Stefan Zweig by Henrik Eger
Stefan Zweig at his desk.
ZWEIG, Stefan. Born November 28, 1881, in Vienna, Austria; committed suicide February 23, 1942, in Petropolis, Brazil. Zweig traveled in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas throughout his life and early developed a Weltperspektive [world perspective] based on direct contacts with famous writers and artists in various cultures. Although he abhorred political conflict, he saw himself as a confirmed European mediator among nations as early as World War I when he was active in the peace movement during his first exile in Switzerland. Zweig conceived of himself as the “good European” who introduces great individuals, even nations, to discerning readers through writing subtle, psychoanalytical portraits of French, Belgian, English, and Russian writers, statesmen, artists, and imaginary figures for his German readers. He also wrote a libretto for Richard Strauss: Die schweigsame Frau (1935; The Silent Woman).
In 1934, Zweig set up a second residence in London, but kept his home in Vienna. Faced with anti-Semitic persecution, Zweig left Austria for the last time in 1938. The Nazis confiscated his internationally renowned collection of autographs and bibliophilic rarities, selling and dispersing the collection as a measure of their distaste.
In 1939, Zweig published Ungeduld des Herzens (Beware of Pity) and Worte am Grabe Sigmund Freuds (Words at the Grave of Sigmund Freud). In 1940 he left England for the United States; in 1941 he moved to Brazil, where he completed Brasilien: Ein Land der Zukunft (Brazil: A Land of the Future). He left uncompleted at his death a biography of Honoré de Balzac, on which he had been working for ten years; the manuscript was published in 1946.
In 1934, Zweig set up a second residence in London, but kept his home in Vienna. Faced with anti-Semitic persecution, Zweig left Austria for the last time in 1938. The Nazis confiscated his internationally renowned collection of autographs and bibliophilic rarities, selling and dispersing the collection as a measure of their distaste.
In 1939, Zweig published Ungeduld des Herzens (Beware of Pity) and Worte am Grabe Sigmund Freuds (Words at the Grave of Sigmund Freud). In 1940 he left England for the United States; in 1941 he moved to Brazil, where he completed Brasilien: Ein Land der Zukunft (Brazil: A Land of the Future). He left uncompleted at his death a biography of Honoré de Balzac, on which he had been working for ten years; the manuscript was published in 1946.
Stefan Zweig at lectern with books, 1915-16.
Zweig’s most important work in exile, Schachnovelle (Chess Novella), appeared in 1942 (it was filmed in 1960). In his last complete prose work he attacked fascist brutality as defined by his concept of educated humanism. He juxtaposed one of his protagonists, the primitive and arrogant world-champion chess-player, with a famous Austrian lawyer who had been imprisoned and tortured by the Gestapo but who survived the terror of his incarceration by learning to play chess and who extended his liberating obsession to the point of wanting to play against himself, a desire, in Zweig’s words, “as paradoxical as jumping across one’s shadow.” Later, the sensitive refugee defeats the world-champion master in the first round of their match but breaks off the second round because of nervous exhaustion. In Zweig’s view, compassionate sensibility and intelligence lose in a battle against rigid perseverance and its accompanying brutality of purpose. The novella has been seen as an autobiographical admission to the inevitable defeat of decadent European middle-class and apolitical humanistic values in a contest with the rabid discipline of totalitarian fanaticism. For such a defeatist attitude about humanism, Zweig was scorned by critics as early as the 1930s, but his last work occasioned the greatest outburst of both pain and anger by his critics.
Zweig considered his growing depression in the 1940s a consequence of the collapse of European ideals that he had cherished. Accordingly, his biography carries a title underlining his sense of loss: Die Welt von Gestern: Erinnerungen eines Europäers (1941; The World of Yesterday: Memories of a European, 1943).
At the age of sixty, the wealthy, highly respected, and widely read author of works that frequently explored aesthetic labyrinths and the breakdown of a soul in bourgeois society killed himself. His second wife, Lotte, joined him in a suicide pact in their home near Rio de Janeiro—an event that shook the exile community throughout the world. Yet many of Zweig’s works foreshadowed an ultimate despair stemming from public and private fears, among them: Angst (1920; Fear); Der Kampf mit dem Dämon (1925; The Battle with the Demon); Die Flucht zu Gott (1927; The Flight to God); Verwirrung der Gefühle (1927; Confusion of Feelings); Triumph and Tragik des Erasmus von Rotterdam (1934), and the well-known Sternstunden der Menschheit (1927, Pivotal Moments of Mankind; Star, enlarged to twelve essays in 1936).
Zweig considered his growing depression in the 1940s a consequence of the collapse of European ideals that he had cherished. Accordingly, his biography carries a title underlining his sense of loss: Die Welt von Gestern: Erinnerungen eines Europäers (1941; The World of Yesterday: Memories of a European, 1943).
At the age of sixty, the wealthy, highly respected, and widely read author of works that frequently explored aesthetic labyrinths and the breakdown of a soul in bourgeois society killed himself. His second wife, Lotte, joined him in a suicide pact in their home near Rio de Janeiro—an event that shook the exile community throughout the world. Yet many of Zweig’s works foreshadowed an ultimate despair stemming from public and private fears, among them: Angst (1920; Fear); Der Kampf mit dem Dämon (1925; The Battle with the Demon); Die Flucht zu Gott (1927; The Flight to God); Verwirrung der Gefühle (1927; Confusion of Feelings); Triumph and Tragik des Erasmus von Rotterdam (1934), and the well-known Sternstunden der Menschheit (1927, Pivotal Moments of Mankind; Star, enlarged to twelve essays in 1936).
Zweig’s works in exile and those posthumously published include Magellan: Der Mann und seine Tat (1938; Magellan: The Man and His Deed); Amerigo: Die Geschichte eines historischen Irrtums (1946; Amerigo: The History of a Historical Misunderstanding); Briefwechsel mit Richard Strauss (1957; Correspondence with Richard Strauss); and Europäisches Erbe: Essays (1960; European Heritage: Essays).
Consult: Randolph J. Klawitter, Stefan Zweig: A Bibliography (1965); E. Allday, Stefan Zweig: A Critical Biography (London, 1972); K. Matthias, “Humanismus in der Zerreissprobe (Humanism Undergoing an Acid Test): Stefan Zweig im Exil,” in M. Durzak, ed., Die deutsche Exilliteratur (German Exile Literature) 1933-45 (Stuttgart, 1973; includes bibliography). See also Romain Rolland-Stefan Zweig, Briefwechsel (Correspondence) 1910-1940, Band (Volume) 1: 1910-1923 (Berlin, 1988).
HENRIK EGER
Stefan Zweig, Wikipedia, Jan. 18, 2016
Vermicular Dither by Michael Hofmann, London Review of Books. Jan. 18, 2016
(on left) Zweig's farewell letter, Feb. 22, 1942, one day before he committed suicide in Brazil,
together with his wife Lotte. Click the image to read his text.
Consult: Randolph J. Klawitter, Stefan Zweig: A Bibliography (1965); E. Allday, Stefan Zweig: A Critical Biography (London, 1972); K. Matthias, “Humanismus in der Zerreissprobe (Humanism Undergoing an Acid Test): Stefan Zweig im Exil,” in M. Durzak, ed., Die deutsche Exilliteratur (German Exile Literature) 1933-45 (Stuttgart, 1973; includes bibliography). See also Romain Rolland-Stefan Zweig, Briefwechsel (Correspondence) 1910-1940, Band (Volume) 1: 1910-1923 (Berlin, 1988).
HENRIK EGER
Stefan Zweig, Wikipedia, Jan. 18, 2016
Vermicular Dither by Michael Hofmann, London Review of Books. Jan. 18, 2016
(on left) Zweig's farewell letter, Feb. 22, 1942, one day before he committed suicide in Brazil,
together with his wife Lotte. Click the image to read his text.
Originally published in Literary Exile in the Twentieth Century: An Analysis and Biographical Dictionary , edited by Martin Tucker.
New York, Greenwood Press, 1991, pp. 448-50.
New York, Greenwood Press, 1991, pp. 448-50.
