tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post6204466260451081612..comments2024-03-28T00:11:33.489-04:00Comments on bensozia: Stefan Zweig, "The World of Yesterday"Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01037215533094998996noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-2738084462687753172023-01-13T09:46:29.958-05:002023-01-13T09:46:29.958-05:00I am, of course, fully aware of the structure of t...I am, of course, fully aware of the structure of the Austro-Hungarian state(s) following the Ausgleich of 1867. I was referring to "dynastically-protected multiethnicity" more as an extremely broad type, taking in examples as various as the Sasanians, Abbasids, Alfonso X of Castle, the Polish-Lithuanian Union, and on and on.<br /><br />Yes, as all of us have been saying all along in this discussion, Zweig's nostalgia is thoroughly shaped by his and his family's wealth, privilege, and connections (that's kind of what I meant by "an obviously out-of-touch elitist snot"). Beyond that, I am fully aware that none of the societies I mentioned was "tolerant" in any deeply-committed or reliable sense. I could go on with many, many arguments and pieces of evidence that I know go against my position. I was trying to present, simply, my personal stance, the sort deep inner stance one may have on an issue in a way that goes beyond evidence--the myths one loves, even when one knows they are myths, and even after many years of learning about how they're myths. That's what I meant by "for better or worse"--a phrase I use perhaps too much, but which I think I mean every time.<br /><br />Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14456987412710878404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-57228887365383004352023-01-13T00:11:28.799-05:002023-01-13T00:11:28.799-05:00@David
That said, it's worth pointing out tha...@David<br /><br /><i>That said, it's worth pointing out that the same society that so many elite Jews, including Stoppard's ancestors and Stefan Zweig and his family, thought was just The Best inspired Kafka to write The Trial, &c.</i><br /><br />It's also the society that created Gavrilo Princip, The Black Hand, etc.<br /><br />Also, it wasn't an "old dynastically-proteted multiethnicity", in so much as it was actually <i>two fully distinct governments</i>, with the Austrians and Germans running one half, and the Hungarians running the other, with entirely separate ministries and governmental offices except for the three matters of the military, finances, and diplomacy.<br /><br />Moreover, while technically a "multiethnicity" in simple terms of demographics, it absolutely was a society in which the ruling minority ethnicities (Austrian, German, Hungarian) lorded over all the other ethnicities (Czechs, Poles, Ruthenians, Romanians, Croats, Serbs, Bosnians, Slovaks, Slovenes, Italians, etc) which actually comprised the majority of the population.<br /><br />Austria-Hungary was largely held together by two major forces - overwhelming Germanic dominance of the military and the civil service; and a population of subject peoples who were each individually too small and uninfluential to enact change by themselves, yet who were too distrusting of each other to work together against their mutual oppressors for mutual benefit.<br /><br />Wealthy Jews like Zweig managed to ingratiate themselves to the ruling elites, and so were able to achieve a level of wealth, privilege, and influence that the vast bulk of people living in the Empire could only dream of. And as already noted by John, people like Zweig seemingly took almost no notice of their fellow Jews who were NOT wealthy, and who were treated rather abysmally by the exact same ruling elites - a view which strikes me as both extremely short-sighted and extremely hypocritical.<br /><br />I would go so far as to say that Zweig was probably a full blown Classist - more closely bound to the ruling elites by his family's wealth and the circles he moved within, than he was to his own religious and ethnic kin who languished in poverty and oppression.G. Verlorennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-90483996737199144352023-01-12T22:08:56.213-05:002023-01-12T22:08:56.213-05:00@John--Yes, it's ticklish having as one's ...@John--Yes, it's ticklish having as one's anti-nationalist spokesperson such an obviously out-of-touch elitist snot. Especially when one really just want to protect one's own middlebrow, deracinated, but still *very* pleasant and cushy American consumerist fandom.<br /><br />Reading about Zweig as you, I expect, quite faithfully present him, one can almost (I stress *almost*) sympathize with the Viennese masses for wanting to say, "Oh yeah, take THAT!" (Yeah, I know I'm verging on the unthinkable there.) On the other hand, Zweig's joy in his afternoon with Rodin seems so genuine and complete and unaffected, so "simple" in the best sense, that it's hard not to give him a sort of pass.<br /><br />On the other hand, I admit I can't let go of a certain nostalgia for the old dynastically-protected multiethnicity. There I am, for better or worse (probably, mostly, for worse). (In my own defense, if you want to read a 400-page study in self-dramatizing gits, try Dedijer's Road to Sarajevo.) That said, it's worth pointing out that the same society that so many elite Jews, including Stoppard's ancestors and Stefan Zweig and his family, thought was just The Best inspired Kafka to write The Trial, &c.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14456987412710878404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-33491031676541616812023-01-12T20:16:03.416-05:002023-01-12T20:16:03.416-05:00>I think that to imagine we could have the good...>I think that to imagine we could have the good things about life in Europe between 1875 and 1914 without all the bad things is a mistake.<br /><br />I think that to imagine we could have the good things about life today without all the bad things is a mistake. There's always good and bad things. If you think not telling women about sex up to and beyond their weeding night kept society 'stable', I think you should be wearing a tinfoil hat. And as G. said, the 19th century being 'stable' is a truly odd idea. Who thought we would ever agree? And again, if it was so 'stable', why did it not last? <br /><br />"He was so stable right up until he went nuts and shot himself"Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-25844492308924840302023-01-12T20:02:59.564-05:002023-01-12T20:02:59.564-05:00@David- Zweig does mention meeting Herzl and being...@David- Zweig does mention meeting Herzl and being impressed but ultimately not being able to agree with him. Zweig shows zero interest in poor Jews, or indeed in any kind of Jews except his family and Jewish artists. He portrays himself as living as fully as possible in the world of European art and letters. Which was, he makes clear, full of Jews, but that was not really the point.Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01037215533094998996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-59161567611724039852023-01-12T14:46:44.032-05:002023-01-12T14:46:44.032-05:00Fascinating review. Funny, I just last week saw T...Fascinating review. Funny, I just last week saw Tom Stoppard's "Leopoldstadt," which covers much of the same ground, starting in pre-WWI Vienna. One of the characters remarks jeeringly about the naivete of 19th-century liberals who gave the vote to the masses, only to have the masses vote for Karl Lueger and his ilk.<br /><br />My impression is anti-Zionism is one of Zweig's themes, explicit or not--as it is, in a very understated way, one of Stoppard's. "Talk all you want about how great it would be to till fields alongside members of your own ethnos; I got to spend a day with Rodin!"<br /><br />I imagine one could make a case that much of what critics often think of as bad in our own culture and that is very much the opposite of stereotypical pre-1914 culture--eg, liberated sexuality-as-entertainment, or an undemanding, arguably almost empty educational system--helps promote whatever stability we have here. Not that I want to make a case for corsets and beating children so they will learn Greek--I'm simply struck that both extremes on sexuality and education (just to take two fields) can serve the same function.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14456987412710878404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-24671983706408452342023-01-12T13:47:56.213-05:002023-01-12T13:47:56.213-05:00Hanging out it cafes with other aesthetes, talking...<i>Hanging out it cafes with other aesthetes, talking only about art, they failed to even notice that their world was dissolving beneath them.</i><br /><br />Sounds like several period in Japanese history, where the wealthy elites were detached from the world, obsessed with art and culture, while the brutal realities of shogunate-daimyo politics ground on bloodily all around them.G. Verlorennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-30443742228609880932023-01-12T13:33:55.558-05:002023-01-12T13:33:55.558-05:00"But was maybe the intense artificiality of s..."But was maybe the intense artificiality of so much about 19th-century Europe part of the secret to its stability?"<br /><br />Pardon? Did you say <i>stability</i>?<br /><br />We're talking about the century that started off with Napoleon trying to conquer the world, yeah? The century where society all across Europe was being transformed in never-before-conceived ways via rapid industrialization? The century where rampant Nationalism was resulting in the maps being radically redrawn every decade or so as some old state splintered, or where some new one arose, often by consolidating many smaller one <i>a la</i> Germany and Italy? The century where Europe decided to abandon slavery, an institution that had existed since the dawn of civilization? The century in which massive waves of migration occurred, upending the demographic makeup of the continent? That century? The famously <i>un</i>-stable one?<br /><br />Now, I'll give you this much - the intense artificiality of the era was almost certainly <i>an effort to impose stability</i>. Many people weren't exactly thrilled by all the change and instability of the era, and they tried a great many ways to impose order on things artificially.<br /><br />But that said, I almost stopped reading entirely based on that "stability" comment, as it stuck out like a sore thumb and made it hard to take you seriously. (Particularly so close on the heels of seeming to advocate teaching language through beatings.)G. Verlorennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-66628425750310432202023-01-12T13:18:39.550-05:002023-01-12T13:18:39.550-05:00In a word, yes. My idea is that societies are whol...In a word, yes. My idea is that societies are whole, organic entities, and that you can rarely change one thing about them (e.g., their sexual morality) without changing a lot of other things. I think that to imagine we could have the good things about life in Europe between 1875 and 1914 without all the bad things is a mistake.Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01037215533094998996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-15708200403383202442023-01-12T11:04:05.450-05:002023-01-12T11:04:05.450-05:00The main theme of this memoir is how great it was ...The main theme of this memoir is how great it was to be a rich Jewish aesthete in Europe before 1914, and how badly everything went wrong thereafter.<br /><br />In that time young people could interact "naturally," he says, without the bizarre rules and restrictions of the earlier era. But was maybe the intense artificiality of so much about 19th-century Europe part of the secret to its stability?<br /><br />Uh, if it was so stable, why did it change? This is like asking, he seemed so healthy and stable, why did he drop dead? Is John suggesting that keeping people so ignorant of sex that a married woman would flee from her honeymoon night in terror is what kept things stable??Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com