Stefan zweig grand budapest hotel

1. Austrian Writer
2. The Secret of Zweig's Success
3. Departure from Austria and Tragic End

Austrian Writer

When the guns fell silent and only the remnants of the Austro-Hungarian Empire remained, uncertain of what to do with their newfound independence, Stefan Zweig, like a true dissident, raised a glass to the success of a hopeless cause. Born in the patchwork monarchy of the Habsburgs, he felt himself to be a man of not just Austrian or German culture, but a spiritual offspring of that Europe which had not yet known closed borders and fierce customs, but was already swelling with mutual distrust, leading to the explosion in 1914. When the guns fell silent and only the remnants of the Austro-Hungarian Empire remained, uncertain of what to do with their newfound independence, Zweig, like a true dissident, once again raised a glass to the success of a hopeless cause. In the 1920s, he became overwhelmingly famous. With his characteristic sobriety, Zweig attributed his success primarily to his concern for the reader: like a sculptor, he cut away the excess from the original text, turning it into a concise little book.

The Secret of Zweig's Success

The secret of Zweig's success lay in the mental health of his books. He wrote extensively about the painful phenomena of the psyche, but few writers of that troubled time maintained such a charge of enlightening optimism as Zweig. For the little man, oppressed by economic crisis, tyranny, and war, his books were breaths of fresh air. The last years of Zweig's life were overshadowed by the rise of Hitler. It was equally bitter to witness the donkey-like carelessness of fellow citizens – even in Austria, Jews did not believe that they could come to harm. As if preparing for death in advance, Zweig hurried to write "The World of Yesterday: Memories of a European" – a requiem for the civilization he loved so much.

Departure from Austria and Tragic End

When it became clear that Germany would engulf Austria, Zweig trembled. The old European could not withstand a second quarter-century of triumph of obscurantism – and left his homeland. Four years later, in faraway Brazil, he voluntarily ended his own life, bequeathing to others to "wait for the dawn". Such Europeans as Stefan Zweig have long ceased to exist. They disappeared after World War II. The spiritual climate of today's European Union suspiciously resembles the Soviet model – not so much "the flowering and convergence of equal cultures" as a disheartening leveling. It seems that the intelligentsia of Europe has forgotten its role in favor of two false alternatives – lofty elitism and narrow pragmatism.

Zweig, rejecting both of these extremes, is now classified as a "middling writer". It would be good if a "middling" writer would deign to be read by at least half of those for whom average detective stories have become the pinnacle of literary thought.