Montaigne by Stefan Zweig Original text © Atrium Press Ltd, 1976 First published in German in Europäisches Erbe, S. Fischer Verlag, 1960 Translation © Will Stone 2015 First published by Pushkin Press

Completed in Petropolis, Brazil - 1942

This is part of our  participation in German Literature 10 -November 2020

This my 8th year as a participant in German Literature Month.  It seems important in these dark times to continue traditions cherishing culture, historical knowledge and literacy.

I first became aware of Stefan Zweig during GL Month in 2013.  He is now one of my favorite writers.   

 Posts on Stefan Zweig

My  favorite works by Zweig are first "Mendel the Bibliophile", then Chess, and The Post Office Girl, and “Twilight”.  

 Stefan Zweig

November 28, 1881 - Vienna, Austria - born 

1941 -  moves with his second wife to Petropolis,Brazil

 to escape what he saw as the destruction of the culture of Europe

February 22, 1942 - Petropolis Brazil  - dies 

Michel Eyquem de Montaigne 

Born: 28 February 1533, Château de Montaigne, Saint-Michel-de-Montaigne, France

Died: 13 September 1592, Château de Montaigne, Saint-Michel-de-Montaigne, France

In his very well done introduction William Stone tells us the background behind Zweig’s move to Petropolis Brazil (located 68 Kilometers North East of Rio de Janeiro).  Zweig was convinced everything he loved in Europe was going to be destroyed by the Germans.  Now 

Petropolis is a get away for affluent Cariocas and a winter playground for Europe’s elite.  I spent some time there twenty years ago and it was then a totally beautiful place.  I imagine the tropical lushness of the area and the beauty of the citizens after leaving war ravaged Europe in 1941 must have been near overwhelming for Zweig.  Maybe Zweig’s spirit was 

damaged beyond recovery.

In a cabinet in his house in Petropolis Zweig, fluent in French, found a copy of the Essays of Montaigne.  Of course he knew of him but he had never read any of his essays.  He saw a Kindred spirit in Montaigne who saw his own time as a period of cultural decline and never ending war. Montaigne was born into an affluent French family and came to inherit a large house and an agricultural enterprise.  He married, was mayor of his town, traveled extensively but around age forty he began to think about the meaning of hid life in a decaying era in France.  He began to retreat into a tower house, reading ever more deeply in his library.  Zweig as Stone details totally identified with Montaigne.

Zweig gives a good bit of biographical information on Montaigne.  He explains why he found him so profound.

I am very glad I read this book, reading time maybe two hours.  

Stone has also translated Zweig’s treatise on Friedrich Nietzsche and I hope to read it soon.

Ambrosia Bousweau

Mel u

In the Snow (Im Schnee, 1901) - A Short Story by Stefan Zweig - translated by Anthea Bell - included in The Collected Short Stories of Stefan Zweig - 2013 - 

German Literature 10 - November 2020

This my 8th year as a participant in German Literature Month.  It seems important in these dark times to continue traditions cherishing culture, historical knowledge and literacy.

I first became aware of Stefan Zweig during GL Month in 2013.  He is now one of my favorite writers.   

My Posts on Stefan Zweig

My favorite works by Zweig are first "Mendel the Bibliophile", then Chess, and The Post Office Girl, and “Twilight”.  

 Stefan Zweig

November 28, 1881 - Vienna, Austria

February 22, 1942 - Petropolis , Brazil 

Some critics of Zweig suggest he never faced in his writings the fate of Jews in Europe.  They have never read “In The Snow” which gives a vivid treatment of an attack by a group of  German Flagellants on a peaceful Jewish community.

“The Flagellants were abroad in Germany, wild, fanatically religious men who flailed their own bodies with scourges in Bacchanalian orgies of lust and delight, deranged and drunken hordes who had already slaughtered and tortured thousands of Jews, intending to deprive them of what they held most holy, their age-old belief in the Father. That was their worst fear.” - from the story

There is no dates given in the story.  Many in Europe felt the Black Death 

was caused by Jews.  The Flagellants made it their mission to kill as many Jews as they could.  The peak period for this was 1347 to 1351.  We do know the story takes place in a Jewish community in Germany in the 14th century:

“A small  MEDIEVAL German town close to the Polish border, with the sturdy solidity of fourteenth-century building: the colourful, lively picture that it usually presents has faded to a single impression of dazzling, shimmering white. Snow is piled high on the broad walls and weighs down on the tops of the towers, around which night has already cast veils of opaque grey mist.”

The worship session is in process at the Synagogue, held in the large house of the Rabbi.  A stranger approaches with terrible news. All the Jews in a neighboring community have been killed by a hoard of Flagellants.  They are now heading toward them.  The man turns out to be the fiancé of a woman at the service.  Everyone has friends and relatives who they fear are lost.  The community begins to pack up all they own to try to escape.  They will ultimately all freeze to death as they run.

A few days ago I posted on a very illuminating book, Drunk on Genocide: Alcohol and Mass Murder in Nazi Germany by Edward Westermann (forthcoming March 15, 2021), which demonstrated that during the Holocaust those doing the killing were intoxicated by the joy it brought them.  They inflamed their joy with alcohol.  Ordinary Germans would get drunk watching mass shootings, often taking pictures with dead bodies. This same spirit was alive and well in Germany in the 14th century.

I hope to read a few more Zweig short stories this month.

.

(The flagellant movement and the pogroms against the Jews, although not always uncontrolled, were certainly hysterical—highly emotional— responses to the Black Death. Flagellation, or whipping—performed for a variety of motives including penitential atonement, mortification of the flesh, imitation of Christ, or divine supplication—was not unusual in the Middle Ages. As a punishment for sinful behavior it appears from an early date in Christianity and was included in the first monastic rules from the fourth to the sixth centuries. Self-inflicted flagellation became common in Christian observance during the eleventh and twelfth centuries. In 1260, there arose in Perugia, Italy, a public, collective, processional movement of voluntary flagellants, the forerunner of the movement during the Black Death...from Bedford Series)

Mel u

“Forgotten Dreams” - A Short Story by Stefan Zweig - first published in The Vergessene Träume, 1900- translated by Anthea Bell - 2013 - included in The Collected Short Stories of Stefan Zweig from Pushkin Press

Website of German Literature 10

This will be my 8th year as a participant in German Literature Month.  It seems important in these dark times to continue traditions fostering culture, historical knowledge and literary depth. 

I first became aware of Stefan Zweig during GL Month in 2013.  He is now one of my favorite writers.   

My Posts on Stefan Zweig

My favorite works by Zweig are first "Mendel the Bibliophile", then Chess, and The Post Office Girl, and “Twilight”.  

 Stefan Zweig

November 28, 1881 - Vienna, Austria

February 22, 1942 - Petropolis, Brazil 

“Forgotten Dreams”, a brief work, begins with a description of the exquiste view from a magnificient Villa:

“THE VILLA LAY CLOSE TO THE SEA. The quiet avenues, lined with pine trees, breathed out the rich strength of salty sea air, and a slight breeze constantly played around the orange trees, now and then removing a colourful bloom from flowering shrubs as if with careful fingers. The sunlit distance, where attractive houses built on hillsides gleamed like white pearls, a lighthouse miles away rose steeply and straight as a candle—the whole scene shone, its contours sharp and clearly outlined, and was set in the deep azure of the sky like a bright mosaic.”

If Zweig’s body of work had to be summed  up in a sentence it might be described as an elegy to the lost glories of a culture in decline.

The plot is about a man revisiting a woman he once loved long ago.  When a servant gives her his card she is quite surprised.

“She reads the name with that expression of surprise on her features that appears when you are greeted in the street with great familiarity by someone you do not know. For a moment, small lines appear above her sharply traced black eyebrows, showing how hard she is thinking, and then a happy light plays over her whole face all of a sudden, her eyes sparkle with high spirits as she thinks of the long-ago days of her youth, almost forgotten now.”

Of course she is described as besutiful.

In their ensuing conversation we learn the woman once had dreams, hopes and values.   Over years, she settled for wealth and comfort.

Maybe Anthea Bell choice this as the lead story in the collection as it is a very Zweigian work, embodying his values.

I have still not read all the Short Stories in The Collected Short Stories of Stefan Zweig from Pushkin Press.  I hope to post on a few more this month.