The World of Yesterday: An Autobiography

Theodor Herzl was an influential editor at Vienna’s Neue Freie Presse newspaper. The Neue Freie Presse was a highly regarded paper, even by those outside of Viennese intellectual circles. Zweig’s own father, a devoted industrialist, was an avid reader. Because of the success and positive critical reception of Zweig’s early poems and works of fiction, he felt compelled to submit a short work of literary criticism to the Neue Freie Presse, which had a much wider readership than he would have had access to as an author of poetry and fiction. Herzl was “the first man of international stature” Zweig recalls meeting (124). Herzl read his entire essay in front of Zweig during their initial interview, and, impressed, agreed to publish it.

Herzl was, like Zweig, a member of the Jewish intelligentsia of Vienna and he was a prominent figure within the intellectual circle which Zweig hoped to join. Herzl also played an influential role within the Zionist movement in Europe. Indeed, Herzl is often credited with the birth of Zionism and is mentioned by name in Israel’s Declaration of Independence. At the time of his first meeting with Zweig, however, his calls for the creation of a Jewish state had not met with much success, and he’d failed to find support even among the bourgeois Jewish populations in Europe. There was a prevailing sense at the time, notes Zweig, that various Jewish groups had lived for so long in Europe, and so happily in Austria in particular, that their Jewish identity had been subsumed under the banner of “European” identity. Zweig himself identified as more of a European intellectual than a Jewish citizen of Austria. Herzl did eventually find greater support among the proletarian Jewish groups in eastern Europe, and with the enthusiasm of these farmers, laborers, and working-class men and women, Zionism began to gain traction.

Within the context of Zweig’s life, Herzl stands out as an early figure of cosmopolitan connection: It was important to Zweig to move in intellectual circles, to collaborate with other thinkers, and to establish bonds with like-minded men (he does not discuss his relationships with women in this text). There would be many other such figures in his life, and these friendships and working relationships would help to sustain him through the intensifying divisions and the rising tide of nationalism in Europe.

Emile Verhaeren was a Belgian poet whose work Zweig translated while living in Berlin. Zweig recalls initially being struck by Verhaeren’s work because of what he saw as a similarity to Walt Whitman, another cherished poet: He describes Verhaeren as “the first Francophone poet to try doing for Europe what Walt Whitman did for America—declare his belief in the present and the future” (142). Verhaeren’s interest in pan-European identity and the promises of modernity rendered him a kindred spirit to Zweig, who was likewise dedicated to European cosmopolitanism and had always been in the vanguard of intellectual discourse.

Like Herzl before him, Verhaeren embodied the unity possible among European intellectuals, and Zweig chose to translate his poetry out of a deep admiration. That the two struck up a friendship, and they would maintain that bond throughout the rest of Zweig’s time in Europe. Verhaeren helped introduce Zweig around Paris after Zweig left Berlin. It was through Verhaeren that he met a set of thinkers and artists who, removed from the raucous intellectual world of Parisian cafes and cabarets, preferred to work quietly, often during the off-hours from an ordinary job. This spirit of quiet contemplation was much more aligned with what Zweig valued at this time. Zweig continued to spend time with Verhaeren, and during the fateful summer of 1914 when the war broke out, Zweig was on his way to stay with Verhaeren in his home.

Rainer Maria Rilke was a renowned Austrian poet and novelist and was another of Zweig’s lifelong intellectual friends and collaborators. (Rilke is still widely read and is one of this text’s most famous figures.) Zweig first encountered Rilke’s work as a young man in Vienna, and Rilke was one of the formative authors of his youth. It was thinkers like Rilke who captivated Zweig and became sources of intellectual inspiration that he did not find in school. Although his dedication to the pursuit of knowledge would be lifelong, he firmly believed that it was through auto-didactic learning and discussion, and not through school curricula, that true knowledge was born. Rilke represents the spirit of intellectual curiosity that Zweig so esteems, and Zweig recalls how excited he was to receive a book of Rilke’s poems from Rilke himself during his early days as a writer.

He also spent time with Rilke in Paris, and the two stayed in contact during the war, during which they watched many young men succumb to nationalism. Zweig was able to get Rilke a job in the archive, and although Rilke did once sheepishly appear to Zweig in uniform, he was given a medical discharge and thus avoided having to be sent to the front.