The World of Yesterday

By Stefan Zweig

The Austrian Stefan Zweig (1881- 1942), was one of the major authors, of his time. His work has been translated into many languages, even Chinese.

The "World of Yesterday" is his memoir, an eyewitness account of life in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century until his death in 1942. As Zweig lived through rapidly changing times his account is very complex and rich and apart from being a historical document, a multitude of anecdotes make it enjoyable reading.

Zweig starts his memoir with an elegiac description of a gone world he loved. He was a child of the "Belle Époque", the "Golden Age of security", born in a bourgeois Jewish family in Habsburg Vienna, surrounded by culture of every kind.  This world is recalled with much nostalgia.

During his carefree, secure years he travelled to meet illustrious contemporaries in Austria and Germany, among others Rilke, Freud, Herzl, Hofmannsthal, Richard Strauss and during his years in France he also met Gide, Rodin, Ravel and so many more. Among the many pages Zweig also mentions friends like Rolland, Freud or Strauss whom played a significant role in his life.

World War I broke out while Stefan was in De Haan, Belgium, on his way to visit Emile Verhaeren. This precipitated his return to Vienna where he was absolutely shocked to observe so much enthusiasm among his compatriots for the war. Stefan Zweig, was like his friend Romain Rolland, whom he later joined in Switzerland, an outspoken pacifist and humanist. He predicted the Austro-German political and military catastrophes ahead of time and felt compassion for all these young inexperienced soldiers, victims of an old Emperor and his outdated, weak government manipulated by the Prussians.

The following years would inevitably show the damage and horrors of the battlefield and would eventually lead to a crumbling and declined Habsburg Empire, once the guarantee of stability. After the peace treaties and while crossing the border on his way home from Switzerland, Zweig depicts the moving scene of last Emperor Karl and wife Zita, heirs to a dynasty that ruled for seven hundred years. They are leaving for exile alone, in a slowly moving train, watched by an embarrassed crowd.

The post war years were hard times with extreme poverty and raging inflation which he realistically illustrates, an egg cost as much as a luxury car in the past … "with the daily loss in value of money people came to appreciate eventually true values, such as work, love, friendship, art and nature"…"Young men and women would go walk in the mountains or dance in animated halls. They lived more intensely than ever before and art had never been as important".

After the worst post-war years, a ten year pause in the succession of catastrophes set in and normal life resumed. Zweig started travelling again and pretty soon he would be at the height of his career. Success settled in his life "as a benevolent guest" as the international reception of his work made him not only the most widely read but also the most translated writer in Europe.

After a decade or so, people believed that Europe had put an end to future wars and Zweig was dreaming of European unity and open exchange of culture. Nevertheless he depicted growing signs of radicalism and maybe even the looming spectre of another war. Eventually in the third and last part of his memoir Zweig witnesses a drastic change, a downward flow into an abyss with the rise of Hitler and the national socialists.

Political deceit and crimes against humanity replace the law. In poignant paragraphs Zweig recounts the worst inhumanity and naked violence which discharge themselves in 1938. He writes: "the road of modern culture went from humanism via nationalism to bestiality". In the midst of high political and ethnic tensions and the introduction of totalitarian laws Stefan Zweig is made stateless and homeless, forced to be at the mercy of others. His eighty-four year old mother is forbidden to sit on a public bench, during her daily walk in Vienna. Later, shockingly, even on her deathbed, no Jewish presence was allowed by Nazi decree.

Stefan Zweig's tragedies brought out all his talent.  He mourns his human dignity, his creativity, the shattering of all his dreams, the burning of all his books and the ban on publishing his work. After having fled to England and later to the U.S., he settled in Brazil where he wrote his last novella, "The Chess Game", in 1941 and sent it to his American publisher. Weeks after having completed this memoir, exhausted from the sufferings of the last years, having waited in vain for a sign of change in Europe, he puts an end to his life in February 1942

During his lifetime, Zweig had seen three mass ideologies appear, Marxism, Communism and Nazism.  He himself was totally opposed to any ideology and never took sides in politics except for humanitarian or pacifist convictions.

Stefan Zweig's wrote this major work from memory once all his notes and books had been burnt by the Nazis. Although it was never meant to be a traditional history book, he gave future generations, a unique account of life in the Empire, in the Republic and in the Third Reich when Austria was no longer on the map. His own life gives us a clear insight into the political and sociocultural history of that era.

On the whole the memoir had a positive reception in our reading group, except some remarks: "Why did he not mention anything about his private life? "Literary success and personal anonymity at the same time" was his wish as found in the last chapters. Had he indulged in the exposure of his emotional life, would it have been in line with his real purpose of writing a social and collective memoir? Some did not understand the reasons for his suicide! Others saw a parallel with the current events caused by the ideology of a few.

"In sorrow and in joy we have lived through time and history far beyond our own small lives… every hour of our years was linked to the fate of the world…"

    Irène VSB