joseph roth

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Joseph Roth (1894-1939)

Prolific political journalist and novelist, whose major work, the familyhistory Radetzkymarch appeared in 1932. It depicted the Habsburgempire Austria-Hungary from 1859 to 1916. Roth saw admiringly the

old empire as a cosmopolitan world and its decline a sad chapter inEuropean history. His ambivalence toward Western civilization led himincreasingly to draw on the heritage of Eastern European storytelling.

"The Eastern Jew looks to the West with a longing that it really

doesn't merit. To the Eastern Jew, the West signifies freedom,

justice, civilization, and the possibility to work and develop his

talents. The West exports engineers, automobiles, books, and poems

to the East. It sends propaganda soaps and hygiene, useful and

elevating things, all of them beguiling and come-hitherish to the East.

To the Eastern Jew, Germany, for example, remains the land of

Goethe and Schiller, of the German poets, with whom every keen

Jewish youth is far more conversant than our own swastika'dsecondary school pupils." (from The Wandering Jews)

Joseph Roth was born Moses Joseph Roth in the German colony of Schwabendorf in Volynia (Austro-Hungarian Empire), into a Jewishfamily. His father-in-law was an installment seller in Vienna, his unclea tailor, and his grandfather a rabbi. Roth's father left the family beforeJoseph was born and died according to Roth in a lunatic asylum inAmsterdam - actually he died in Russia. Roth lived by turns withrelatives of his father and mother.

Roth's early years are little known and his own account is not alwaysreliable. He attended Baron-Hirsch-Schule, Brody (1901-05),Impererial-Royal Crown Prince Rudolph Gymnasium (1905-13),studied literature and philosophy at the University of Lemberg (nowLviv, Ukraine) and Vienna (1914-16). From 1916 to 1918 he served inthe Austrian army in the rifle regiment (Feldjäger) - he probably had adesk job. Roth claimed later to have spent months in Russian captivityas a prisoner of war. The Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy, with its 15official languages, collapsed in the war, but Roth did not lose hisadoration of the vanished empire. "... we all lost a world, our world," heonce said.

After the war Roth worked as a journalist in Vienna, where he wrotehis first feuilletons, and moved in 1920 to Berlin, which he described as"an aimlessly sprawling stone emblem for the sorry aimless of ournational existence." In the 1920s his articles showed traces of socialistconviction, although he never became a political thinker. During hisexile years he professed Catholicism. Roth's marriage failed, his wifebecame mentally ill and was confined to a hospital.



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From 1923 to 1932 Roth was a correspondent for Frankfurter Zeitung,travelling around Europe. Some of his widely read articles from thisperiod were collected in The Wandering Jews (1927). In 1926 Rothwent to the Soviet Union and recorded his resigned Socialist views in

Der stumme Propher, which was published posthumously in 1966.When Hitler came into power, Roth was obliged to flee Germany andreturn to Vienna. "The European mind is capitulating," he wrote in

1933. Roth wrote for emigre publications, and drank even harder thanbefore. In 1933 and 1937 Roth travelled in Poland on PEN lecture tour.After the assassination of Dolfuss, he moved to Paris, where he died ina poorhouse (in some sources in an army hospital) on May 27, 1939.

"Joseph Roth was an enigmatic figure in his life more than in his

work. Though Jewish, he rarely spoke about his Jewishness. Plagued

by poverty, he admired aristocracy. Though extremely gifted, his

truly deserved recognition came to him only posthumously." (Elie

Wiesel on Joseph Roth, in a review of Radetzky March, New York

Times, Nov. 3, 1974)

Roth started his career as a writer in the 1920s under the influence of French and Russian psychological realism (Balzac, Stendhal, Flaubert,Gogol, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky), but later his works became nearerViennese Impressionism (Hofmannstahl, Schnitzler). In Hotel Savoy(1924) Roth described a variety of hotel clientele, arranging the storiesaccording to the wealth and status of the figures. Die Rebellion (1924)was a story of Andreas Pum who has lost a leg in battle. "He believedin a just god. One who handed out shrapnel, amputations, and medalsto the deserving. Viewed in the correct light, the loss of a leg wasn't sovery bad, and the joy of receiving a medal was considerable. An invalid

might enjoy the respect of the world. An invalid with a medal coulddepend on that of the government." He plays the barrel organ on streetcorners. After a rebellion his marriage is ruined and Pum finds himself in jail. Die Flucht ohne Ende (1927) traced the experiences of anAustrian soldier who makes his way back from captivity in Siberia toWest, and who finds himself alienated from the bourgeois world. Theprotagonists of these novels belonged to the wartime generation thatfound the society changed and the traditional values threatened.

Roth's best-know novel, Radetzkymarsch, portraits the latter days of Habsburg monarch, its multietnic equilibrium, bureaucratic correctness,

and hedonistic sensuality. In the opening of the work an Austrian armyofficer saves the life of the young emperor at the battle of Solferino.Through his account of the descendants of this hero Roth creates aSpenglerian vision of European culture in decline and loss. The samenostalgic theme is repeating in Roth's later novels. Its sequel, DieKapuzinergruft, (1938), traced the collapse of the Empire through anaccount of a whole family, the Van Trottas. It shows Roth respondingto the National Socialist takeover in Austria with an expression of



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passionate commitment for the Hapsburg dynasty. The author once said:"I am a conservative and a Catholic, consider Austria my fatherland,and desire the return of the Empire."

Roth's other works include Rechts und Links (1929), set in Berlin, adisappointment for Nazis and leftists critics, Hiob (1930, Job: The Storyof a Simple Man), a modern-day analogy of the biblical story, in which

Roth paid his tribute to his Jewish background. Das falsche Gewicht (1937) depicted a weight-and measures inspector in the borderlands of the Tsarist Empire, Die Legende vom heiligen trinker (1939) was anself-ironic examination, in which Andreas the drinker is suddenlycharged, by a total stranger, with the task of delivering a large sum of money to the shrine of St. Therese.

In his last novel, Die Geschichte von der 1002. Nacht (1939) Rothexamined the theme of self-deception. The Shah-in-Shah, the greatruler and overlord of all the lands of Persia, feels sick and in 1873decides to visit Vienna, saying that "Muslims have been there once

before, many years ago." His Chief Eunuch, Patominos, corrects him:"Sire, they were unfortunately unable to enter the city. Had they doneso, St. Stephen's Cathedral would have not a cross, but a crescent moonon top of it!" In the course of the narrative, the principal figures - BaronTaittinger, the brothel keeper Frau Matzner, and the prostitute MizziSchinagl - fall victim to the rewards they have reaped the Shah. He hasslept with Mizzi and sends her a string of pearls. She ends in prison andTaittinger shoots himself. Juden auf Wanderschaft (1927, TheWandering Jews) was a fragmented account about the Jewishmigrations from eastern to western Europe in the aftermath of WorldWar I and the Russian Revolution. In 1937 Roth wrote a new prefacefor the book, seeing how temporary the period of peace and shelter was.

For further reading: Understanding Joseph Roth by Sidney Rosenfeld

(2001); Encyclopedia of World Literature, vol. 3, ed. by Steven R.

Serafin (1999); World Authors 1900-1950, ed. by Martin Seymour-Smith

and Andrew C. Kimmens (1996); Joseph Roth by Rainer-Joachim Siegel

(1995); Joseph Roths Fluch und Ende by Soma Morgenstern (1994); Co-

Existent Contradictions, ed. by Helen Chambers (1991); Joseph Roth

byWolfgang Müller-Funk (1989); Ambivalence and Irony in the Works of

Joseph Roth by C. Mathew (1984); Von der Würde des Unscheinbaren by

Esther Steinmann (1984); Joseph Roth und die Tradition, ed. by D.

Bronsen (1975); Joseph Roth: Eine Biographie by David Bronsen (1974);

Weit von wo by C. Magris (1974); Lontano da dove by Claudio Magris(1971); Joseph Roth: Leben und Werke by H. Linden (1949) - Key

writers of Vienna after WW I: Karl Kraus (1874-1936) wrote a satirical

play about the Great War, The Last Days of Mankind , 1922; Herman

Broch (1886-1951) wrote The Sleepwalkers (1932) and the prose-poem

The Death of Virgil (1946), the first volume of Robert Musil's (1880-

1942) novel The Man Without Qualities (1930-43) was immediately

hailed as a great and unusual work. Franz Werfel's (1890-1954) Barbara;

oder, Die Frömmigkeit (1929) examined the problem of political action in

its relation to the significance of religiousness, and Elias Canetti



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published his first and only novel, Die Blendung, in 1935. Joseph Roth

wrote his Radetsky March (1932) in Berlin's hotels and restaurants.

Musil's favorite place in Vienna was Café Museum. Soma Morgenstern,

the best friend of Roth, also brought him to that café.

SELECTED WORKS:

Hotel Savoy, 1924 - trans.

Die Rebellion, 1924 - Rebellion - KapinaApril, 1925Der blinde Spiegel, 1925Juden auf Wanderschaft, 1927 - The Wandering JewsDie Flucht ohne Ende, 1927 - The Flight Without EndZipper und sein Vater, 1928 - Zipper and His FatherRechts und Links, 1929 - Right and LeftHiob, 1930 - Job: The Story of a Simple ManPanoptikum, 1930Radetzkymarsch - Radetzky March, 1932 - Radetzky-marssiLe Buste de l'Empereur, 1934 - Die Büste des Kaisers - The Bust

of the EmperorDer Antichrist, 1934 - AntichristTarabas, ein Gast auf dieser Erde, 1934 - TarabasDie hundert Tage, 1936 - The Ballad of the Hundred DaysBeichte eines Mörders, 1936 - Confession of a MurdererDas falsche Gewicht, 1937 - Weights and MeasuresDie Kapuzinergruft - The Emperor's Tomb, 1938Die Geschichte von der 1002. Nacht, 1939 - The Tale of the1002nd NightDie Legende vom heiligen Trinker, 1939 - The Legend of the

Holy DrinkerDer Leviathan, 1940Werke, 1956-1976Romane, Erzählungen, Aufsätze, 1964Der stumme Prophet - The Silent Prophet, 1966 (written in 1929)Das Spinnennetz, 1967 - The Spider's WebDer Neue Tag, 1970Briefe 1911-39, 1971Die Erzählungen, 1973Perlefter, 1978Berliner Saisonbericht, 1984

Collected Shorter Fiction by Joseph Roth, 2001 (trans. byMichael Hofmann)What I Saw: Reports From Berlin, 1920-1933, 2002 (trans. withan introduction by Michael Hoffman)

joseph roth

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