Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T07:27:28.974Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - “weiße Strümpfe oder neue Kutten”: Cultural Decline in Vienna in the 1930s

from Part I - Cultural and Political Parameters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2013

John Warren
Affiliation:
Oxford Brookes University
Deborah Holmes
Affiliation:
Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for the History and Theory of Biography in Vienna
Lisa Silverman
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
Get access

Summary

ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL STUDIES on Austrian culture during the interwar years bears the title Aufbruch und Untergang (New Departure and Decline), a juxtaposition that succinctly conveys the era's combined legacy of great achievement and bitter disappointment. By concentrating on the second idea, that of decline, this essay will examine what happened to the burgeoning cultural and intellectual developments of the early period of the First Republic in Vienna following the calamitous political events of 1933–34. For many commentators it was the Anschluss of 1938 and the subsequent emigration of Jewish intellectuals, authors, and performers that marked the downfall of Viennese culture. However, Austria had already suffered major setbacks earlier in the 1930s for which there were three main causes: the blow to left-wing modernist culture caused by the abolition of Social Democracy and its many institutions and organizations in February 1934; the loss of talent brought about by those who chose to go into early exile; and the cultural policies of the Catholic, nationalist Ständestaat (corporate state) from 1934 to 1938. Before assessing these causes of decline, I begin with a brief recapitulation of the early achievements of the First Republic up to the fateful years 1933–34.

Viennese Culture under the First Republic to 1934

The political stepping-stones that mark the path toward the end of democracy in the First Republic have been well charted. Less well documented is the effect political destabilization had on cultural life.

Type
Chapter
Information
Interwar Vienna
Culture between Tradition and Modernity
, pp. 32 - 56
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×