Bio-Bibliographisches Lexikon der Literatur Österreichs ed. by Herbert Zeman

Abstract

Reviewed by: Bio-Bibliographisches Lexikon der Literatur Österreichs ed. by Herbert Zeman Vincent Kling Herbert Zeman, ed., Bio-Bibliographisches Lexikon der Literatur Österreichs. Vol. 2 (Bi–C). Freiburg: Rombach, 2016. 526 pp. Browsing in reference books for the sheer pleasure of drifting from topic to topic with no immediate aim often has to be set aside under the pressure of deadlines and due dates, but only by unhurried rumination through this volume can readers gain an adequate idea of its richness and range of sheer information joined with balanced assessment and criticism. In addition to the "Autorenartikel: Dichter und Schriftsteller […] Buckdrucker, Buchhändler und Verleger" (x), this reference work also incorporates what it calls "Sachartikel: anonyme Werke, Almanache (Taschenbücher), Dichterkreise, Schriftstellervereinigungen, Kabaretts, Leihbibliotheken, Verlage, Zeitschriften (Jahrbücher)" (xi). The editor points out with justifiable pride that the range of inclusion is greater than in any previous work of its kind, largely because the categories of inclusion are much wider and deeper. The second volume likewise gives ample consideration to "Austrian" literature produced in the former Habsburg lands—Italy, the Slavic world (including the rich vein of Prague writers like Kafka, Rilke, Urzidil, and Werfel), Hungary, Romania, and points east. "Autoren dieser Regionen werden, so-fern sie in deutscher Sprache schrieben, in diesem Lexikon berücksichtigt" (xiii). Latin is admitted for the late medieval and early modern periods, but other languages are necessarily excluded. There are, then, thorough discussions of individual authors, ranging from acknowledged major figures like Hermann Broch, Elias Canetti, and Paul Celan, through perhaps slightly lesser figures like Alois Brandstetter, Arnolt Bronnen, Rudolf Brunngraber, Ignaz Castelli, and Conrad Celtis (note the historical spread), down to writers it's safe to bet very few readers have ever heard of; regardless of their possible quality, writers like Caroline BruchSinn or Gerhard Coeckelberghe-Dützele do not readily leap to mind, but they are treated with the same conscientious discussion of work and career, the same judiciousness of critical opinion, the same comprehensiveness in listing work by and about them, as the better-known figures. A good test is the entry on Vinzenz Chiavacci, a popular writer who could easily be relegated to "mere" journalism but whose surprisingly enduring contributions are lucidly discussed and evaluated; as in so many other cases, critical and scholarly work that seems to exist only in dissertations is listed for further consultation. No [End Page 117] entry seems hurried or truncated; length is usually proportional to current reputation, though occasional apparent discrepancies can raise questions—does the admittedly excellent and prolific Herbert Cysarz really deserve more space than Hermann Broch, for example? Periodicals and anthologies come fully into their own in this volume. The entries on Der Brenner, Brenner-Archiv, and Brenner-Verlag are notable for their depth and detail, and the Brennpunkte: Schrifttum der Gegenwart series contains as much information about this publishing initiative out of Innsbruck than will be found elsewhere. Entries on anthologies and compendium volumes that appeared on a recurring basis, such as the Burgenländische Anthologien, are listed complete with the authors who appeared in them. Organizations like Concordia (Wiener Journalisten-und Schriftsteller-Verein, founded in 1859) or the Budapester-orpheumsgesellschaft, once a pinnacle of Jewish theater in Leopoldstadt, are treated with an amplitude it is hard to imagine surpassing. The entry on one organization, the Bund Deutscher Schriftsteller Österreichs (founded in 1936 from the former membership of renegade P.E.N. members), goes far to relieve the distress this reviewer experienced when the Bekenntnisbuch österreicher Dichter was ignored in the first volume—it is mentioned under the entry in question here, along with all its contributors, but it would still be advisable to include in a revised edition of the first volume a separate entry on the Bekenntnisbuch. Without condemning, without endorsing, the entry on the "Bund" factually states it to have been a "zum Teil nationalsozialistich getarnte Organization" whose members "befürworteten den Anschluss Österreichs and das Deutsche Reich und begrüßten den Einmarsch der deutschen Truppen unter Hitlers Staatsführung." The plain statement of facts here partly makes up for the unconscionable omission in volume 1 and helps restore impaired credibility. An ethical question arises about the...