Helmut Schüller on God’s Mysterious Ways
“God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform!” my grandmother would tell me, quoting the poet William Cowper, in moments when my curiosity had stretched too far. She liked to retreat into literature to avoid unpleasantness and keep ‘unmentionables’ where they belong. I have wondered what she would have had to say about [...]
Krzysztof Michalski
So, the votes are in and Austria is aglow in the reflected glory of its two favourite sons, director Michael Hanecke and actor Christoph Waltz, as Oscars in hand, they took their bows at the 85th Academy Awards ceremony in Hollywood. At the same time, a much quieter, but none the less resonant tribute, is [...]
Conscription Referendum: The Third Option
On 2 January, Austrians cast their ballots on a first-ever national referendum on the military, choosing whether to switch to an all-volunteer professional army, a Berufsheer, or maintain conscription for all young men 18 to 35, with the option of alternative service, or Zivildienst. When all the votes were in on the non-binding referendum, nearly [...]
McGovern and Kreisky: a Friendship, and Shared Political Ideals
Waiting for a role call vote in the U.S. Senate, one day in the 1970s, Senator George McGovern fell into conversation with colleague and fellow liberal Edward Kennedy. A member of the Foreign Relations Committee, McGovern would be leading a trip to Europe and asked Kennedy for his advice about people to meet with. Go [...]
From the Editor: Old Souls
Vienna is a city of legends more than ever these days, with podiums and forums filled with the faces and voices of some of Austria’s most distinguished émigrés, several covered in this month’s issue of The Vienna Review (pp. 4, 20, 32). They are all Jewish intellectuals, people of great talent, drive and accomplishment, who [...]
Civility and the Law
On Sunday, 23 September, the Swiss voted by a two-thirds majority against a total smoking ban, in some cantons over 70% against. Only in Geneva, with its high percentage of internationals, did a majority of 51.6% vote in favour. Like the Austrians, the Swiss seem to have opted for a complex solution that allows alternative [...]
Fashion’s Perfect Form
Fashion is a fickle thing, and much of it mystifies me. Why do women wear skirts too short to safely sit down in? Or ones that stop just above the knees, thus accenting what is surely our least appealing feature? And why do otherwise perfectly sane and intelligent men go to such trouble and expense [...]
Paying the Prostitutes
Austrian journalist and satirist Karl Kraus had no patience for public hypocrisy – or private, for that matter: “What a world!” he complained, “in which the fulfilment of men’s deepest desires is held up to women as a reproof!” So he would probably have been pleased if he had lived to see prostitution made legal [...]
What Must (and Must Not) Be Said
Nobel laureate Günter Grass has made a career of talking about hard things. Like Oskar, the central character in his 1959 novel The Tin Drum, Grass is gifted with a piercing shriek that can be used as a weapon. His latest cry was a poem, “What Must Be Said”, that appeared in the Süddeutsche Zeitung [...]
