publish their books in Germany, which offers much larger and powerful publishing houses. Of course, the economic regrouping of publishing houses and their mergers have also an influence on Austrian publishers. Thus, Zsolny and Deuticke already belong to the German publishing group Hanser.
Literature Awards and Subsidies
In addition to subsidies and awards financed and organized by the Austrian and federal governments, several smaller literary prizes award Austrian and other German writing authors. Alfred-Gesswein-Literaturpreis, Erostepost-Literaturpreis, Franz-Kafka-Preis, Feldkircher LyrikpreisFeldkircher Lyrikpreis
The Feldkirch Poetry Award, in German Feldkircher Lyrikpreis, started by Erika Kronabitter, an Austrian artist and writer, is granted annually by the theater Theater am Saumarkt in Feldkirch, Vorarlberg/Austria. Among the sponsors, there are the Austrian government, the local authorities of...
, Wiener Werkstattpreis
Wiener Werkstattpreis
The international Wiener Werkstattpreis is a literary award established in 1992 in Austria. Since 2000, the award has been given annual. The organizers hope to bring public attention to writers who are not well known....
, Anton-Wildgans-Preis, and Manuskripte-Preis belong to this aspect of Austrian literature.
The scholar Klaus Zeyringer states that public subsidies represent the backbone of today's literary production and especially publishing in Austria, and this would be one reason why the frame conditions obviously differ from those in Germany. Public subsidies add to the funding of publishing houses, literary magazines, public events, book publications, and to the income of writers. Zeyringer points out that on one hand this custom enables also the publication of non-mainstream and complicated literary works but on the other hand reduces the awareness of the necessity of adequate marketing activities of many cultural organizations, including publishers.
Authors of the New Century
Book publications, magazines, public readings and literary prizes chronicle and divulge a multitude of writers, i.e. novelists, playwrights, prosaists, essayists and poets, such as Reinhold Aumaier, Zedenka Becker, Adelheid Dahimène, Dimitré Dinew, Martin Dragosits, Klaus EbnerKlaus Ebner
Klaus Ebner is an Austrian writer, essayist, poet, and translator. Born and raised in Vienna, he began writing at an early age. He started submitting stories to magazines in the 1980s, and also published articles and books on software topics after 1989. Ebner's poetry is written in German and...
, Günter Eichberger, Olga Flor, Karin Geyer, Thomas Glavinic
Thomas Glavinic
Thomas Glavinic is an Austrian writer. With Kathrin Röggla and Daniel Kehlmann, he is among other young Austrian authors being perceived as significantly shaping the literary discussion in Austria.-Life:...
, Constantin Göttfert
Constantin Göttfert
- Biography :He studied German language und Cultural Sciences at the university of Vienna. Göttfert is living in Vienna. He received a number of literary prices.- Works :*Holzung, short stories, Arovell Verlag, Gosau 2006 ISBN 978-3901435812...
, Egyd Gstättner, Klaus Händl
Klaus Händl
Klaus Händl , also known as Händl Klaus, is an Austrian actor and writer.-Biography:Händl was born in Rum, near Innsbruck. He started his theater career as an actor in Vienna's Schauspielhaus. His first theatrical production, which he also directed, was premiered in the Styrian Autumn Festival...
, Ludwig Laher, Gabriel Loidolt, Wolfgang Kauer, Daniel Kehlmann
Daniel Kehlmann
Daniel Kehlmann is a German language author of both Austrian and German nationality. His work Die Vermessung der Welt is the best selling novel in the German language since Patrick Süskind's Perfume was released in 1985...
, Michael Köhlmeier
Michael Köhlmeier
Michael Köhlmeier is a contemporary Austrian writer and musician.He studied Politics and German at the University of Marburg, Germany, and Mathematics and Philosophy at the universities in Giessen and Frankfurt, Germany...
, Melamar, Wolfgang Pollanz, Doron Rabinovici
Doron Rabinovici
Doron Rabinovici is an Israeli-Austrian writer, historian and essayist. He was born in Tel Aviv in 1961 and moved to Vienna in 1964.-Overview:...
, Gudrun Seidenauer, Linda Stift, Vladimir Vertlib, Christine Werner
Christine Werner
Christine Werner is an Austrian writer. She is the author of dramas, literary cabaret, radio plays, net art, photographic art, poetry and narrative prose.-Biography:...
, Peter Paul Wiplinger
Peter Paul Wiplinger
Peter Paul Wiplinger is an Austrian writer and photographer.Wiplinger was born in 1939 in Haslach an der Mühl in Upper Austria as the tenth child of a merchant family. He studied performance arts, German and philosophy. Since 1960 he has lived as liberal writer and photographer in Vienna...
. Usually, these authors do not only publish in Austria, but also in Germany and Switzerland.
The Cultural Melting Pot
In its history, the country and the Austrian literature have been a cultural melting potMelting pot
The melting pot is a metaphor for a heterogeneous society becoming more homogeneous, the different elements "melting together" into a harmonious whole with a common culture...
that put together different ethnicities, mentalities and cultures. Today, this element has shrunk enormously but is still not wiped out. Thus, novelist Zdenka Becker emigrated from Slovakia
Slovakia
The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
, Dimitré Dinev
Dimitré Dinev
Dimitré Dinev is a Bulgarian-born Austrian writer. He is best known for his play Kozha i nebe , which controversially won the Askeer prize in 2007.-References:...
from Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
, and Vladimir Vertlib was born in Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
. Very often their topics have to do with immigration
Immigration
Immigration is the act of foreigners passing or coming into a country for the purpose of permanent residence...
and interculturality.
There is some literature written by members of the autochthonous minorities in Austria. To mention the daughter of Florjan Lipuš, the poet Cvetka Lipuš
Cvetka Lipus
Cvetka Lipuš is an Austrian poet writing in Slovenian.She was born in Bad Eisenkappel/Železna Kapla in the Austrian province of Carinthia as the daughter of the Carinthian Slovenian author Florjan Lipuš...
, who has lived in the US for several years. Her poetry has been published in Slovene and in German.
Another aspect is the fact that some authors have chosen to live in other countries than Austria, while still writing literature in the German language. Their experiences living in another country do have some impact on their writing. For example, Marlene Streeruwitz and Ann Cotten
Ann Cotten
-Life and Work:At the age of five years Ann Cotten was taken by her parents, who are both biochemists, to Vienna, where they went for work.There she finished university in 2006 with a work about Concrete Poetry. At the same time she first emerged as a poet at poetry slams...
live in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, Raoul Schrott
Raoul Schrott
Prof. Dr. Raoul Schrott, is an Austrian poet, writer, literary critic, translator and broadcast personality.Schrott was deeply influenced by the rich cultural atmosphere of his hometown, Landeck in Tyrol...
lived several years in Ireland and also Christoph Ransmayr
Christoph Ransmayr
Christoph Ransmayr is an Austrian writer.- Life :Born in Wels, Upper Austria Ransmayr grew up in Roitham near Gmunden and the Traunsee. From 1972 to 1978 he studied philosophy and ethnology in Vienna...
has moved there.
Sources (books)
- Heer, FriedrichFriedrich HeerFriedrich Heer was a historian born in Vienna. He received a PhD at the University in Vienna in 1938. Even as a student he came into conflict with pan-German thinking historians as a staunch opponent of National Socialism....
: Der Kampf um die österreichische Identität. Böhlau Verlag, Wien 1981/1996/2001, ISBN 3-205-99333-0 - Herz-Kestranek, Miguel, Konstantin Kaiser and Daniela Strigl (Ed.): In welcher Sprache träumen Sie? Österreichische Exillyrik. Verlag der Theodor KramerTheodor KramerTheodor Kramer was an Austrian poet of Jewish origin. He was persecuted during the Second World War and fled to the United Kingdom. After his death his significant poetic output fell into obscurity, but has been rediscovered in recent decades. Several of his poems have been set to music.-...
Gesellschaft, Wien 2007, ISBN 978-3-901602-25-2 - Zeman, Herbert and Fritz P. Knapp (Ed.): Geschichte der Literatur in Österreich. 7 volumes, Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, Vienna 1994ff., Vol. 1: ISBN 978-3-201-01611-7, Vol. 2: ISBN 978-3-201-01721-3 and ISBN 978-3-201-01812-8, Vol. 7: ISBN 978-3-201-01687-2
- Zeyringer, Klaus: Österreichische Literatur seit 1945. Haymon Verlag, Innsbruck 2001, ISBN 978-3-85218-379-4
- Žmegač, ViktorViktor ŽmegačViktor Žmegač is a renowned Croatian musicologist and scholar. He authored a number of books, articles and essays in the areas of cultural history, literary theory, musicology, art history and German studies....
(Ed.): Kleine Geschichte der deutschen Literatur. Von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart. Marix, Wiesbaden 2004. ISBN 3-937715-24-X
External links
- Modern Austrian Literature and Culture Association (MALCA)
- eLibrary Austria Project (eLib Austria etxt in German)
- WikiReader Austrian Literature (German)
- IG Autoren (interest group of all Austrian writers and professional associations of writers)
- Österreichischer Schriftstellerverband (writers' association)
- P.E.N.-Club (writers' association)
- Grazer Autorenversammlung (writers' association)
- Österreichische Gesellschaft für Literatur (Austrian Society for Literature)