Interwar Vienna. Culture between Tradition and Modernity by Deborah Holmes , Lisa Silverman (review)

Abstract

Reviews 207 asa provocation ofa wholesociety, butmoreemphasis couldhavebeengiven tothe closeconnection ofhisreception ofthisartist-martyr with hisessays onSittlichkeit undKriminalität yandtherefore theremarkable silenceon himinDie Fackelafter 1909,withtheshift awayfrom thatcampaign.The hostilecontext in Viennato Kraus's publication ofWarder MartiniaccountofWilde'sprison experience isnot fully appreciated, butWilde'srebuttal ofpresscriticism ofhisownwork(printed in Die Fackelin 1909)is graspedas a modelforKraus'sown self-defence as an author. Bianchi seesaffinities between KrausandWildeinthequality oflanguage andthephilosophical reflections, andan interest inthe'fateoftheman'.Yetitis bizarrely suggested thatKrauspublished so muchofWildetoprepare hisreaders forhisownaphorisms - rather thanthathe was simply an inspiration toadopt thisform. Thecomparison oftheir aphorisms (pp.71-74)relies onothers' research and,whilecriticizing Kraus'seditorial procedures in procuring translations and whilere-examining evidence ofhisadaptation ofsometranslations, Bianchidoes notresolve remaining questions aboutthetranslators' identities oraboutKraus's attraction tosomeofWilde'spoems.(Thepublication ofDörmann's translation of thepoem'Ravenna'is mentioned, butthiscouldhavebeenusedas a yardstick of howdistant Kraus's espousalofaestheticism wasfrom hisownearly years.) Thebooksuffers indirectly from themethodological antagonism between Kraus criticism and fung-Wien studies,whichhavedrawndifferent conclusions from Kraus's roleasa polemicist. Ontheonehand,itfollows Krausscholars whohavenot always lookedbeyond Die Fackelanditsjournalistic sources, bynarrowly tracing themotives ofhislifelong campaign against thepressbacktohisearly journalistic career andbyisolating hisreading ofthetwoauthors from their general reception. On theother, itfollows Jung-Wien scholars whohaveoften framed hiscritiques of thatgroupin a trivializing accountofpersonalanimosity, byseeingthepassing Baudelaire allusioninDie letzten TagederMenschheit as an actofrevenge against LeopoldvonAndrian and,on scantevidence, byexplaining Kraus'schampioning ofBaudelaire as a challenge to Bahrin a lifelong rivalry forcultural influence in Vienna.Bianchicertainly documents Kraus'seditorial choicesand hislaconicor occasionally enthusiastic recommendations, andclaimsthatthesatirist's emphasis on socialprotest, thecritique ofmorality and technological progress, on artistic language andtheUtopian dream, amounts toa 'newinterpretation' ofbothauthors. Yet thevolume'srather inconclusive and briefsummary, doubtingany strong affinity withthetwowriters, begsthequestion aboutthewholeproject, which had begunbydetecting a sustained interest inthem. TrinityCollege Dublin Gilbert Carr Interwar Vienna.CulturebetweenTradition and Modernity. Ed. by Deborah HolmesandLisa Silverman.Rochester, NY:CamdenHouse.2009.vii+ 302 pp. £40. ISBN978-1-57113-420-2. Interwar Vienna.Culturebetween Tradition and Modernity is one ofveryfew works - andcertainly thefirst tobe written for an English-speaking audiencetosurvey and samplethefullrangeofViennesecultural lifeduring thenineteen 2o8 Reviews years oftheFirst Austrian Republic. Theonlycomparable volume isAufbruch und Untergang, a collection ofessayseditedbyFranzKadrnoska backin 1981, which wasinstrumental inestablishing Viennabetween thewarsas a periodofcultural history that wasworth investigating. As thebook'seditors, DeborahHolmesand LisaSilverman, underline in their introduction, interwar Viennashouldbe treated neither as a dull coda to the city's fin-de-siècle heyday noras a pale reflection ofWeimarBerlin;to be fully appreciated, itscultural achievements needtobeevaluated against thebackground ofthedistinctive anddistinctively troubled socio-political andeconomic history of theFirst Republic. EdwardTimmselaborates on thesepointsbyreflecting onthe irrelevance ofpolitics for thediagram ofViennacircles' that hecreated for thefirst volume ofKarlKraus.Apocalyptic Satirist (1985), which dealswith theperiodupto 1918, andthevery different manner inwhich heconceived thecultural field inhis second,interwar instalment (2005).There,theinterlocking circles represent both organizations and individuals, withthevariouspoliticaland ideologicalcamps shaping anddefining theboundaries ofthecreative environment. Severalessayssurvey thatenvironment from different perspectives. Following Kadrnoska's Viseand fall* model,John Warrenprovides a whistle-stop tourof highlights in musicand theatre, particularly underlining theimpactofSocialist cultural politics, whileLisaSilverman andWolfgang Maderthaner drawattention to thedestabilization ofJewish identity causedbythecollapseoftheHabsburg Empire, thespreadofviolent anti-Semitism in the1920sand 30s,and theassociationofan increasingly abstract notionof'Jewishness' withmodernity andwith scientific and philosophical empiricism. Likelyto becomea standardreference point isPaulWeindling's study of'Eugenics, Race,andWelfare inInterwar Vienna', whichprovides a wealthofdetailon thecomplex debatesthattookplaceon how besttoimprove publichealth inthewakeoftheFirst World War.While'positive' eugenics spawnedmarriage guidanceclinics, improvements to childwelfare and greater support for thefamily, 'negative' eugenics - birth control, sterilization and castration - notonlyfound advocates amongst thechampions of'racialhygiene' butwas also supported in thelate1920sbyJulius Tandler, thechiefarchitect of Vienna's Socialist welfare programmes. Hereafter socio-political perspectives givewaytocultural ones,asfour essays are devoted todifferent cultural forms - dance,theatre, music andfilm - eachtracing theemergence ofthemodern anditsrelationship tothetraditions from whichit emerged. Themost valuable oftheseisAndrea Amort's beautifully illustrated piece on free dance('Ausdruckstanz'), whichcombines an excellent framing discussion ofthemovement's international and local contexts witha biographical study of four Viennese pioneers. Progressing from thegeneral totheparticular, thevolume isrounded off byfour studies ofindividual texts. Andrew Barker readsErnst Weiss's'Franta Zlin'(1919), a story ofa WorldWarI soldierrendered sexuallyimpotent byhiswounds,as prefiguring Freud's viewofthepsychopathology ofindividual andsociety between thewars.JonHughesprobesthemodernity ofRudolfBrunngraber's Karl und das 20.Jahrhundert (1933), an undeservedly neglected novelthatnotonlydeploys Reviews 209 techniques characteristic ofNeueSachlichkeit butalsodrawsinspiration from Otto Neurath's pictorial representations ofstatistics, pioneered in Viennaduringthe 1920s, topresent thefate ofhischaracter insociological andeconomic terms. Moresubtlein theirmodernity are theinterwar reworkings...