Book Review: Night Falls on the City
The annals of publishing history are rife with writers lost in the grinding wheels of intellectual fashion. So it is especially gratifying when a deserving novel, like Sarah Gainham’s Night Falls on the City, is retrieved from obscurity. A best-seller when it first appeared in 1967, this powerful work of descriptive fiction has been republished [...]
Central Europe’s Nationalist Paradox
Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, a nationalist? On the contrary. Would he then sign partnership agreements with large foreign investors? And Slovakia’s Robert Fico picking up right-wing voters and thus shifting toward nationalism? Hardly, or he wouldn’t be dedicating so much energy to saving the country’s largest private employer, the U.S. Steel ironworks in Kosice, which the [...]
Book Review: Iron Curtain
Perhaps what is most often forgotten in the more intellectual-inclined discourses of political theory and Marxism is the basic fact that civil society – that sphere that is organically nongovernmental and, if desired, apolitical – is the vibrant lifeblood that allows discourse, and culture, to arise. The Italian Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci long held that [...]
Belgrade: The Late Bloomer of the East
“Traffic here works according to the principle of self-determination,” my friend Oliver tells me. “You wait for a good opportunity to cross. If there isn’t one, you have to create one. Just stare down the cars and hope for the best!” The wide street is feeding more cars into the roundabout on Slavija Square, in [...]
Green Austria: Smoke and Mirrors?
Meeting the 2020 Kyoto Protocol targets has been a struggle for many countries. Some have scaled back their original commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; others have withdrawn entirely. In emerging markets, most notably China, emissions are on the rise. In China a new coal-fired power station is being built every few days. In Austria, [...]
Gita Kaufman Retraces the Shadows From My Past
Gita Weinrauch Kaufman “can never forget, nor forgive, what happened.” She wanted us to know that right off, from the beginning, before trying to pull the many threads of place and memory together. The result became Shadows From My Past, a new documentary by Mrs. Kaufman and her late husband Curt that will be screened [...]
The Vienna Philharmonic: An Orchestra, a ring and a past
In January, the buzz echoed across the globe: The Vienna Philharmonic, one of the world’s most renowned orchestras, had finally opened its archives to a team of historians. By the second week of March, a few days before the 75th anniversary of Austria’s Anschluss with Nazi Germany, the website of the Philharmonic was updated with [...]
The Staatsoper Ballet: Rivalries Centre Stage
Midway through Manuel Legris’ third season at Staatsoper, Vienna is becoming a ballet city. What a difference one person can make! Actually it’s two people: Legris has the firm backing of Staatsoper General Director Dominique Meyer, whose passion for dance can be heard in extended speeches after each premiere. This is a stark contrast to [...]
Rathkolb: Revisiting Interwar History
For much of early March, it was nearly impossible to get historian Oliver Rathkolb on the phone. He did better with emails, dashing off two-to-five word answers, with links or attachments. Signed characteristically, “herzlichst, OR”. When he was finally able to pry loose for a few minutes, he sounded harassed – but not unhappy. Leading [...]
