Politics, the Elegiac, and the Carnivalesque: Gerhard Fritsch's Moos auf den Steinen and Fasching

Abstract

When in 1967 Gerhard Fritsch published his second novel, Fasching, his critics and readers experienced something of a shock. Fritsch's first novel, Moos auf den Steinen (1956), had been well received, in large part no doubt because its subject – the attempts by an old aristocratic family to restore a neglected baroque castle – seemed to fit in well with the nostalgic k.u.k. themes pervading post1945 literature. That literature, in turn, was in accord with the attempts by successive politicians as well as authors and other cultural figures to affirm a continuous connection between the Second Republic and the glorious past of the Austria of the Habsburgs. In Fasching Fritsch drew blood by insisting that this connection, denying the inter-war and Nazi years, was a spurious one; moreover, he insisted that the true post-war Austria was rather different from the flattering picture presented in the official versions of the makers of politics and culture. To some, Fritsch's attack especially on Austria's way of dealing with the past seemed to suggest or precipitate a political and cultural crisis. To others the novel appeared, because of its excessive bitterness and rancour, to be inspired primarily by a personal crisis. To all, however, the formal aspects of the novel, its structure and language, appeared to be singularly strange and unfamiliar. Since the virtually unanimous rejection of the second novel has very much to do with the celebration of the first, this article will attempt a re-evaluation of both, first by placing them within the political climate of the time of their appearance, second by providing a formal reading that clarifies their meaning and allows them their proper place within certain traditional categories of genre. Gerhard Fritsch (1924-69) played an influential role in the reshaping of Austrian after 1945. In addition to his activity as Gymnasiallehrer and librarian of the Wiener Stadtische Bucherei, he was also, after 1959, editor of the literary journal Wort in der Zeit, and from 1966 on co-editor of the influential Literatur und Kritik and a number of other literary journals. His most important role was that of a literary mediator. In his role as editor, co-editor, translator, and promoter of young writers, he became one of the most influential literature