An amazing time capsule, acutely written and observed. Some notes:

-The stasis-focused world of pre-war Vienna, where being older, staid, respectable was so prized that the patent medicines advertisements offered concoctions for making your beard grow faster (as a sign of age and maturity); and it was a mini-scandal when the leadership of the orchestra was given to Gustav Mahler (!) at the unseasoned age of thirty seven.

-Vienna's fanaticism about the theatre and music. Actors as massive celebrities, adored even by illiterates who had never seen their shows

-The amazing focus on intellectualism and craft -- the compulsive reading in his gymnasium set; Zweig focusing for almost a decade on translation to hone his skills; Zweig not allowing anything he wrote before the age of 32 to be republished. And all this despite a formal education system he regards as contemptible and worthless.

-The fleeing nature of fame and controversy. Hugo von Hofmanstall as an inspirational prodigy of Vienna literature; Romaine Roland as a titan, the conscience of Europe. The Redl affair (the Austrian plan of battle, sold to the Russians. And then almost losing the spy because of keystone cops (going out to lunch while staking out the post-office). The assassination of the Walter Rathenau (German foreign minister!) in 1922 by early fascists.

-The editor who approves his first article at the NYT of Vienna -- Theodore Herzl!

-During war fever, the Germans claiming the germanic heritage of Dante, the French calling Beethoven Belgian. Lissauer's "Hymn of Hate"

-Zweig resisting infatuation with of Stalin's Russia. A fact he credits to an anonymous letter, dropped in his pocket in the press of a crowd. It begins with an injunction to realize how much is being concealed from visitors, a warning that he is constantly observed, and ends with a plea to burn the letter, not tear it up, lest it be pieced together from his wastebasket.

-Writing from the depths of catastrophe and exile, after a generational moral collapse. His uncle not being allowed to stay overnight with his sick mother because of the risk of 'race pollution' with the 40 year old Aryan nurse! ( )

!! ( )

Stefan Zweig lived from 1881 to 1942 and sent the typescript of this memoir to his publisher the day before he and his wife committed suicide. In it, he recounts with in detail how Europe descended into catastrophic war twice in his lifetime, on both occasions as a result of aggressive, poisonous nationalism. It is thus both appropriate and deeply unsettling to read ‘The World of Yesterday’ in 2017, a year in which it is considered a relief that only a third of French voters picked the National Front candidate for president. Zweig’s account of Europe’s transformation during his life is meticulous and fascinating. This is not really an autobiography and his own personal life is mentioned only in very brief passing. It contains his recollections of intellectual, literary, and political life, entirely composed while he was in exile from his home country, Austria. As he explains at the beginning, he had to leave behind his papers, letters, and books, so writes purely from memory. This gives the memoir a great intensity and focus, which is undoubtedly redoubled by the time at which it was composed. Do not expect an optimistic book. Having seen Europe tear itself apart once and gradually recover, Zweig appears to have lost faith that it could do so again after an even worse conflict. In the foreword he says as much:

But for those of us who are now sixty years old, and de jure should have a little time left ahead of us, what have we not seen, not suffered, not experienced? We have made our way through the catalogue of all imaginable catastrophes from beginning to end, and we have not reached the last page of it yet.

Somewhat inevitably, the most memorable and powerful chapters of the book concern the two world wars. Nonetheless Zweig also paints a vivid and compelling picture of his youth in pre-war Austria. I don’t want to overlook those chapters, which I greatly enjoyed and that elegantly set the scene for what it is to come. He also tempers his nostalgia for times of peace with admiration of social progress, particularly in terms of freedom for women. Rather to my surprise, he devotes an entire chapter to the damaging hypocrisy of Edwardian sexuality. It is also charming to read of how obsessed his class at school were with poetry, opera, and other literary pursuits. His account of getting a PhD is also quite amusing: he spent four years reading, writing, and doing whatever the hell he liked everywhere except at university, before returning for a few months of actual academic work and passing his viva with distinction!

As well as a memoir, ‘The World of Yesterday’ is a travelogue. Zweig grew up in Austria but travelled widely and lived in Paris, Berlin, Zurich, and London, amongst other places. He evokes pre-WWI Paris with such vividness that you long to be there as a flaneur/se. (Not that I didn’t already have a soft spot for Paris.) Likewise, Zweig delights in introducing the reader to literary, musical, artistic, and political notables he has known and befriended, among them Rodin, Rilke, and Gorky. These pen portraits are woven together into a narrative of European culture in the first few decades of the twentieth century, in which Zweig played an active part. Yet it is all bittersweet, as by the time Zweig writes this wonderfully rich pan-European culture has been trampled, fragmented, suppressed, and warped by fascism and war.

I need hardly bother to comment that Zweig is a wonderful writer. ‘The World of Yesterday’ reminded me of Victor Serge’s [b:Memoirs of a Revolutionary|189954|Memoirs of a Revolutionary|Victor Serge|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348817741s/189954.jpg|183632] and [a:Vasily Grossman|19595|Vasily Grossman|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1391607075p2/19595.jpg]’s non-fiction. There is a compelling difference between those two Soviet writers and Zweig, however, which sets the whole tone of the book. Zweig declines to subscribe to any particular political ideology or set of beliefs. He repeatedly states the importance of individual liberty, to travel, to own property, to write, and to believe. However, this results in a very strong reluctance to join causes or movements. During WWI, he makes some admirable attempts to promote peace with other writers, while freely admitting that these have minimal to zero impact. He describes the situation immediately before WWI thus: ‘...we were convinced that the intellectual and moral power of Europe would assert itself triumphantly at the critical last moment. Our common idealism, the optimism that had come from progress, meant that we failed to see and speak out strongly enough against our common danger. Moreover, what we lacked was an organiser who could bring the forces latent in us together effectively.’

When Hitler comes to power and the threat of war rises again, Zweig seems to feel a horrible and understandable helplessness. Unlike Serge and Grossman, he was never a revolutionary, never joined a political movement, and by his own admission never even bothered to vote. He used his writing to promote freedom and criticise fascism, insofar as he could. He admits, though, that the literary and cultural figures in his circle did not attempt systematic political opposition. In fact, some close to Zweig (such as Richard Strauss) collaborated with Hitler in the belief that they could protect family and friends. Zweig’s life story is a tragedy: that of a man brought up to exult in liberty, who made the most of it while he had it, only to find that individually he had no way to oppose its eventual savage suppression. While this was the case in his identity as a literary figure, it also holds true for his identity as a Jew. Zweig points out that until their persecution by Hitler, the European Jewish people were assimilated into their countries of residence, fragmented and unable to collectively resist the rising tide of anti-semitism. Then again, it is quite possibly Zweig’s status as resolutely independent of political affiliation that enables him to be such an insightful commentator on the times in which he lived.

What makes ‘The World of Yesterday’ disturbingly timely is how well Zweig conveys the emotions that prevailed while fascism took over: denial, hope that it was all temporary, and fatalistic acceptance of a new normality. He is at pains to point out that it was not always like this:

Perhaps nothing more graphically illustrates the monstrous relapse the world suffered after the First World War than the restrictions on personal freedom of movement and civil rights. Before 1914 the earth belonged to the entire human race*. Everyone could go where he wanted and stay there as long as he liked. No permits or visas were necessary, and I am always enchanted by the amazement of young people when I tell them that before 1914 I travelled to India and America without a passport. Indeed, I had never set eyes on a passport.

Over the space of a few pages, Zweig describes with beautiful clarity the difference in European mood at the outbreak of two world wars. I’ve abridged it into the key sentences here:

[In 1914] the first shock of the war that no-one wanted, not the people or the government, the war that, contrary to the intentions of the diplomats who had been playing games of bluff, had slipped out of their clumsy hands, now turned to sudden enthusiasm. Parades formed in the streets, suddenly there were banners, streamers, music everywhere. [...] It was difficult to resist it. And in spite of my hatred and abhorrence of war, I would not like to be without the memory of those first days. [...] Today’s generation, who have seen only the outbreak of Second World War with their own eyes, may perhaps be wondering: Why didn’t we feel the same? Why did the masses not burn with the same enthusiasm in 1939 as in 1914? Why did simply obey the call to arms with grave determination, silently, fatalistically? Wasn’t it the same as before, was there not something higher and more sacred at stake in the war now being fought, which began as a war of ideas and was not just about borders and colonies?

The answer is simple - they did not feel the same because the world in 1939 was not as childishly naive and gullible as in 1914. At that earlier time people still blindly trusted the authorities governing them. [...] Ordinary men still felt a great respect for those in high places, government ministers and diplomats, and were sure of their insight and honesty. If war was upon them, then it could only have happened against the will of their own statesmen, who could not themselves be to blame. [...] In 1939, on the other hand, this almost religious faith in the honesty or at least the ability of your own government has disappeared throughout the whole of Europe. [...] Nothing but contempt was felt for diplomacy after the public had watched, bitterly, as it wrecked any chance of a lasting peace at Versailles. At heart, no one respected any of the statesmen in 1939 and no one entrusted his fate to them with an easy mind. [...] Of course they could put up no resistance - the fatherland was at stake, so soldiers must bear arms and women must let their children go, although not now, as in the past, believing firmly that the sacrifice was unavoidable. They obeyed, but in no state of jubilation. [...] Nations and individuals alike felt that they were merely the victims of either ordinary political folly or the power of an incomprehensible and malicious fate.

On the rise of Hitler:

But we still did not notice the danger. Those few writers who had really gone to the trouble of reading Hitler’s book did not look seriously at his programme, but laughed at his pompous prose style instead. The great national newspapers, instead of warning us, kept soothing their readers daily by assuring them that National Socialism, which could finance its agitation only with money provided by heavy industry and by audaciously running up debts, must inevitably collapse tomorrow or the next day. [...] More than anything, it was the high value they set on education that led German intellectuals to go on thinking of Hitler as a mere beer-hall agitator who could never really be dangerous. [...] The most varied parties, holding diametrically opposed opinions, regarded this unknown soldier who had promised the earth to every class, every party, every tendency as their friend - even the Jews of Germany were not especially uneasy. [...] After all, what violent actions could he carry out in a state where the law was firmly established, the parliamentary majority was against him, and every citizen was assured of his liberty and equal rights by the solemn wording of the constitution?

There are of course disturbing echoes of this to be found in political discourse today. 2017 does not lack for right wing figures who lie constantly, suppress free speech, scapegoat foreigners and religions, and insist that military spending must rise. Zweig points out that by WWII there was no point in him using literature to promote peace; propaganda had undermined any impact it may once have had. He also comes out with this little comment, which is uncannily prescient. Even more so for the fact that the first sentence fits perfectly into a tweet:

The greatest curse brought down on us by technology is that it prevents us from escaping the present even for a brief time. Previous generations could retreat into solitude and seclusion when disaster struck; it was our fate to be aware of everything catastrophic happening anywhere in the world at the hour and second when it happened.

Zweig’s prose is magnificent and I could easily bloat this review with a hundred more quotes, but will refrain. ‘The World of Yesterday’ is a book that needs to be widely read, given Brexit and rising nationalism in Europe and America. Zweig lost hope for the world, yet on balance I did not find his memoir a depressing book. While it is by no means cheerful overall, there is joy in the descriptions of people and places that Zweig loved, as well as great wisdom in his analyses. I will look at current affairs with a more thoughtful eye for having read it.

* [Arguable, given colonialism.] ( )

This is a very well-written, well thought out history of Europe that begins before WWI and ends just as WWII is declared. It is mostly an intellectual history but as Zweig was a Jewish intellectual, it is also a modern Jewish history. I would have given it a higher rating if it had been more personal, as that is what I relate to the most. ( )

125000

Outstanding and so beautiful to read! How could I ever have missed on Stefan Zweig before. Also valuable history lesson! Recommended in any way! ( )

Stefan Zweig's autobiography is really the biography of a lost era - the years leading up to WW I until WW II. He mourns for the world that was lost to war and to fascism. The writing style of the book is amazing.

Zweig had become famous for his writing and seemed to have met with all of the leading cultural figures of his age. For example, he takes Salvador Dali to see his friend Sigmund Freud while Freud was dying in London. He also bumps into people like James Joyce. ( )

During his productive years in the decades before and after WWI, the Austrian-Jewish writer Stefan Zweig enjoyed wide readership in Europe outside Britain. Not that his work was necessarily consecrated by critical acclaim; in fact he praised many writers who regarded him as a second-rate talent. Yet he wrote in a clear and lucid style, expressing himself easily. He was perhaps most appreciated for numerous novellas and his short biographies of distinguished people such as Mary, Queen of Scots, Magellan, and Erasmus. His work has seen something of a revival in recent years, at least partly due to the publication of a new translation of The World of Yesterday and to the success of the Wes Anderson film The Grand Budapest Hotel. Anderson cites the book as an inspiration for the film.

This is Zweig’s only memoir, and as the title conveys, its subject is the loss of the Europe and in particular the Austria of his youth. He wrote most of it a few steps from my door, a refugee from Hitler in Ossining, NY. Zweig paints an expansive portrait (one that some later termed “The Habsburg Myth”) of life in pre-war Austria. The first chapter “The World of Security” summarizes what had been lost: durability, continuity, safety, prosperity, a place for the flourishing of the arts. He details the educational process and sexual ethos of pre-War Austria. Zweig had been a fully engaged member of Viennese cafe culture of the early part of the century. It is hard not to sense a nostalgic romanticism in Zweig’s account, and yet I think he gets a pass for sentimentality having lived through the monstrosity of WWI, Fascist Europe, and for writing while contemporaneously fleeing the Third Reich.

This reflection is fascinating on several levels. First, Zweig had personal friendships with many of the great artists and thinkers of his day. We hear his deep interchanges with Rilke, Rodin, Freud, James Joyce, Maxim Gorky, Richard Strauss, Toscanini, H. G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, Theodore Herzl, and Romain Rolland. If you saw the recent Beatles Get Backdocumentary, these conversations read like delicious eavesdropping, akin to listening to Paul and John at lunch, privately talking with a microphone secretly placed in the flowerpot between them.

Second, while we are familiar with the facts of the European catastrophe from 1914 through the late 1940s, personal accounts enrich one’s understanding of the events and their effect on individuals. In Zweig’s case, we hear the observations of an astute observer, a man who regarded himself as a citizen of the world, if Austrian in particular. He recounts his reaction as he heard about the German mobilization in 1914 while on a beach in Belgium; his despair at the restrictions in communicating with friends and fellow writers living outside the Central Powers even by letter; the proverbial wheelbarrows of cash to buy a loaf of bread after the war; the first time he heard the name Hitler; his sense of the increasing presence of menacing Brownshirts in Austria; his near relief to hear of the death of “my old mother” in 1938 Vienna, knowing she was now safe from further suffering. He had felt distraught after Nazi rules prevented Jews from sitting on public benches, depriving his weakened mother of her daily walk that required periodic rests.

Finally, there is the question of his suicide. Zweig mailed the manuscript to his publisher the day before his suicide in February 1942. He was not in hiding, like some who fled the Nazis. He was living north of Rio de Janeiro, in safety, facing East as he contemplated Europe. He was found dead with his wife, double suicides, of a barbiturate overdose. A final testament read “I think it better to conclude in good time and in erect bearing a life in which intellectual labour meant the purest joy and personal freedom the highest good on Earth.” And yet one need only read The World of Yesterday to appreciate - though perhaps not anticipate - this sentiment and its implications. It permeates the book. His beloved Europe irretrievably broken. His sense of beggardom as a man without a country. The enormity of the losses. He conveys a conversation with Gorky, who asserted that no one in exile had yet produced worthy art. And yet, it is only fair to wonder why Zweig was unprepared to look to the future. To continue his work, as so many other artists and thinkers did. To mention only a few: Einstein, Chagall, Mondrian, Schönberg, Hannah Arendt, Levi-Strauss, Thomas Mann. And the hordes who started life again after surviving the concentration camps. While it permeates the book, it’s also in the title. The World of Yesterday. By 1942, and probably long before, Zweig was a man of the past. His love, his passion, his sense of belonging, his core identity were in the Europe destroyed. He saw no more for himself but to bear the unbearable weight of what was irretrievably gone. He saw no future. But he left a remarkable memoir, a testament to what he loved and lost. ( )

Eyewitness To A Cultural Death

Stefan Zweig was one of the most acclaimed European public intellectuals at the dawn of the Twentieth Century. By 1940, his books had been burned in his native Austria, he had fled that country for his own safety, and the culture he had loved had been wiped away by the onslaught of totalitarianism. What happened?

Most readers will know that World War I depleted the European powers of resources. That the settlement of that conflict subjected Germany to financial requirements that drove it to hyperinflation and social distress. That fascism arose in the ensuing climate. Zweig, however, phrases these events in vivid particulars: he recounts how his own property was confiscated; he describes the feeling in the public marketplace when key events unfolded; he tells of his discussions with Sigmund Freud once Freud too had departed Austria for safety abroad. In the course of it all, the reader is introduced to many prominent European (and a few American) authors, musicians and artists of the time, because Zweig appears to have known them all well.

The brief book is not, however, an autobiography. Zweig's two marriages are hardly discussed, for example. The story, rather, is the collapse of European high culture in the face of unavoidable economic and political forces. And what it feels like to live through such a cultural revolution.

Zweig's perspective is, in a sense, old-fashioned, as he mourns the passing of the Golden Age and looks rather contemptuously at the the forces of modernism rushing in to supplant the old masters. Whether you agree with his value judgments, however, his narrative is one of the best ways I've found to understand the causes and effects of the period of the World Wars in Europe.

Immediately upon mailing the completed manuscript of the book to his publisher, Zweig and his wife committed suicide. The world he had loved and in which he had labored to become a leading participant was gone; he apparently felt he could not continue. It is unfortunate that he did not live on to see the end of the war, and to give us all more insight into the changes that the war brought. ( )

zweig recounts his life before, between, and during world wars -- crisply written.

before WWI: viennese coffee houses, hating school, loving poetry, the absurd gowns worn by women, uptight attitudes toward sex, widespread prostitution, embarrassed at feelings inspired by moment of wwi beginning.

between wars: french justice permits zweig to drop charges against suitcase thief who then offers to carry it for him, embarrassment of soldiers unsure whether to salute fleeing emperor, austrian inflation insanity, export controls cannot stop people from crossing border to get drunk if cheap beer, the great satisfaction of leaving things out of writing to improve pace, rebellion in taste after first war, visiting soviet union.

beginning of WWII: elite underestimated hitler precisely because he was so stupid, zweig (jewish) writing lyrics of opera for strauss under nazis, nurse leaving his dying mother because cannot stay the night under same roof as jewish man, loss of austrian passport and becoming stateless, the loss of self with loss of citizenship, all fo the stupid paperwork subjected to, obtaining license for his second marriage interrupted by war. ( )

I found Zweig's writing style mesmerizing; it is fluent, clear, simple and at the same time elegant. This book was a real treat! ( )

Audio. Short version. Guter Einblick in die Geschichte. ( )

(Original Review from the German and English editions, 2002-06-05)

"The World of Yesterday" has its flaws - some of the scenes that Zweig claims to have witnessed, particularly around the outbreak and conclusion of the Great War seem such extraordinary coincidences as to be barely credible. And on the subject of style, it's hard for a non-native German speaker to judge, so the opinion of Michael Hofmann - who's such a magnificent and sympathetic translator of Zweig's far greater contemporary Joseph Roth - has to carry some weight.

But I can't help suspecting that Zweig's paying the price for his popularity here: the fact that his novellas were made into "women's pictures", that he was so fascinated with the past, and with the nuances of social hierarchy; that he dared suggest that the pre-1918 European order might, on reflection, have been a rather better world than what succeeded it. (It's not just Zweig; Roth's modern champions, including Hofmann, invariably play down, or appear properly embarrassed by his passionate late-flowering monarchism). Absolute anathema to "progressive" intellectuals then and now (though you can see why an Austrian Jew might have preferred the world of 1913 to that of 1938. And why an eloquent, readable advocate of those values could have had a massive inter-war following).

Which is not to deny a certain "pulp" quality in some of his writing. But still, while he may not have been a great stylist, he does have an ear for the telling phrase, and - in "Beware of Pity", for example - he evokes the values, social structures, tastes and feelings of an entire vanished civilisation to wonderfully vivid effect. In my view, it's second only to "The Radetzky March" as an evocation of the moment of the Austro-Hungarian apocalypse; and as a history teacher, I recommended it to students for evoking a "feel" of the period in a way that I simply couldn't with the less readable, but more intellectually respectable, Broch or Musil.

And let's face it, Zweig is hardly outselling Dan Brown in the English-speaking world. Better, surely, that he's read than not - and it'd be a shame if this academic spat deterred a single genuinely curious reader. ( )

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2940928.html

This had been strongly recommended to me (thanks, Thomas!) and it was a good call. It is the memoir of Austrian writer Stefan Zweig, about the artistic and writing circles where he grew up, and the impact on European civilisation of the First World War and the rise of Hitler. The overall tone is of course an arc from enthusiasm to depression; shortly after the book was sent to the publishers in 1942, Zweig and his wife, exiled from their home and with no prospect of return, killed themselves. The tone shifts noticeably from ruefulness to despair as the chapters roll on.

But to be more positive: Zweig wasn’t quite a stratospheric writer, but he was a huge fan of those who were, and a lot of the best passages of the book are essentially fannish anecdotes of encounters with writers and other artists who he admired. There’s a lovely early moment, for instance, when he is visiting Brussels and is present in the studio of sculptor Charles van der Stappen as he finishes off his bust of writer Émile Verhaeren, who Zweig deeply admired. It is a striking piece of art.

Other points that fascinated me:
Zweig’s friendship with Theodor Herzl, and the impetus given to Herzl’s thoughts on Zionism by the Dreyfus case - Herzl was actually present when Dreifuss was stripped of his rank and uniform.
the unsuccessful attempt by the new Austrian emperor to turn on the Germans and negotiate a separate peace with the Allies in 1917.
Richard Strauss challenging the Nazi regime by producing an opera written by Zweig.
Zweig’s friendships with Rilke and Rolland, neither of them writers I know much about but both sound very interesting.
Zweig embodies the concept of being a citizen of Europe, particularly once his homeland has turned on him. Of course that is not fashionable in some quarters today. Reading The World of Yesterday is a reminder of where we came from, and what was lost along the way. Well worth getting.

NB that the translation is by Anthea Bell, known to me in my childhood as the translator of the Asterix books. ( )

Enlightening from beginning to end. History from 1890-1940 from the perspective of an Austrian writer. He talks about his encounters with Freud, Mussolini, and just about every great writer alive during his lifetime. At times I felt like it had to be fiction because it read like Forrest Gump. Simply the best autobiography I've ever read! ( )

It took me a while to finish but I absolutely loved reading this autobiography. I think it started with the title alone 'The world of Yesterday' and then there was the fact that Stefan Zweig, exiled somewhere in South America, took his own life (1942). When I read about his suicide, I immediately wondered why especially since he successfully fled before the war even started. By all means he should've been safe and happy to have escaped the worst - he was Jewish after all.

Having read this book now, I think I understand it better.
Zweig was a pacifist and someone that strongly identified with European culture. To see Europe being destroyed twice in one lifetime wasn't something he could live with. And what's maybe worse, he had to experience his works being banned and even burned.

Besides the previous reason, I'm always interested in more personal accounts of history. I think Zweig states it very well 'We know from experience that it is a thousand times easier to reconstruct the facts of an era than its emotional atmosphere. Its traces are not to be found in official event,s but rather in the small, personal episodes such as I should like to include here' [side note: this English translation isn't too great].

And lastly, I learnt quite a few things I missed in history class so that's a huge plus as well.

memoir, history, Austria, war, Nazism, European politics, ( )

A wonderful and sad book. The writer, who was to commit suicide with his wife a short time later, writes of his youth in Vienna, the trouble that he took to avoid trouble, and the rise of the Nazis. I was curious as to why he killed himself but the book answers this: he did not wish to live at the mercy of officials who could deport him anytime. ( )

The coda at the end of The Grand Budapest Hotel, crediting Stefan Zweig with inspiring the movie, was the first I'd heard of this author, and in reading this book I heard the movie's deadpan voiceover in the sometimes stilted wording of the translation. But unlike the movie there was nothing light or funny about Zweig’s memoir covering the two world wars from his perspective as a Jew in Austria. It was a sadly nostalgic overview of a world in turmoil as culture, morals and even nations shifted and broke apart. ( )

Stefan Zweig. First Trip to Brazil, 1936.

I enjoyed reading the memoirs of Stefan Zweig and found his eyewitness accounts of life in Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries both fascinating and revealing. He speaks of the stability that older generations had taken for granted becoming unrecognizable during the turbulent decades of World War I and beyond. I’ve always been curious about this period in history, when the arrival of new technology like the automobile, telegraph, and aeroplane pushed the world headfirst into modernity. New forms of art and literature were also being developed that were a radical departure from the past. I felt like Zweig was living a firsthand account of events as they transpired, sharing his best impressions with the reader.

As a writer living in Vienna, Zweig was part of an incredibly rich circle of artists and writers. Amazingly, he shared deep personal friendships with several notable men of the time (Freud, Rilke, Verhaeren, Rodin, and the composer Richard Strauss among others) and brings them into focus through real life anecdotes. He also speaks about the political climate of Europe around the time of the First World War and was witness to the madness that overwhelmed the continent at that time. After the war hyperinflation swept in and ruined Austrian and later German economies, setting the stage for the rise of fascism. Because he was Jewish, when Hitler came to power his work was banned and he was forced into exile, his previous life and accomplishments completely ruined.

As I read this book I found myself growing fond of Stefan Zweig the man, even as he shied away from discussing the more personal aspects of his life (such as his two marriages or discussions of his own fiction). Zweig himself is certainly always present in the narrative but rarely the star; rather he takes on the role of observer of events and other people’s art. Yet paradoxically, despite the lack of private detail, I still felt as if I came to know a good deal of the man while reading this book- his kindness towards others, belief in humanist values, and the romantic sensibility that colored his worldview all shined through. In a way his modesty was part of his charm. But even so, I feel a companion biography such as [b:Three Lives A Biography of Stefan Zweig|11250548|Three Lives A Biography of Stefan Zweig|Oliver Matuschek|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328692501s/11250548.jpg|16177022] would be worthwhile to help illuminate other facets of his life.

On a final note I am so glad to see Zweig’s work being read again by an international audience and especially being published once more in his native German. In the memoir you can sense his despair at being silenced by the fascists. The devastation must have been immense, as is clear from his choice to end his life in 1942. I think he would be happy to see so many people reacquainting themselves with his work. I hope others will visit the Stefan Zweig Group on Goodreads and consider joining in.

( )

Stefan Zweig was born in Austria and was an important part of the European intelligencia in the early and mid 20th century. In this memoir that leans away from the personal and toward the social and historical, he tells of his experiences during the World Wars. Beautiful prose and a thoughtful, modest life--a joy to read. ( )

Stefan Zweig’s autobiography is a wonderful, engaging read, a vivid look at life, art, culture and society in various European cities leading up to World War II. Zweig does tend to namedrop, but he is as passionate and enthusiastic about his lesser-known friends as he is about some of the people who would go on to be the best-known thinkers and writers of the day. There isn’t as much about his personal life and works – for example, he mentions his marriage to his second wife as an aside and does not talk much about his first wife either. He doesn’t spend much time on his influences and processes for his novels, stories, and nonfiction works either. Instead, it’s about the people, cultural movements, and milieu of the period from the late 19th century up to World War II, although eventually the tumult of wars, inflation, and creeping repression becomes the main topic.

The opening of his first chapter is marvelous, describing “The World of Security” from his youth. Everyone believed the Austrian government was solid and stable, people had turned from the barbarism of the past, and science and technology would continue to improve ordinary people’s lives. Everything was well-ordered and in its place, everything would continue to get better. Zweig’s very subjective view is from a contented segment of the population - wealthy, cultured Jewish families. He frequently makes notes from the present, and there is some dismay at the naivety of those days, but a bit of nostalgia also. He is more critical of the education and sexual mores of late 19th/early 20th century Vienna – he unhappily recalls the cold, uninspiring schools from his childhood and the hypocrisy of a Vienna rife with prostitution and pornography but firmly upholding the ban on young people learning about sex.

Zweig, along with his fellow schoolmates, did find passion and meaning in art and literature – they were always reading and into whatever was new or different. He mentions that most of the group drifted off to normal lives later on – and that other classes had different obsessions, sports being the other one he recalled – but he gained a solid cultural background from his own studies, while learning nothing much at school. An early celebrity spotting was Hugo von Hofmannsthal, who he met as a young man. University wasn’t much different – Zweig decided to take the opportunity to pursue his interests and get into new social circles, while procrastinating on his writing and then doing it all as the deadline approached. He traveled to Berlin and hung out with bohemians – which gave rise to an interesting comment about his work –

“Perhaps the very fact that I came from a solidly established background, and felt to some extent that this ‘security’ complex weighted me down, made me more likely to be fascinated by those who almost recklessly squandered their lives, their time, their money, their health and reputation – passionate monomaniacs obsessed by aimless existence for its own sake – and perhaps readers may notice this preference of mine for intense, intemperate characters in my novels and novellas.”

He also started writing short pieces and poetry. In celebrity meetings, Zweig mentions his encounters with Theodor Herzl. After taking his degree, the author commenced a period of traveling and meeting new people. His descriptions of the cities are very lively, as are his portraits of his friends. This part could feel a bit like “And then I met X….then I met Y…..then I met Z”, but the writing makes it interesting. He discusses meeting Romain Rolland, Rainer Maria Rilke, and other well-known artists, but also has lots of praise for his lesser-known friends Emile Verhaeren and Leon Balzagette. He visited Paris, London, Spain, Italy, and Belgium and went even further afield, to America and India. Besides his travels and friends, Zweig’s descriptions of his hobby collecting autographs and manuscripts are interesting. His start as a playwright at first appeared auspicious, but then began to seem cursed, as various people connected to his play died.

From his POV, all of Vienna was in denial about WWI until it happened. He forthrightly admits his cowardice and describes how he took a safe library job during the war. However, although many writers beat the nationalist drum and churned out propaganda, Zweig couldn’t forget his friends and knowledge of other countries and banded together with other artists to try to promote cross country communication. Many were on board with nationalism, so it ended up being mainly Zweig and a few friends exchanging letters and writing anti-xenophobic articles, although he notes that Romain Rolland did a lot of humane work. Zweig’s contribution was the play Jeremiah. Its anti-war sentiment and criticism of unchecked power became appealing towards the end of the war, when the population had lost their enthusiasm for hatred. Jeremiah was a huge success and Zweig’s popularity increased. Austria after the war had massive inflation and privation, and the author’s unhappy account of those years is very compelling. Zweig, it seems, hibernated at his house in Salzburg to eke out the post-war years. However, after that, he had a period of happiness, security, and fame.

He continued to write, travel and meet with his friends. Zweig describes a couple trips to the Soviet Union and Italy. While he had many positive impressions of both places and became fast friends with Gorky, he also saw evidence of repression and growing fascism. In the Soviet Union, he gave away all his supplies – which were lacking there – and an anonymous note describing how he was under surveillance set him on alert. In Italy, he tried to help a woman whose husband had been imprisoned, with moderately positive results. His life in Salzburg was peaceful and happy. One change was the influx of society as the town became a cultural center with a prestigious festival. In this section, he also talks a little about his writing style – there are some amusing quotes about his dislike of anything long-winded.

Zweig’s story could be seen as a rise and fall – if so, the pinnacle would be his 50th birthday, where he surveys his past hurdles and successes, and wonders if his life will continue on in the same contented fashion – with a slight note of dissatisfaction. He remembers his wish for some more excitement, but is not prepared for the darkness that upends his life and Europe. While he occasionally focuses on the political upheavals earlier in the book, in the final chapters, it is the main subject. At first, the author’s circle saw Hitler only as an unimportant rabble-rouser, who would likely sink without a trace any day now. But his influence soon became apparent, and Zweig’s books were banned, along with other Jewish authors.

Zweig describes his intellectually stimulating collaboration with Richard Strauss, the great German composer, when he worked as the librettist of Die schweigsame Frau. The Nazis wanted Strauss on their side but didn’t like Zweig’s name on his works. There’s a long section describing the conflict, and Zweig seems to have written this part with a half-smile, recalling how he discomfited Hitler. He sat at home in Salzburg while Strauss and others battled it out. The premiere was a success, but then the whole run of performances was canceled. Things continued to go downhill, but the event that caused Zweig to leave Austria forever seems comparatively small – his house was searched by the local police. However, that was an affront unimaginable in previous times, and the author was obviously correct in his foresight.

He went to England and monitored the events there, despairing at Chamberlain’s appeasement and not even celebrating when Britain declared war in 1939, as he knew he would be seen as foreign and suspect. Unsurprisingly, Zweig’s writing becomes more hopeless and unhappy towards the end – in his final visit to Vienna, he notes

“But everyone I spoke to in Vienna genuinely appeared not to have a care in the world. They invited each other to parties where evening dress was de rigueur, never guessing that they would soon be wearing the convict garb of the concentration camps; they crowded into the shops to do Christmas shopping for their attractive homes, with no idea that a few months later those home would be confiscated and looted. For the first time I was distressed by the eternally light-hearted attitude of old Vienna, which I always used to love so much – I suppose I will dream of it all my life…”

He ends with his plan to leave England and a down note –

“And I knew that yet again all the past was over, all achievements were as nothing – our own native Europe, for which we had lived, was destroyed, and the destruction would last long after our own lives. Something else was beginning, a new time, and who knew how many hells and purgatories we still had to go through to reach it?”

Zweig’s death is probably as famous as his life – he and his wife escaped the ravages of Europe, but committed suicide together in 1942. But his autobiography stands as impressive memorial to the times in which he lived. ( )

I have been struggling to write this review. I have a draft that keeps growing, with more quotes, more of my analysis, more words -- but as I write more, I worry that I am getting further away from Stefan Zweig, further away from this beautiful, sad, angry, insightful, anguished text.

So am I scrapping all those words, and starting over.

Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) wrote The World of Yesterday in desperate times. The unconventional memoir is a cri de coeur from Zweig, who stood for everything Hitler most hated and feared. Born to a wealthy Jewish family, well-educated, speaker of many languages, famous both in his native Austria and throughout the West from the many translations of his novels, stories, and other writings, Zweig believed passionately in the vital need for an international community of artists. He had escaped from his home in Austria, driven out by the oppression and hatred of the Nazis. Shaken, exhausted, anguished, he wrote the book not to discuss his two marriages, or to focus on his personal relationships and feelings. Instead, Zweig wrote a memoir of a place, Austria, and a time gone by. In every word, he is grieving for his lost homeland, and even more for an unrealized ideal.

Written from the perspective of a man who grew up in the waning days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, who lost his innocence in World War I, and believed for a brief time that Europeans had learned their lesson and had put an end to future wars, The World of Yesterday is a lament, a work honoring a dead and buried past, and a suicide note. One day after his second wife mailed the manuscript to Zweig's publisher, the two took poison and died in each other's arms in Brazil, too exhausted to wait for better days that they feared wold never come.


Stefan Zweig and his brother Alfred in Vienna, c. 1900

Stefan Zweig was once one of the best known writers in the German language. His works were widely translated and popular across Europe. Zweig was prolific, engaged in the arts every way he could be. He wrote not only short stories and novels, but also works of non-fiction (including immense, carefully researched biographies of Balzac and Mary Stuart), plays, and libretti. He also worked as a translator, which may have helped him to foster relationships with writers from across Europe. His travels provided him with rich experiences in his younger years, and enabled hm to forge lasting friendships with many writers and artists, In the end, though, he loved having a home in Austria. He was brought up in the rich cultural life of Vienna before World War. As an adolescent he was caught up in a flurry of adoration for Hoffmansthal, and he later forged a friendship with Rilke. He watched Rodin work in his studio, and he admired and respected Freud. His early writings were published by Theodor Herzl, among others.

Zweig was a lifelong pacifist, who was apolitical at heart. His orientation to the world around him was influenced by his commitment to the ideal of Europe as a cultural community, where artists from many countries would support and draw inspiration from each other, create a shared international culture, and guard diligently against intolerance and war. He valued creativity and freedom of expression. He was notoriously hard on himself and modest, despite his eventual fame. He spent his money building up a valuable library and collecting autographs and manuscripts that captured moments of creativity from Europe's greatest artists. (This library was later destroyed by the Nazis.) He traveled, he wrote, he corresponded with friends, he was inspired and driven to do his best by their example.


Bookplate from Stefan Zweig’s library

Zweig was shaken to his core by the onset of World War I, which broke apart his safe, insulated world. He managed to continue to correspond with some friends in France and Italy, but he was worried about the censors. A trip to Switzerland to meet with other artists committed to pacifism was complicated by the ubiquity of government spies, alert to the possibility of treason. After the war was over, Zweig worried about losing old friendships until he was greeted affectionately by old friends during a trip to Italy. Zweig describes his friendships with writers such as Romain Rolland and Rilke. He opens a window into his world, full of books, ideas, music, ideals, friends, debates, art of all kinds.


Stefan Zweig and his first wife, Friderike Maria von Winternitz (née Burger)-- married 1920, divorced 1938 but remained in contact

Zweig also provides chilling descriptions of the rise of Hitler and the Nazis. Zweig's memoir is particularly insightful in conveying the experiences of a renowned writer, at the top of his popularity, when he became a focus for the brutal hatred of the Nazis. Any readers concerned about the consequences of censorship for a free society should read Zweig's account of this period.


Stefan Zweig and his second wife, Lotte Altmann (his secretary) -- married 1939, committed suicide together in Brazil in 1942

The World of Yesterday is a devastating book, but it is also illuminating. Zweig's perspective, looking back to his earlier years in the last decades of peace in Europe, transported me back to a vibrant Vienna, where culture was valued above all else. He also warns about the ways in which complacency helped to lead to World War I, as Europeans were living their lives with blind trust in their governments. His insights on the cultural conditions that lead to the rise to totalitarianism extend to his discussion of the rise of Hitler. Throughout, Zweig provides details and anecdotes from his experiences to add color to his more analytical passages. He writes with passion, warmth, modesty, anger, and anguish.


Stefan Zweig

Today, we live in a world where, in spite of globalization, strife, hatred, greed, and ignorance are barriers to the kind of internationalism that Zweig dreamed of. When faced with economic downturns, some nations look to cuts in funding for the arts as a partial solution. Parents and special interest groups sometimes call for the censorship of books, music, films, and art that pose threats to their professed values. I fear that Zweig would not be surprised by the lasting relevance of The World of Yesterday in the early 21st century. Reading it is one way to continue his quest, to turn back hatred and intolerance, one line at a time.

I want to give Zweig the last word by quoting a passage in which he is reflecting on the day when Germany invaded Poland, when Zweig was living in exile in England:

"For was a more absurd situation imaginable than for a man in a strange land to be compulsorily aligned – solely on the ground of a faded birth certificate – with a Germany that had long ago expelled him because his race and ideas branded him as anti-German and to which, as an Austrian, he had never belonged. By a stroke of a pen the meaning of a whole life had been transformed into a paradox; I wrote, I still thought in the German language, but my every thought and wish belonged to the countries which stood in arms for the freedom of the world. Every other loyalty, all that was past and gone, was torn and destroyed and I knew that after this war everything would have to take a fresh start. For my most cherished aim to which I had devoted all the power of my conviction for forty years, the peaceful union of Europe, had been defiled. What I had feared more than my own death, the war of all against all, now had become unleashed for the second time. And one who had toiled heart and soul all his life for human and spiritual unity found himself, in this hour which like no other demanded inviolable unity, thanks to this precipitate singling out, superfluous and alone as never before in his life.... I knew what war meant, and as I looked at the well-filled, tidy shops I had an abrupt vision of those of 1918, cleared-out and empty, seemingly staring at one with wide-open eyes. As in a waking dream I saw the long queues of careworn women before the food shops, the mothers in mourning, the wounded, the cripples, the whole nightmare of another day returned spectrally in the shining noonday light. I recalled our old soldiers, weary and in rags, how they had come back from the battlefield, – my beating heart felt the whole past war in the one that was beginning today and which still hid its terror from our eyes. Again I was aware that the past was done for, work achieved was in ruins, Europe, our home, to which we had dedicated ourselves had suffered a destruction that would extend far beyond our life. Something new, a new world began, but how many hells, how many purgatories had to be crossed before it could be reached!" ( )

A wonderful memoir but unlike most memoirs it is less the story of the author than the memoir of a time and place, that being Vienna during Zweig lifetime. At that time it was a most cultivated city and Zweig, a very rich Jew, says he experienced no antisemtism. The day he submitted this book for publication he killed himself. ( )

I was reminded that I owned this book when I read a New Yorker article about Zweig several months ago. I’ve read a number of Zweig’s fictional works (short stories, novels ) and I’m also fascinated by early twentieth century Vienna, so I was eager to read the book.
Stefan Zweig came of age at the turn of the 19th century in Imperial Vienna during a golden period that helped to define twentieth century art, music, literature and science -- in fact, that set the stage for cultural and intellectual life in the 20th century. Though this book is an autobiography, it is also his elegy for this lost era. Zweig was born into a solidly middle class Jewish, Viennese family and describes a time full of stability, intellectual curiosity and promise. Though deeply attached to Vienna and Viennese life, Zweig also considered himself a citizen of Europe and describes his time traveling and living throughout the continent and the UK. Along the way, he encounters many of the great and creative minds of the time.
He witnesses the first chink in his solid and promising world with the events leading up to and then the outbreak of the First World War. The slaughter that takes place during WWI cannot but help to influence Zweig's attitude toward conflict, national pride and continental unity. He becomes an active pacifist though despite his pacifism and horror of the war, he writes mournfully about the break-up of the Hapsburg Empire and describes that break-up as an amputation. Nevertheless, he clings to his hope that this post-war world can be mended. Indeed, despite hints as to what is to come, he finds success, renown and personal stability and happiness durng the 1920’s.
Sadly, with the rise of Nazism in Germany and the annexation of Austria, he becomes a firsthand witness to the death of this hope and the loss of his place in the world.
I found this book fascinating because it provided an insider's view of a time and place that were both molded by great minds and that molded them. ( )