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Die Welt von gestern: Erinnerungen eines Europäers
Die Welt von gestern: Erinnerungen eines Europäers
Die Welt von gestern: Erinnerungen eines Europäers
Audiobook (abridged)35 hours

Die Welt von gestern: Erinnerungen eines Europäers

Written by Stefan Zweig

Narrated by Peter Vilnai

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

4.5/5

()

About this audiobook

Peter Vilnai wurde 1945 in Niederösterreich geboren. Absolvent der Schauspielschule von Prof. Krauss in Wien. 1974 Debüt am Theater für Vorarlberg in Bregenz. Nach Gastspielen am Theater Tribüne, wo er auch als künstlerischer Leiter tätig war, und Die Courage in Wien kam er 1980 ans Wiener Volkstheater. Spielte in mehreren Fernseh- und Kinofilmen, z.B. in der Serie Ringstraßenpalais, oder im Tatort.
LanguageDeutsch
Release dateNov 28, 2013
ISBN9783902727718
Author

Stefan Zweig

Stefan Zweig (1981-1942) was the most widely translated writer of the 1920s and 1930s. A Jewish pacifist, he was driven by the Nazis into exile, first in London, then in Brazil, where he committed suicide in a pact with his wife. The manuscript for The Post Office Girl was found among his papers. Zweig's other novels include Beware of Pity and Chess Story.

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Reviews for Die Welt von gestern

Rating: 4.343891065610859 out of 5 stars
4.5/5

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    (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.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Knap tijdsbeeld van de periode 1890-1940 via de ogen van een gevierd Oostenrijks-joods schrijver. Natuurlijk erg geromantiseerd, want geschreven in de donkerste periode van zijn leven, vlak voor zijn zelfmoord. De hele fine fleur van de Europese cultuur passeert de revue.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Knap tijdsbeeld van de periode 1890-1940 via de ogen van een gevierd Oostenrijks-joods schrijver. Natuurlijk erg geromantiseerd, want geschreven in de donkerste periode van zijn leven, vlak voor zijn zelfmoord. De hele fine fleur van de Europese cultuur passeert de revue.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    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.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    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.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I was deeply impressed; history is made interesting! I rest speechless...
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A strange, antique, and absorbing memoir. I had never heard of Stefan Zweig before picking up this book - but discovered he was a widely-published Viennese novelist, playwright and biographer, who was much acclaimed during the first few decades of the last century. "The World of Yesterday" is autobiographical, but selectively so - the opening chapters vividly describe his childhood and teenage years, but we learn rather less about the adult Zweig (there is, for instance, weirdly little mention of either of his wives). His intellectualism is of an old-fashioned variety, that many today would find pretentious (and he's quite fond of name-dropping). But nevertheless, this is a powerful and evocative personal portrait of the artistic, cultural and intellectual life of Europe between 1900 and 1940. As another reviewer has noted, it ultimately serves as an obituary for the Europe that died when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939. Reading "The World of Yesterday" is all the more sobering with the knowledge that, shortly after dispatching the manuscript of this book to his publisher in 1942, Zweig committed suicide. A passionate devotee of internationalism and artistic comradeship, he decided that a world in which the National Socialists dominated Europe was a world in which he could no longer live.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    The World of Yesterday was for me a very boring reading, stuffed with tediously (for style and insight) details of his friends' lifes and pages that boast Zweig's own importance and greatness. Even if Zweig was a biographer, he forgot in his autobiography the history, as if he was living in a separate world: there is almost no mention of the fall of the Empire and only few words about the Anschluss. The last part, the exile, is the best one because I can at least feel his hopelessness and despair.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A poet, novelist, dramatist and biographer, Stephan Zweig (1881-1942) was a brilliant writer, documenting both historical lives and his own. Of his non-fiction The World of Yesterday is his personal memoir of growing up in fin de siecle Austria and the early years of the twentieth century. Written the year before he died, the book is a testament to his life, a life of the mind and a life of letters. Unfortunately the last years of his life were spent as an exile from his homeland and in the year after finishing this memoir he and his wife committed suicide together.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    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.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    An engrossing "professional" autobiography of the life of this Austrian Jewish author up to World War II, made more poignant by his tragic end. So brilliantly translated it reads as if it had been written in English.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is a wonderful book. Although titled an autobiography, it would be more accurately described as an obituary for the Europe that died when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939, having already been fatally wounded by the Great War of 1914-18.Zweig was born in 1881 and travelled extensively once he reached adulthood - initially the travel was by choice and later in order to flee persecution (he was Jewish). He lived at different times in his native Vienna, in Berlin, Paris, London, Salzburg, New York and Sao Paulo. He knew many of the key European artists and intellectuals of his time, including Freud, Mahler, Strauss, Mann, Hoffmansthal, Rilke, Verhaeren, Rolland, Joyce, Shaw and Wells.He used these contacts and his art to oppose the narrow nationalism that tore Europe apart in the 20th century. In the end, he was overcome by despair at the destruction of everything that he valued: he and his wife took their own lives in 1942, a few months after he completed this book.Highly recommended.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    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.