The Rudolf Steiner Archive

3. Images from Austria's Intellectual Life in the Nineteenth Century

[ 1 ] Please consider the topic of today’s lecture merely as an interlude in this winter’s lecture series. It is perhaps justified precisely by the fateful times we are living in, in which the two Central European empires, so closely linked, must face the great demands of historical development in our present and for the future. I also believe I am justified in saying a few words specifically about Austria’s intellectual life, since I spent my life in Austria until I was nearly thirty and, from a wide variety of perspectives, had not only the opportunity but also the necessity to immerse myself fully in Austrian intellectual life. On the other hand, it must be said that this Austrian intellectual life is particularly—I would say—difficult for the outsider to grasp in terms of ideas, concepts, and imagination, and that perhaps our times will make it increasingly necessary for the distinctive characteristics of this Austrian intellectual life to come into view before the inner eye of a wider audience. However, due to time constraints, I will not be able to offer anything other than—I might say—disjointed images, unpretentious glimpses of this Austrian intellectual life across its most diverse strata; images that in no way claim to provide a complete picture, but are intended merely to convey one idea or another that might help foster an understanding of the intellectual life that exists beyond the Inn River and the Ore Mountains.

[ 2 ] In 1861, Robert Zimmermann—a philosopher little known outside his homeland but deeply intertwined with Austrian intellectual life—began teaching at the University of Vienna, a position he held well into the 1890s, He not only served as an intellectual inspiration for many who were guided on their spiritual path through philosophy, but he also influenced the souls of those who were to teach in Austria by serving as chairman of the examination commission for secondary and high schools. And above all, he made an impact through his loving, kind heart toward all that was present in aspiring individuals; through his understanding and receptiveness to everything that made itself felt in spiritual life. When Robert Zimmermann took up his position as a professor of philosophy at the University of Vienna in 1861, he spoke in his inaugural address words that provide a retrospective view of the development of worldviews in Austria during the nineteenth century. They succinctly illustrate what made it difficult for Austrians in that century to arrive at a self-sustaining worldview.

[ 3 ] Zimmermann says: “For centuries in this country, the oppressive spell cast upon the minds of the people was more capable than any lack of innate aptitude of preventing not only the independent flourishing of philosophy, but also active engagement with the endeavors of other Germans. As long as the University of Vienna was largely in the hands of religious orders, medieval scholasticism reigned in its philosophy lecture halls; when, with the dawn of the Enlightenment around the middle of the previous century, it came under secular administration, the system of regulation and paternalism imposed from above on teachers, doctrines, and textbooks made the independent development of free thought impossible. “Wolffian philosophy”—that is, something that had already been overcome in the rest of Germany by Kant—“in a watered-down version by Feder, mixed with a few bits of English skepticism,” became the intellectual nourishment of Austria’s knowledge-hungry youth. Anyone who, like that highly educated monk from St. Michael’s in Vienna, yearned for higher things had no choice but to secretly shed his monastic habit and make his way across the border to Wieland’s hospitable sanctuary. This Barnabite monk, known to the world by his secular name Karl Leonhard Reinhold, and that Herbert from Klagenfurt, Schiller’s former housemate, are the only public witnesses to the participation of the insular intellectual world on this side of the Inn and the Erzgebirge in the tremendous upheaval that, toward the end of the past—the philosophical—century, swept through the intellectual circles of Germany across the border.”

[ 4 ] One can understand why a man who, driven by an enthusiastic love of freedom, had participated in the 1848 Revolution—and who then intended to carry out his philosophical teaching in a completely independent manner—would speak this way. But one might also ask: Is this picture, which the philosopher paints here in the middle of the nineteenth century, not tinged with a certain pessimism, a certain tendency toward gloom? This gloom tends to creep in easily among Austrians when they assess their own country, due to the challenges that have fallen specifically to Austria as a result of the fact that the Empire—through historical necessities—I say explicitly: through historical necessities—was composed of a diverse, multilingual mix of peoples and had to find its purpose within this multilingual mix of peoples. And when one poses such a question, perhaps precisely out of a sense of Austrian identity, all sorts of other ideas come to mind.

[ 5 ] One might think, for example, of a German-Austrian poet who is truly a child of the Austrian—indeed, the southern Austrian—mountains; a child of Carinthia, born high up in the Carinthian mountains and driven by an inner spiritual urge to descend to the centers of learning. I am referring to the extraordinarily significant poet Fercher von Steinwand. Among Fercher von Steinwand’s poems, one finds some very remarkable works. I would like to present just a single example to your minds as an illustration of this Austrian intellectual life—an illustration that can immediately evoke something of how the Austrian, driven by his innermost, most primal, and most elemental spiritual impulse, can connect with certain ideas of the times. Fercher von Steinwand, who knew how to compose such wonderful “German Sounds from Austria,” who, from such a heartfelt spirit, knew how to give form to everything that moves and can move the human soul—he also knew how to rise with his poetry to the heights where the human spirit seeks to grasp what lives and works within the innermost fabric of the universe. For example, in a long poem—of which I will read only the beginning—entitled “Chor der Urtriebe” (“Chorus of Primordial Instincts”).

In the boundless expanses,
Of our ancient Mother Night,
Listen—there, the most mysterious power
Seems to be wrestling with itself!
Do we hear the premonition approaching?
Has longing awakened?
Has a flash of inspiration been kindled?
Do dreams glide through the vastness?
As forces intoxicate themselves with power,
A blissful exchange!
Sudden haste,
Silent lingering,
Indulgent listening
Alternates with beckoning
And astonished trepidation!
The allure of attainment
Rises only to sink,
Sinks only to hate,
White before the pale
Image of embrace
Hate that cannot be grasped.
Dark ramifications
Sprouting inclinations
Seeking tendrils.
Heavy Thoughts
Dwelling and wavering
Over the vast expanses,
Seeming to advise
Or to guide.
What they prepare,
Are they the seeds
Of mighty deeds,
Of radiant times?
Whoever felt the chosen one
Creatively!
Whoever wandered through it,
Enjoying it blissfully,
Or unraveled it,
Unlocking the sublime!
Up there it moves like an embrace of spirits,
We, warmed by it,
We, too, gain,
Seeking and pondering,
Seeing ourselves lifted,
The highest beginnings
Happily interwoven.
Those that sweep around us,
Arise within us:
“It is you, ideas! —”

[ 6 ] As the poet seeks to immerse himself in the “chorus of primal instincts”—which are world-creating—he sees how ideas come to him. He seeks to soar precisely toward that world which lived on in the minds of those I took the liberty of discussing last week—Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. But we may well ask ourselves: How could that intimate bond have been woven within Fercher von Steinwand’s soul—a bond that was bound to connect him, and indeed did connect him— — between the yearning of his soul, which awoke in the simple peasant boy from the Carinthian mountains, and that which, at the height of German philosophical development, the greatest idealist philosophers sought to achieve from their own perspective. And so we ask: Where could Fercher von Steinwand have found this, since, according to Robert Zimmermann, Schiller, Fichte, and Hegel were not taught in Austria during Fercher von Steinwand’s youth—he was born in 1828—because they were considered forbidden fruit there precisely during his youth? But the truth breaks through everywhere. When Fercher von Steinwand had graduated from high school and, armed with his high school diploma, went to Graz to attend the University of Graz, he enrolled in lectures. And there was a lecture on natural law taught by the very professor who had admitted him. He enrolled in the natural law course and naturally hoped that there he would hear a great deal about all sorts of concepts and ideas concerning the rights that are innate to human beings by nature, and so on. But lo and behold! Under the unassuming title “Natural Law,” the good Professor Edlauer—the Graz university professor and jurist—spoke of nothing else but Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel throughout the entire semester. And so Fercher von Steinwand worked his way through his course on Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel during this time, quite independently of what might have been considered forbidden according to an outward view of Austrian intellectual life—and what perhaps really was forbidden. Quite apart from what was happening on the surface, a personality who was seeking a path into the spiritual worlds thus immersed himself in this context of the highest intellectual endeavor.

[ 7 ] Well, precisely when one sets out to follow such a path taken by an Austrian into the spiritual worlds, one must take into account—as I said, I do not wish to prove anything, but only to provide images—that the entire nature of this Austrian spiritual life presents many, many mysteries to those—yes, I can’t put it any other way—who is seeking solutions to these mysteries. But anyone who enjoys observing how opposites coexist side by side in the human soul will find many extraordinarily significant things precisely in the Austrian soul. It is more difficult for the Austrian German than in other regions—for example, in German-speaking regions—to work his way up, I would say, not so much in terms of education itself, but in the application of that education, in actively participating in the educational process. It may seem pedantic, but I must say it nonetheless: the language itself makes it difficult for the Austrian to participate in the active application of his intellectual life. For it is extraordinarily difficult for an Austrian to speak the way, say, the Reich Germans do. He will very easily be tempted to pronounce all short vowels long and all long vowels short. He will very often find himself saying “Son” and “Sohne” instead of “Sohn” and “Sonne.” Where does this come from? It stems from the fact that Austrian intellectual life necessitates—and this is not to be criticized, but merely described—that anyone who, I might say, works their way up from the bedrock of folk life into a certain sphere of education and intellect must take a leap across an abyss—from the language of their people into the language of the educated world. And, of course, only school provides the tools for this. The dialect is always correct; the dialect will say nothing other than: “Suun,” quite long, for “son,” and “Sun,” very short, for “sun.” But in school, it becomes difficult to find one’s way into the language that must now be learned in order to master education. And this leaping across the chasm is what brings about the existence of a distinct school language. It is this school language—not just any dialect—that leads people everywhere to pronounce long vowels short and short vowels long. From this you can see that, when immersed in intellectual life, one already faces a gulf everywhere in relation to folk culture. But this folk culture, in turn, is rooted so deeply and significantly—perhaps not so much in each person’s consciousness, but, one might say, in each person’s blood—that the power alluded to is experienced inwardly and can even be experienced in a significant way that cuts deep into the soul. And this is where phenomena come to light that are particularly important for anyone who wishes to consider the integration of Austrian higher spiritual life into the spiritual life of the Austrian people and the connection between the two. As the Austrian works his way up into the sphere of education, he is, I would say, also elevated—in terms of certain patterns of thought and certain patterns of ideas—into a sphere such that there is truly a gulf separating him from the folk culture. And this leads to a situation where, more so than is usually the case, there arises—precisely in the Austrian who has found his way into intellectual life— —a certain feeling of being drawn to folk culture arises; this is not a longing for something one has only recently left behind, but a longing for something from which one is, in a certain sense, separated by a chasm, yet toward which one cannot help but, out of one’s very blood, create a connection and find one’s way.

[ 8 ] And now let us imagine, for example, a mind—one that might be quite typical of Austrian intellectual life—that has gone through everything an Austrian academic education had to offer. He now lives within that. In a certain sense, this academic education has separated him from something he can reach not through ordinary means, but through a much deeper longing—his sense of national identity. Then, under certain circumstances, something like an inner experience of the soul arises, in which this soul says to itself: I have immersed myself in something that I can indeed contemplate through concepts and ideas—something that, from the standpoint of the intellect, certainly leads me here and there to understand the world and to understand life in relation to the world; but beyond an abyss there is something like a folk philosophy. What is this folk philosophy like? How does it live on in those who know nothing and have no longing whatsoever to know anything about what I have immersed myself in? What does it look like over there, on the other side of the abyss? — An Austrian in whom this homesickness has become so vivid—a homesickness that runs much deeper than it usually does, this longing for the source of the folk tradition from which one has grown away—such an Austrian is Joseph Misson.

[ 9 ] Misson, who joined a religious order in his youth, embraced the education that Robert Zimmermann had pointed out, lived by that education, and was also active in it; he was a teacher at the high schools in Horn, Krems, and Vienna. But in the midst of this educational work, the philosophy of his simple peasant people of Lower Austria—from whom he had grown up—emerged within him, as if in an inner vision, through his deep love for his homeland. And this Joseph Misson in his religious habit, the high school teacher who was tasked with teaching Latin and Greek, immersed himself so deeply in this folk heritage—as if from memory—that this heritage revealed itself within him in a vivid, poetic way, revealing itself in such a way that it gave rise to one of the most beautiful, most magnificent works of dialect poetry that exists at all. Just to paint a picture in your mind, I’d like to recite a short excerpt from this dialect poem, which was published only in part in 1850—it was never completed—specifically the passage in which Joseph Misson so aptly portrays the philosophy of life of the Lower Austrian peasant. The poem is titled: “Da Naaz,” —Ignaz—“a Lower Austrian farm boy, goes out into the world.” So, Naaz has grown up in a Lower Austrian farmhouse, and he has reached the point where he must now make his way in the world. He must leave his father and mother, the family home. There he is given the teachings that truly represent a philosophy of life. One shouldn’t focus on the individual principles the father imparts to the boy, but rather consider them in their broader spiritual context—such as the discussion of how one should respond to good fortune when it comes, or to fate; how one should behave when this or that happens to one; how one should behave when someone does you a favor; how one should behave toward kind people and toward those who cause you suffering. And I would like to say: To the one who has pursued his philosophical studies to the point of becoming a full-fledged theologian, this peasant philosophy now makes sense. — So the father says to Naaz as Naaz sets out for foreign lands:

From the First Song.

Lehr vo main Vodern auf d’Roas.

Naaz, iazn loos, töös, wos a ta so, töös sockt ta tai Voda.
Gootsnom, wails scho soo iis! und probiast tai Glück ö da Waiden.
Muis a da sogn töös, wo a da so, töös los der aa gsackt sai.
Ih unt tai Muida san olt und tahoam, woast as ee, schaut nix außa.
Was ma sih schint und rackert und plockt und obi ta scheert töös
Tuit ma für d’Kiner, wos tuit ma nöd olls, bolds’ nöd aus der Ort schlog’n! —
Iis ma aamol a preßhafts Leut und san schwari Zaiden,
Graif an s’am aa, ma fint töös pai ortlinga rechtschoffan Kinern,
Gern untern Orm, auf taas mer d’Ergiibnus laichter daschwingan. —
Keert öppa s Glück pal dia ai, soo leeb nöd alla Kawallaa,
Plaib pain ann gleicha, Mittelstroß goldas Moß, nöd üwa t’Schnua haun.
S’ Glück iis ja kugelrund, kugelt so laicht wida toni wia zuuaha.
Geets owa gfalt und passiat der an Unglück, socks nöd ön Leuden.
Tui nix taglaicha, loß s goa nöd mirka, sai nöd goa zu kloanlaud.
Klock’s unsan Heagoot, pitt’en, ih so ders, er mochts wida pessa!
Mocka’r und hocka’r und pfnotten und trenzen mit den kimt nix außa.
Kopfhängad, grod ols won amt’ Heana s Prot häden gfressa:
Töös mochts schlimmi nöd guit, gidanka’r ös Guidi no pessa!
Schau auf tai Soch, wost miit host, denk a wenk füri aufs künfti!
Schenkt ta w’ea wos, so gspraiz ti nöd, nimms und so dafüa: gelts Goot!
Schau Naaz, mirk ta dos fai: weng da Höflikeit iis no koans gstroft woan! —
Holt ti nea ritterla, Fremd zügelt t’Leud, is a Sprichwoat, a Worwoat.
Los tino glai ö koan Gspül ai, keer di nöd fainl nochn Tonzplotz.
Los ta ka Koatn nöd aufschlogn, suich da tai Glück nöd in Trambuich.
Gengan zween Wö unt tor oani is naich, so gee du en olden.
Geer oana schips, wos aa Öftas iis, so gee du en groden —
Schau auf tain Gsund, ta Gsund iis pai olln no allwail tos Pessa.
So mer, wos hattenn aa Oans auf da Welt, sobolds nöd ön Gsund hod?
-----
Kimst a mol hahm und tu findst ö ten Stübl uns oldi Leud nimma,
Oft samma zebn, wo tai Aeln und Aanl mit Freuden uns gewoaten,
Unsari Guittäter finten und unsa vastoabani Freundschoft!
Olli, sö kenan uns glai - und töös, Naaz, töös is dos Schöner!

Translation:

A lesson from my father for my journey

Ignaz, now listen: what I’m telling you is what your father is telling you.
For God’s sake, since this is how it must be, and you’re supposed to seek your fortune out in the wide world,
that’s why I have to tell you this, and take what I’m saying to heart.
Your mother and I are old and have stayed at home; you know, nothing comes of that.
One toils a great deal, struggles, works hard, and wears oneself out with worry over work
One does this for the sake of one’s children; what wouldn’t one do to keep them from straying onto the wrong path.
If later on one becomes weak and sickly, and hard times come
—even if they rush to our aid with love, as one finds in decent, upright children—
helping us so that we may find some relief in meeting the demands of the state and of life.
Should fortune ever smile upon you, do not live like a dandy.
Stay as you were, following the golden mean of the middle path; do not stray from the right path in life.
Fortune is round like a ball; it rolls away from us just as easily as it comes to us.
If something does not go well, or if misfortune befalls you, do not speak of it to others.
Stay calm; don’t let it show; don’t be fainthearted;
Confide everything only to God; pray to Him; I tell you, He will make everything better again!
Acting distressed, withdrawing, pulling a sour face, being tearful—none of this accomplishes anything. |
Hanging your head as if the chickens had eaten your bread:
That doesn’t make anything bad better, let alone make the good even better!
Take care of the possessions you’re bringing with you; plan a little for the future.
If someone gives you something, accept it without hesitation and say in return: “May God reward you!” —
Take note, Ignaz; and remember this well: no one has ever been punished for being polite! —
Don’t be contrary; being a stranger makes a person humble; this is a proverb and a word of truth.
Don’t let yourself be tempted to gamble; don’t make too much of the dance floor.
Don’t have your fortune told; and don’t seek your destiny in a dream book.
If there are two paths, and one is new, take the old one;
If one is crooked—which is often the case—take the straight one.
Take care of your health; of all possessions, health is the greatest.
Admit it: what do you truly possess in this world if you do not have your health?
-----
If you ever come home and find that we old folks are no longer in this little room,
then we will be where your grandfather and grandmother await us with joy,
where our benefactors and our departed relatives will find us.
Everyone will recognize us at once—and this, Ignaz, is something truly beautiful.
Now it is time to say—:

From the second song.

As the son leaves his father’s house and bids farewell to his old parents.

Father and Mother now say to him: “May God reward us for all the good we’ve done,
I wish you with all my heart that you live a long life and stay healthy as well!»
“As God wills,” says Mother, wiping a tear from her eye with the corner of her shawl,
“Call out and listen to the voice from the far-off world—oh, so we’ll surely find each other.
Some people set out early and some later,
You and Dad, we pray, Naaz, that no misfortune befalls you.
Go out one evening with them and walk over to Mom’s; stop by Piasenrait, drop in on Mom too—you’ll find a warm welcome,
Tell them all the best, Naaz, and have them send their regards many times;
If you ever come by, we’ll be truly happy to see you when you visit us!”
The old lady gives him a Guglhupf, Baudexen, and also
on top of that, some white cheese wrapped in a freshly washed cloth.
At home, they give him three exciting twenty-schillings in a little envelope.
As a bonus, his dad gives him a two-gold coin; that’s all he can give.
“Money, Naaz, isn’t worth much to us kids these days, Naaz.”
He opens the door, Naaz looks in and surveys the room,
“Oh my!” says Muida, “you’ve never done anything worse than this!”
He points with two fingers at the little crucifix hanging right by the door:
“Good name!” says Muida, making the sign of the cross on her forehead with her finger—and then
-----
“It’s serious, Naaz, now pray to God, make sure everything goes well, Naaz!
Let’s go to Zaiden to hear what’s going on, so we know right away,
how or where or what—or at least know that something’s going on. If you cross the border, grab a little bag of peas beforehand
Drink some watered-down wine—it helps with the Hungarian crown disease!”
They cross themselves again and again and walk away, deeply saddened.
When the bell stops ringing, they look back and wave their hands.
“Look at that farewell,” shouts the father from afar, “don’t let it go to waste!”
“Go to your mother,” shouts the old mother, “give her my regards—don’t forget.”

Translation:

How Ignaz Leaves His Parents’ Home and His Parents See Him Off

Father and Mother, now I say thank you for all the good you’ve done for me,
I wish you from the bottom of my heart that you may live long and stay healthy.
“As God wills,” says his mother, wiping her eyes with the corner of her handkerchief,
“If the Lord calls us from this world, we are prepared for it.”
“For some people, it comes sooner; for others, later.”
“Your father and I pray, Ignaz, that no misfortune befalls you.”
We’ll walk a little further with you and accompany you to the statue of the Virgin Mary.
Once you’re in Piasenrait, stop by your aunt’s; you’re sure to be welcomed there.
Send her our best regards, Ignaz; we’ll send her our warmest greetings as well,
If she’s ever able to come, we’d truly be delighted if she visited us,
So says the old lady as she wraps a cupcake, some pastries, and a slice of white bread in a freshly washed little cloth.
She secretly slips him three shiny new twenty-guilder coins, wrapped in paper.
His father gives him a two-guilder coin; that’s all he can afford.
“Money is tight around here, Ignaz; just make do with our good wishes.”
Before the door opens, Ignaz looks around and takes one last look at the little room.
“Oh dear,” says his mother, “that’s a bad sign—as if you’ll never see it again,”
He dips two fingers into the little holy water font hanging next to the door.
“In God’s name,” says the mother, making the sign of the cross on his forehead with her thumb—and they leave.
“Now it’s getting serious, Ignaz. May God watch over you; take care, Ignaz,”
Be sure to let us hear from you from time to time, so we always know how you’re doing or if you need anything.
When you cross Graanitz*, take a handful of soil first,
Austrian for: border. Drink it mixed with wine—it helps against fever.
They say to each other, “Take care,” again and again, and part ways sadly.
A hundred times isn’t enough for them to look back and wave their hands.
“Take care of your ID,” the father calls from afar, “don’t lose it.”
“Go see your aunt,” the old mother calls out; “we send our regards—don’t forget that.”

[ 10 ] The entire philosophy of the peasantry unfolds before the monk’s eyes, and so vividly that one can see how deeply he is intertwined with it. But he is also deeply rooted in something else: in that which is so thoroughly intertwined with the Austrian character, with the character of the Austrian-German peasantry in the Alps—namely, the immediate, unadulterated view of nature that springs from living in the most direct communion with nature. It is to this quality, brought to life once more in Joseph Misson, that we owe the description of a thunderstorm. It vividly describes how Naaz is now traveling and how he comes to a place where heath sheep are grazing, which a shepherd—known there as a “Holdar”—knows how to observe closely: how they behave when a thunderstorm approaches. Now he comments to himself on what he sees there:

Wia’n Naaz a Wöder dawischt unt er sih nöt aus untnöd ein woaß.
«Oans», sockt a, «töös», sockt a, «setz dir iazt fest und teng dir wo’st ausroast»
Geet auf ’Hoad und schaut - iaz mochts auf oamol an Dunnrer!
Gleich trauf wida’r - und wia romaats über t Beringer umi.
Purrt und saust waitmächti in Holz trinat, daß’s völli aus iis!
«No, woo dos ausloßt, unsar Heagoot sai eane gnädii!»
Sockt drauf da Holdar, nimmt sain Gebernitz um und «wanns nur»,
Sockt er und schaut auf die Guirkan, «wanns nur nöd eppa’r an Schaur hod!»
«So, wia mir zimt», so sockt er, «so san zwoa Wödarn painander.» (Dieses Zusammenströmen von zwei Gewittern ist nun anschaulich geschildert.)
Und ta Hund reckt t Goschn int Höh und schmöckt wia da Luft geet.
Zoigt’ ön Schwoaf ain, geet droaf ruhi zum Holdar - unt guscht sih.
Jazn is’s still und schwül und s Laab töös zidat in Poman.
T Vögel t schloifan in t"Nöster unt t’Schoof dee stenkat die Köpf zsom.

Translation:

How Ignaz gets into a fix and can't get out of it

“Listen,” he says to himself, “sit down now and figure out which path to take.”
He walks out onto the heath and looks around—suddenly, thunder crashes,
followed immediately by another clap, and how it rumbles across the mountains!
The woods creak and howl mightily, as if they were about to come apart.
Well, may God have mercy on whoever gets caught in that,
the young man says to himself, puts on his coat, and says,
as he looks up at the clouds, “I just hope it doesn’t start raining too.”
“It seems to me,” he says, “that two thunderstorms have merged.”
And the dog lifts his snout high and sniffs to see which way the wind is blowing,
tucks his tail between his legs, walks quietly over to the young man, and lies down beside him.
Now it is quiet and muggy, and the leaves tremble in the trees,
the birds are sleeping in their nests, and the sheep are huddling together.

[ 11 ] Good old Naaz takes all of this in, and then the poet—who has by now described how Naaz went into “a Lucka”—a rock cave, a stone cave—says: He waits there until the worst is over. Then he slings his boots over his other shoulder and continues on his way. But the weather-related adventure isn’t over yet. Naaz comes to a little stream; it has, of course, swollen from the storm. Naaz sees this:

“Look where we are now—that stream is too wide; now I can’t get across! —
“Well then,” he says, “what’s the point? Now I can’t get across!”
He looks like a fool; the stream is too wide—now he can’t get across.
“But what’s this all about?” he says. “Now I can’t get across!”

[ 12 ] Well, this is how Misson—a man who truly drew his inspiration from the depths of folk culture—sought to embody the figure of Naaz. When one takes just such a figure, one sees how deeply—deeply in the subconscious recesses of the soul, I might say—Austrian folklore resides in those souls who have also worked their way up into a high sphere of education, And one sees from such an example what remains of folk culture for the soul as it ascends into the higher sphere of education, when one considers this Austrian folk culture,

[ 13 ] It must be said: Mystics—in the sense of those who seek to delve deeply into the inner life of the human soul and to truly understand what lives and weaves within a person—such mystics are not really to be found in Austria. Mystics who concern themselves deeply with the human ego cannot thrive there. On the other hand, those who, in a certain way, sense the mysterious forces of nature in more than just a poetic sense— I would say, who feel the gnomes, the goblins, and the spirits of nature in all their vitality—even with a certain sense of humor—so that at the right moment one does not feel compelled to acknowledge their full reality, but rather, in experiencing nature, perceives what lives and weaves within it as a higher spiritual reality—that, in turn, is Austrian. That is why one will not easily find mystics—who might be considered successors to Eckhart or Johannes Tauler—within the Austrian-German folk tradition.

[ 14 ] In contrast, the peculiar peasant philosopher Conrad Deubler is truly an Austrian figure: born in 1814 in Goisern, deep in the mountains, and died there in 1884 as an innkeeper, he was and remained a peasant through and through; yet he was a man who grasped the newer ideas of Darwinism and the history of evolution so vividly, penetrating them with his peasant common sense—a certain, I might say, no-nonsense peasant common sense—Conrad Deubler, a philosopher of this sort, was able to flourish; a philosopher who did not concern himself much with long-winded justifications, but rather took a liking to this doctrine, and now he drew from the Austrian spirit everything that could make this doctrine seem so plausible. Drawing on a primal, elementary peasant’s common sense, he developed a, I would say, a Darwinian conception—translated into the Austrian peasant mindset—through which he was able to engage in extensive correspondence with the eminent theologian and writer David Friedrich Strauss, with Feuerbach, with Ernst Haeckel, and so on. Comprehending the full breadth of the natural world with the intellect is more natural to this Austrian soul than, for example, merely delving mystically into the inner world. One therefore finds among the Austrian peasantry individual people who know every little herb in the mountains, who are also spiritually connected to the herb’s entire inner fabric, who engage, for example, with philosophers such as Ennemoser and Eckartshausen—who seek to present a certain deeper view of nature across its full breadth and who also wish to place human beings within this view of nature. But within this Austrian peasantry—and in what grows out of it—one will not easily find a pure mystic who engages in the contemplation of the human soul while turning one’s gaze away from the external sensory world. For the immediate connection with that which makes an impression on the senses—that is what, in the broadest sense, characterizes the Austrian spirit for those who perceive it—the seeing of more than the sensory, but immediate seeing—seeing that requires no thought, that seeing which, I might say, at times bypasses the intellect and enters directly into the heart.

[ 15 ] Therefore, one can say that Austrian poetry gives rise to a direct harmony between the soul and the landscape, at times in a manner as deeply moving as in Lena’s work; but in general, this immersion of the whole soul in what is directly done by human beings, what they can accomplish, without it being tied to immediate utility—that is something that belongs to the character of the Austrian.

[ 16 ] I would like to say that, on the one hand, on this side of the Leitha, in the Austrian mountains and regions, there is something that can be depicted visually, as I attempted to do in the case of Joseph Misson. - When one crosses over the Leitha, on the other side one immediately experiences a connection with the vast natural landscape of the Hungarian plains; but one also experiences a coexistence with that which, in the sensory realm, I would say, resonates spiritually—that which seeks to draw out the spiritual from the sensory to the fullest extent possible. Anyone who has ever traveled to Hungary themselves, who has listened to a Hungarian folk band with all that these people pour from their souls into their simple yet wondrous playing—in which pain rages demonically, demonically rages the joy and exuberance of life at the same time—such a person understands a poem like that of the Hungarian Szäz, which refers to this direct coexistence with the sensory, yet is experienced spiritually, deeply spiritually and emotionally:

Listen, oh listen to the violin’s song!
How it laments and how it weeps;
So much sorrow in four strings,
So much pain and grief combined!

Like the nightingale’s flute
In the quiet, shady forest,
Like the sobs at a mother’s grave
Of the forsaken orphan resound.

Listen, oh listen to the violin’s sound,
Heed the song of its strings,
How it surges and roars upon them
To the stormy sound of Rákóczi

This is lament, this is sorrow,
That weighs heavily yet lifts the spirit,
That mourns the past, yet lives in hope
Of a beautiful future.

Listen, a curse resounds—and swords
Clash clanging into the fray
The din of battle—and all, all
Is but a small violin bow.

Hear, oh hear the violin’s tones,
How it spurs on, laughs, and weeps,
Such feeling in four strings,
So much joy and pain united! —

[ 17 ] One must really look closely to understand these matters; one must really look at the intimate interweaving of the senses with the external world, so that, through this interweaving, the senses can perceive the spiritual more easily within the realm of the sensible than when this spiritual aspect awakens intellectually in the mind. One might say: When it comes to making a judgment directly from the heart—to offer criticism or approval of the world—the Austrian may, under certain circumstances, have some confidence in himself. He will also, especially if he has received an education, be inclined to think in abstract terms; he will value the culture of the mind, but above all, he will want to be firmly rooted in the culture of the heart. But the path from the mind to the heart, the path from the heart to the mind—it is just so long, and it is just so difficult to find! One often finds oneself easily stuck right in the middle!

[ 18 ] In a certain sense, it is quite characteristic what, for example, a connoisseur of Austrian culture—a contemporary—said about an Austrian figure, the former director of the Burgtheater in Vienna, Max Burckhard: namely, that in this quintessentially Austrian man, Max Burckhard, despite all his energy, the very thing that characterized him was that he never really wanted to submit to the transition from emotion to reason or, conversely, from reason back to emotion. He wanted to let both operate separately. Hermann Bahr recounts that while Max Burckhard was director of the Burgtheater in Vienna, and Wilbrandt’s play *The Master of Palmyra*—which many people regarded as particularly significant and which, for many, is something immensely profound—was to be staged at the Burgtheater, Burckhard refused to stage the play. He could not understand why anyone would see anything so significant in it; he always rejected it. Then well-meaning people—that is, those who were well-disposed toward Wilbrandt and *The Master of Palmyra*—managed to persuade Burckhard to at least agree to attend a reading of *The Master of Palmyra* in a truly high-society setting. He was, of course, familiar with the play, but it was not to be read aloud to him; rather, he was to be impressed by all the beautiful, aesthetic passages and the discussions that the invited professors and aesthetes—true experts in their fields—would present regarding the masterful nature of this play. Now, Burckhard was truly a very intelligent man who, when it came down to it, could hold his own in dialectical debate and delve into intellectual ideas. He listened to the play. He did not merely listen to the lectures of the aesthetes and professors on “how something had been drawn from the depths of human nature that pointed toward the highest realms of spiritual life.” He also heard how, according to every chapter of aesthetics, the beautiful characteristics were to be understood. He remained silent. He did not allow himself to be drawn into these lines of thought in any way. He could, of course, comprehend them. It would have been easy for him to refute the matter from his own standpoint, to engage with it. On another occasion, he might have done just that—engaged in lengthy discussions on the matter. He remained silent; he said nothing. Then the ladies, especially the lady of the house, approached him: wouldn’t he at least say how he felt about all the witty remarks on one of the most brilliant plays ever written? Surely it was the Burgtheater’s duty to stage this epoch-making play. But he refused to engage in a discussion. He said, “I’m not staging it!” And why? Why? People now wanted to hear from him—this witty man—how he felt about all the things that had been so wittily discussed for hours on end. To which he simply replied, “Because it’s a load of nonsense!” —“A Holler” is a term that means the same thing in Austria as “nonsense” does in Berlin. But he wouldn’t engage in a discussion. This is characteristic of him. He relied on his immediate, heartfelt judgment—on what his mind told him—and he didn’t find it necessary to get involved in dialectical debates and so on; his entire critique was that it was “Holler.”

[ 19 ] And so it is actually interesting to see how, at a time when the most marvelous, the most magnificent discussions about the significance, the nature, and the essence of drama were taking place throughout the rest of the German cultural sphere—discussions in which Goethe and Schiller also participated in such a profound way—I am referring specifically to the end of the eighteenth century, the early nineteenth century—a discussion on aesthetics, on the significance and essence of drama, also flared up in Austria during this time. But what sparked the discussion on drama there in Austria? In a very peculiar way, everything that had been put forward in Austria—both for and against this approach—everything that had been discussed within the Schiller-Goethe circle and the wider circles of German intellectual life in such a well-known, profound manner, drawing upon the non-sensory aspects of the spirit—all of that was reignited in Austria in a quite distinctive way, namely through dance. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, a very vigorous and significant debate arose there concerning two types of dance. Noverre had been active as a master of dance around the turn of the century; and his student was Muzzarelli. Muzzarelli advocated a form of dance in which the primary focus was on executing beautiful, artificial movements—interweaving these movements through their lines—where the external spatial presentation of the performance was thus emphasized. Then, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, an opponent of this “dance form,” Salvatore Vigano, emerged. And for this dance form of Salvatore Vigano—whose wife, in particular, danced the style he advocated with masterful skill—entire texts were written, something that does not apply to other dance forms. Entire stories and narratives were adapted into the dance form, so that events and narrative content were expressed through the situations, gestures, and forms of expression. And now one need only consider the far-reaching, passion-stirring discussions that unfolded regarding which dance was, artistically speaking, the correct one.

[ 20 ] There was the Austrian playwright Ayrenhoff, who was already advanced in years at the time, the author of a large number of plays, who was entirely on the side of the Muzzarelli dance, who spoke out in the most vehement terms against Salvatore Vigano and against the impossibility of expressing inner feelings through dance in such an immodest manner. Ayrenhoff could not comprehend that one would even want to “dance out” entire plays, such as *Richard the Lionheart* or *The Daughter of the Air*. Ayrenhoff had—and this is what was peculiar about the Austrian spirit of that era—cultivated himself in an appreciation of beautiful form and the flow of lines, and his dramas, too, were structured in this manner. The flow of the lines in the portrayal of the characters, seeing how a situation dissolves into a joke, or the transition from a situation into a joke—that was what mattered. It was these extraordinary forms that mattered. He now saw this in Muzzarelli’s dance as well. And he was a poet of great significance for Austria at that time. His importance is evident from the fact that he was highly regarded by Frederick the Great, who otherwise took little interest in the German literature of the time. And Frederick the Great called *Die Postkutsche* (“The Stagecoach”), a comedy by Ayrenhoff, “the best comedy ever written, apart from Molière’s comedies.” Indeed, Frederick the Great went so far as to have the lieutenant field marshal—for that was Ayrenhoff, who was also a poet—presented to him during a parade because he, Frederick the Great, was so interested in him.

[ 21 ] On the other side—Vigano’s side—stood Heinrich Joseph von Collin, who was originally from Belgium; but Belgium, after all, belonged to Austria in a certain sense at that time. He wrote the tragedy *Regulus*, as well as other plays, and Collin now championed the expressive power of dance with great enthusiasm. And he structured his dramas in such a way that they expressed the inner essence of what was being portrayed; that what mattered was not so much the sequence of situations and jokes, nor the external forms, but rather that the inner nature of human beings found expression in what unfolded on stage. And Robert Zimmermann, in particular, who is deeply rooted in Austrian intellectual life, has spoken very beautifully of this Heinrich Collin, showing that this Heinrich Collin—who is, after all, completely forgotten in Austria, but who can lead us deep into the course of Austrian intellectual life, and who knew nothing of Fichte—revived in his plays the same kind of spiritual disposition that lay at the heart of Fichte’s philosophical expositions. To top it all off, Heinrich Collin’s brother, Matthäus von Collin, explicitly demonstrated how Heinrich Collin knew nothing of Fichte, and how—entirely out of a remarkable parallelism in intellectual life—he arrived, in his own Austrian way, at a form of Fichteanism, albeit a poetic one, in the manner I have just described.

[ 22 ] Without reflecting on intuition, without becoming absorbed in intuition, Fichte thus returns to what I outlined eight days ago. He says: The external sensory world—that which human beings experience in their sensory, external existence—is the sensed material of our duty. - Now that duty has presented itself to him so profoundly as a concrete reality and is at the same time associated with the divine weaving and essence pervading the world, Fichte goes on to say: One must not think, for example, that external, sensory happiness could be bestowed upon those who faithfully fulfill their duty; rather—even if this is, in a certain sense, somewhat one-sided in the way it is presented—it expresses the energy of a certain striving within German idealism; things must not be taken dogmatically—but what Fichte says is: The one who is wholly absorbed in his duty may not even claim that any reward for this will be found in the external sensory world. Therefore, the truly tragic—this was Fichte’s conviction—will appear when duty finds not some reward, but rather misfortune in the external sensory world.

[ 23 ] Heinrich Collin portrays this same trait in his plays. He seeks to dramatically embody the self-contained human soul, which can live within itself without having to reconcile the pleasures of the sensory world with duty. And so a profoundly ethical trait emerges, one that is, however, intimately connected with the immediate perception of the world as it presents itself to the senses; a trait that has even emerged from an aesthetic that was shaped by “dance.”

[ 24 ] This fusion with intuition, this life of immediate feeling, and also the act of placing what the heart experiences within that immediate feeling—the reluctance to seek a path from the head to the heart—must be regarded as one of the characteristics that are truly deeply connected to this Austrian spiritual life. And so it seems to us that in this Austrian intellectual life there are many things that contain contradictions—but contradictions which, if one allows them to take effect in the right way, appear understandable in people who, within Europe, are placed in the midst of difficult tasks—such as mediating between the West and the East—and who, I would say, must feel this placement in every little detail of their daily lives.

[ 25 ] One might say: Wherever we encounter this Austrian intellectual life, it appears to us in this way: The innermost essence is directly stirred by the external world, without the mediation of a mystical dialectic. And this underlying current explains such a sympathetic figure—as I said, I am merely offering examples—as the Austrian philosopher Bartholomäus von Carneri. Born in Trento in 1821, the son of an Austrian civil servant, he was crippled from birth—he was a twin—and endured a difficult, painful youth; then, after immersing himself in the full diversity of Austrian intellectual life, he became acquainted with Darwinism. For Carneri, Darwinism did not become something he simply accepted; rather, it became a mystery of life in and of itself. He understood that, in the Darwinian sense, the world could be explained through observable external development, even though he had delved deeply into German idealism. But in a certain sense, Darwinism becomes a mystery of life for Carneri, the Austrian philosopher: What of human morality, of human ethics, if Darwinism is correct? And so Bartholomäus von Carneri becomes, one might say, the greatest ethicist, the greatest teacher of morality within Darwinism. He interprets Darwinism in such a way that he sought, within purely natural evolution, to understand how the forces of nature become increasingly complex as they ascend toward humanity, so that he still perceives a spiritualization in this complexity of the forces of nature, as they configure themselves. He does not want a rift between nature and spirit, but he does not want to stop at nature. He wants to draw the spirit forth from within the configuration of the forces of nature. As it were, he seeks to find the connection between human ethics—human moral life—and the explanation of nature as understood in the Darwinian sense. Thus, for Carneri, the necessity of creating an ethics arises directly from the world as it appears vividly to him through Darwinism; I would say, the need to link what the human heart wishes and must set as its goal directly to the mysteries and enigmas of nature. And it is particularly interesting to see in Bartholomäus von Carneri how he now strives for a unified worldview—a worldview that, entirely in the spirit of the times, in the spirit of nineteenth-century materialism, accepts Darwinism, but can only accept it if spirituality can sprout and flourish everywhere within nature itself, but a spirituality that is grasped directly through feeling, one that is not first brought down—as in Fichte—from some supersensory spheres, but rather appears to him directly as he experiences the sensory world. It is remarkable how the very essence of Austrian character emerges from such a personality—from a figure like Carneri, who, however, also seeks to position himself coherently in the world in a different way, who strives everywhere to show how, on the one hand, nature ascends to the spirit, and on the other, the spirit works its way down to nature, how a unity lives in all things. This Carneri also sought to embody this unity in life. He sought to bring it into life. And so emerged one of the personalities who, particularly in the 1860s and 1870s, stood out in Austria as men of refined character—one of the personalities who were also politically active. Carneri stood alongside the spiritually-minded Austrian politicians of the 1870s: Plener, Beer, Herbst, Berger, and so on. But wherever he spoke—and he often took the floor—his speech resonated with a sense of lofty idealism, yet precisely the kind of idealism rooted in Darwinism, which, by virtue of its roots in Darwinism, was self-aware: “I am allowed to be an idealist, for my ideals come directly to mind when I truly immerse myself in the development of nature.”

[ 26 ] It is the same spirit, in a different sphere, that then found expression in Robert Hamerling. In Robert Hamerling, in whom—I would say—the Austrian German found expression simply through the fact that Hamerling’s motto, as it were, was: “Germany is my fatherland, Austria is my motherland,” which summed up a healthy sense of Austrian identity combined with a healthy sense of German identity. In Hamerling, everything that can be called the fusion of idealism with immediate feeling and intuition found direct expression. Even within Austria—where one might have been better able to understand it—people have often passed judgment on Hamerling’s vivid, sensual images—I would say, images steeped in sensuality—for example, in his *Ahasver*, as well as in *Aspasia* and *The King of Zion*. But people had failed to grasp that it was precisely idealism—this, I would say, Austrian idealism in Hamerling—that needed the sensory image in order to make itself vivid, so as not to suffer from the division of the world into the sensory on the one hand and the spiritual on the other, And so, for Hamerling, the spiritualized sensual—aesthetic idealism—became precisely that toward which he oriented his entire feeling, his entire sensibility, and his entire thinking as a vision of the future. And in many respects, it is precisely in minds such as those of Carneri and Hamerling that the difficulty of Austrian intellectual life comes to light—a difficulty that consists precisely in being placed within a multifaceted human tide and having to find one’s way within it. Hence the phenomena that so often arise within Austrian intellectual life, where a clear insight into this or that remains at the level of mere description and fails to find its way, in any way, to action, and then pales into a certain pessimism. Hence, certain phenomena are possible only in the intellectual life of Austria.

[ 27 ] Isn’t it actually rather peculiar that there was an Austrian in the first half of the nineteenth century who was born near Znaim and bore the quintessentially Austrian name Karl Postl, who also became a clergyman at his mother’s request, but then—just like the Barnabite monk Karl Leonhard Reinhold—cast off his religious habit and disappeared? He has vanished. Then a book appears: *Austria as it 15*—*Österreich wie es ist*—from across the Atlantic; it describes Austrian views. That was in 1828. Then, by this same Karl Postl—who, however, called himself not Karl Postl but Charles Sealsfield—appear, for example, accounts of the vanishing Native American way of life, from which one can see how fundamentally sound this man’s direct view of nature is. No one at the time had any idea that the simple Karl Postl from Austria was hiding behind this Charles Sealsfield. All the other stories published on similar subjects—just see for yourself—are written, so to speak, from the standpoint of a certain level of education, in a certain style that reveals the underlying theory. These Postl stories are written in such a way that the eye immediately becomes immersed in what it sees; the whole soul merges with the immediate perception. He then spent his life from the age of thirty through his sixties in the canton of Solothurn in Switzerland, where he is also buried. He returned and vividly described the life of Germans in America, so that even today it should still have a profound effect on the soul, if only one were to read it.

[ 28 ] Another distinctly Austrian phenomenon is a figure whom the younger members of the audience gathered here may no longer be familiar with, but whom the older ones among you may still recall—the author of those books written, as the title so modestly states, “for young women”; “A Consecration Gift for Young Women” is written there. A story—a wonderfully vivid story—imbued with a Goethean, one might almost say, Greek spirit. The title reads: “A Consecration Gift for Young Women” by Christian Oeser, “Letters on the Main Topics of Aesthetics.” First published in the first half of the nineteenth century, these books went through many printings. Anyone who reads them today still finds in them something that can expand the heart and warm the soul. Christian Oeser—yes, who is Christian Oeser? This Christian Oeser is the same man who, for example, had a drama published in Pressburg in 1839—of which no one knew who the author was—“The Life and Deeds of Emerich Tököly” “by A. Z.,” that is, from A to Z, so that all the letters in between are included. Those who understood something of dramatic characterization saw in the figure of Tököly a Hungarian Götz. It is a portrayal directly comparable to Goethe’s “Götz von Berlichingen,” born out of the struggles that took place in Hungary—actually shortly before the drama was written—and which gripped many, many souls and moved the world. The drama went out into the world, along with several others by the same author. No one knew who had written it. It remained that way. In 1869, the German Schiller Foundation passed a resolution to pay the then-current support stipend to a Mrs. Therese Schröer in Vienna. The document authorizing the payment stated that it had come to light that the widow of one of Germany’s most distinguished writers was not living in circumstances befitting her status or his merits, and that this annual stipend was therefore being paid to her. She was the widow of Tobias Gottfried Schröer, the author of many plays that had to remain unpublished, and also the author of that *Weihgeschenk für Jungfrauen* (*A Wedding Gift for Young Women*), which is imbued with the spirit of Goethe; a quiet man who was a secondary school teacher in Pressburg, but who, in that role, grappled with the highest problems of human life—a man who was poor and whom no one knew. Even in his own city, no one could or was allowed to know that this man was the author of these plays.

[ 29 ] There are many similar examples that could be cited. They show that, in order to understand Austrian intellectual life, one must not focus on what, I mean, as a more or less Catholic or a more or less Protestant current running through the course of history, but rather how one must approach this Austrian intellectual life where it operates fundamentally from the roots of the national character and where, operating in this way from the roots of the national character, it can appear directly in all its significance. One must not view Austrian intellectual life through the lens that Austria is a predominantly Catholic country. On the one hand, this Austrian intellectual life works its way down to the roots of the national character, as was seen in the case of Misson; on the other hand, however, it works its way up to greater heights in a remarkable way. Consider, for example, the following phenomena: When the Protestant educator Friedrich Dittes—who was brought from Germany during the so-called “Liberal Era” of Austrian development and placed at the helm of the Imperial and Royal Vienna Pedagogium—looked for significant educators from the immediate past, he—the Protestant educator who had been brought from Germany—found the Austrian Vincenz Eduard Milde to be one of the most significant educators of the immediate past. In 1811, Milde’s *Erziehungslehre* (*Theory of Education*) was published. In Misson, we have come to know a spirit who, clad in the habit of a religious order, worked his way up to what I would call the administration of educational life, and who then worked his way back down to the roots of the people, creating his “Naaz”: peasant philosophy! In Milde we see a different kind of priest, a good Catholic; a Catholic in whom Friedrich Dittes, the Protestant educator, finds one of his most significant pedagogical predecessors. Across the divide of denominations, intellectual life extends a hand in a marvelous way. Instead of a long further description, I would like to read you just one passage from Milde’s theory of education, so that you may see how, in this book published in 1811, pedagogical work is conceived in a manner deeply imbued with the spirit; how, in contrast to Misson—who worked his way down into the folk tradition—the Catholic priest Milde works his way up, through pedagogy, to the highest and most ideal perspectives on human activity in general; and how seriously, how dignifiedly, and how profoundly he takes the pedagogical vocation. He describes how a teacher should conduct himself in order to establish the proper relationship with his pupils; first of all:

[ 30 ] “1. Through diligent study of anthropology; 2. through reading accurately written biographies and truthful accounts of upbringing; 3. through thoughtful interaction with children, through quiet, unobtrusive observation of them, especially their behavior toward other children; 4. by recalling one’s own youthful years, by reflecting on the course, the motives, the means, and the obstacles of one’s own education, as well as on the difference between one’s current and former ways of thinking and feeling; 5. by reflecting on the successes and failures of one’s efforts to educate a pupil; 6. by observing the methods of other educators and the success of their approach to dealing with children”; — finally — “7. by observing the course of development of nature left to its own devices.”

[ 31 ] The meaning of life should be built upon a sound anthropology, that is, the study of humanity. Then the teacher should constantly consult within himself, as if meditating, in order to always find the way to the children’s souls. A truly soul-imbued view of education also shines through this truly remarkable work, which, so to speak, arose in the quiet of Austrian intellectual life through a man who, in his outward life, was a clergyman, who rose to become Archbishop of Vienna, and who, in his own way, truly represents that Austrian intellectual life to which one must attach such great value and significance; that Austrian intellectual life which is oriented toward the universal human condition and yet, at its core, maintains a connection with the roots of the national character everywhere. Yes, in 1811, I say, a seminal work on educational theory appeared in Austria that had a profound impact; it was still being highly praised in the 1960s and 1970s by the Protestant educator Dittes, and was published quite recently in a brief summary by the Austrian educator Franz Tomberger. One need only consider what this means. In 1811, only a short time had passed since, in very, very large parts of the Austrian lands—namely the German-Austrian lands—the teacher had been in a very peculiar position, not only in the village but also in the city. Not only did the teacher often lack a schoolhouse—a schoolhouse was a rarity in vast areas shortly before this “Theory of Education” was published—but the students gathered around the teacher, and the teacher went from house to house; one moment he was here, the next in the house next door; wherever there happened to be space, that’s where he taught. But that wasn’t the only thing. For example, paying the teacher a salary—well, that would have been incomprehensible; after all, that’s something that has to be given freely! But the teacher only needed to teach the students in the winter anyway; in the summer, the children were needed out in the fields anyway. Well, to keep him from starving to death, he was granted the right to tend the cows during the summer—to be a “Holdar.” But that did not prevent everything I have just described from coming about. And it did not prevent a work on the art of education—one that was not only exemplary but also epoch-making—from emerging from Austrian intellectual life after a relatively short time. One must become acquainted with this coexistence of opposites, which springs from the difficulties of Austrian life.

[ 32 ] This, however, is linked to the fact that Austrians also need what emerged in the most diverse forms as part of Viennese culture over the course of the nineteenth century. In fact, a piece of Viennese culture is also what you were able to experience here in Berlin some time ago, although it had, to a certain extent, been quite “de-Viennified,” as connoisseurs generally admitted, — which you were able to experience through the performance of Ferdinand Raimund’s *The King of the Alps and the Enemy of Mankind*, featuring the character of Rappelkopf, and, as is also well known, the same author’s *The Prodigal*. I do not wish to speak of something that is already common knowledge, but rather to show how Austrian intellectual life can be illustrated here and there, as it were, by the surging of a wave that brings to light what is alive in Austria. That is why I wish to speak less about Ferdinand Raimund than about the man who succeeded him in the hearts of the Viennese—among whom Raimund had become quite at home—in the 1830s and 1840s: Nestroy. And Johann Nestroy, as a popular playwright, is, I would say, truly a product of Austria. Admittedly, one has even had to hear from some intelligent people of the present day that Nestroy is characterized—even by his own countrymen—as not being a “real Viennese,” because, especially in the early days of his career, he told the Viennese nothing but harsh truths; he did not merely create folk plays in which the honest folk are always right, but rather plays in which he could—forgive the harsh expression—really give the people a piece of his mind. Such plays made up the bulk of his early theatrical career. He was, in fact, a prolific writer; in thirteen years, he produced nearly seventy such farces. But they truly embody that Austrian spirit which those who know it recognize as having been genuinely embodied in Nestroy. For it is not at all accurate to believe that Austrians of that time wanted to hear, from the stage, wholesome portrayals of characters—of the sort of people who champion the simplicity of life. No, that was back then, and Nestroy grew out of it—what people demanded was that one could say: “Well, he really gave it to them again today,” that is, he really gave them a piece of his mind. And with such scolding, Nestroy—performing himself at the Karl Theater in Vienna—truly entertained the Viennese in such a way that one can say: One sees in the spirit that lives in these Nestroy-esque folk farces—one might say, urban folk farces—that Austrian spirit which needs, both in its critique of life and in its jesting about life, in the humor of life, to rise above certain difficulties; which needed, after hard work, to find comfort in the soul in a lighthearted way—yet one not entirely free of sympathy and antipathy. And so Nestroy is truly a quintessential figure of Austrian urban folk theater around the middle of the nineteenth century. He once had a character express his outlook on life and his view of life’s events in roughly the following manner: I believe the worst of every person, even of myself, and I have rarely been mistaken! — With this outlook on life, he—a kind and loving man in person, who in personal interactions had nothing but kind and loving words—truly created characters who, in a lighthearted way, illustrate the outlook on life of the Austrians of that time, crowded together in Vienna—those Austrians wanted to work hard, but also sought—from the heart, without much sophistry—to craft a worldview that also had to have humor and that shouldn’t exaggerate the seriousness of life too much. There was simply a great deal at stake in the way one faced life. Thus, Nestroy created a character who appeared again and again under this name or another; once he called him “Schnofer!” And this Schnoferl also had a relationship with life. For example, he once speaks out about how things have gone for him in life when it comes to love: “Things went pretty well for me with love—it was all right—but with unrequited love, it’s always a mess!” This same Schnoferl, who—as mentioned—cannot view life without humor, once says about what he sees in his own heart: “The pragmatic story of my heart breaks down into three miserable chapters: futile daydreams, failed attempts, and worthless triumphs.” Those are the three miserable chapters. Nestroy portrayed such characters with such sharpness that a prominent Viennese critic once said: One could see in Nestroy a demonic expression that could escalate to the devilish when he let his eyes play from the stage into the audience. — And so Nestroy aptly expressed a certain outlook on life—one in need of humor—that characterized Austria in the years before 1848, or even as early as the beginning of the 1840s.

[ 33 ] Then came a time when people could no longer bear this outpouring of good and evil—this Nestroy-esque “Beyond Good and Evil,” with its good, super-good, and evil characters. People wanted more down-to-earth characters; they wanted to be moved more and scolded less. For a while, people had had enough of the ranting; they wanted to be moved. That didn’t quite sit right with Nestroy, and so he said: “Yes, in the old days people still knew something of what a portrayal of life was; these days, a portrayal of life—if you go by those who now design them for the stage—is, if there are only three jokes in it—with Nestroy, one joke followed another—nothing but corpses in their own blood, gravediggers, and weeping people.” He didn’t quite want to go along with that. But he was ultimately able to move with the times. And so Nestroy found a unique—I would say, humanly free—perspective precisely as he navigated the difficult year of 1848. He was a liberal-minded man; he was a man who stood firmly on the side of progressives, who did not allow himself to become dependent on any particular faction, yet at the same time he found the right words for many a cry for freedom—even for those who only go so far. And so he managed to keep Austrian humor alive precisely during this difficult time. Just consider this: In a play written during one of Austria’s darkest periods, *Freedom in Krähwinkel*—in which he himself also performed—this Austrian depicts how the mayor of Krähwinkel envisions freedom. He has the police officer Klaus articulate it: “Freedom is a truly terrible thing. The mayor always says: The ruler is the father, the subject is a little child, and freedom is a sharp knife.” And someone who views this all with a bit of Nestroy’s characteristic perspective—who also observes the people of Krähwinkel in their quest for freedom—characterizes them in the same way: “No, I know the people of Krähwinkel—you just have to let them run wild; once the frenzy is over, they’ll calm down, and we’ll catch them with our bare hands—then we’ll really give the people a hard time.” In the role played by Nestroy himself—to whom he gave the name “Ultra”—a hero of liberty now appears, portrayed in such a way that humor can once again have its way with him. Nestroy spoke the following through Ultra: After the struggle that had unfolded had ended happily, he proclaimed liberty: “I proclaim for Krähwinkel freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and other freedoms; equality among all classes; open discourse; free elections in accordance with prevailing sentiment; an infinitely broad base, which will gradually expand in scope; and, to avoid any disputes in this regard, no system whatsoever.” Then Ultra—one must always imagine him as portrayed by Nestroy himself—arrives at a view of what the Reaction actually is. What is the Reaction? “Well,” says Ultra, “just as it was on a large scale, so it was here on a small scale. Reaction is a specter, but spectres exist only for the timid: so don’t be afraid of it, and there will be no reaction at all.”

[ 34 ] But in Nestroy’s own personality, there is, in turn, something akin to a thoroughly authentic integration of his own personality into life. A man like Nestroy was indeed a personality who was attuned to the depths of the soul. But what he created, he wanted to create from immediate life and for immediate life. And so Nestroy is by no means inclined to engage in reflections on the self. He once found himself in a social setting with the profound poet Friedrich Hebbel—the great poet Hebbel—whose worth cannot be overestimated. But Hebbel and Nestroy were, of course, like the North and South Poles. Friedrich Hebbel, impeccable even in his outward appearance, proper in every gesture; Nestroy, boisterous in every gesture, wearing a peasant’s outfit, which he displayed with a special dignity! Yet Nestroy even came to know a play such as *Judith and Holofernes*, a work in which Hebbel truly explored the infinite depths of the human soul and embodied them in such a dramatic form that one must say: It is truly a marvelous struggle with the problems of existence, reaching the heights of the human spirit—but not for Nestroy, one might say, because it cannot be taken quite so easily and immediately as humor. Yet he did take it humorously, precisely as a mockery, saying: “No, that’s nothing!” He also thought something along the lines of: “That’s a load of nonsense!” “I’m going to do a Holofernes now—Judith and Holofernes—that’s bound to be the right thing; what Hebbel did is nothing.”—But now he wanted to create a character in Holofernes who was so completely turned inward, toward his human self. There, Nestroy was able to portray a person who created entirely from the fullness of his spiritual will and who wanted something. But he wanted to delve into this “I,” so to speak, in a truly Austrian way. Yes, not through speculation, not through dialectics, nor even through dramatic dialectics! So, to portray a character like Holofernes who is full of selfhood, full of the power of personality—so strong that he wants to see who is stronger, “I”—or, as he put it—“I or I!”—so that he feels himself in two. Thus, he wants to wrestle with himself to see who is stronger, I or I. That becomes Nestroy’s Holofernes. But he certainly knows how to position himself correctly in life. And when he hears people say that he denies a purely artistic principle with his plays, which draw directly from folk traditions—well, he said he would not accept such a charge, for people should consider what it actually means to write folk plays. Anyone who writes folk plays and even dares to compare himself to Goethe is just like someone who makes a “Zwetschgenkrampus” and wants to pose as a rival to Canova. A “Zwetschgenkrampus” is a figure made on St. Nicholas Day from dried plums, shaped into Kasperl or St. Nicholas.

[ 35 ] One must also be thoroughly familiar with this aspect of Austrian identity. For it is deeply, deeply interwoven with what the Austrian soul seeks in a certain outlook on life, which I would like to characterize roughly as follows: Arising from the difficulties of his life, this Austrian feels the need to find solace in a view of life that allows him to forget life’s seriousness, yet at the same time draws strength from the subconscious soul to face life head-on. Certainly, Nestroy is more profound than those who succeeded him at the end of the nineteenth century. One cannot compare Nestroy’s farces, for example, with those of Berg, who certainly wrote more during the same period but had sunk to a much lower level. Yet this peculiar view of life—which ultimately points to something universally human—is an integral part of the very makeup of this Austrian’s soul. And this outlook on life also shows that in Austria, something springs from much deeper human sources and shapes the inner life than all that which is usually conceived of as ideas that drive human development. One must not imagine the Austrian as entangled in this or that prejudice; rather, to get to know him, one must take the Austrian national character into account. |

[ 36 ] Today I was able to present only a few glimpses of this to your minds; I truly did not select them with the aim of making the Austrian seem likable, but simply to portray him as he is. Nor did I intend to summarize anything in particular; I merely wanted to highlight individual traits—of course, very isolated, random traits—which can nevertheless illustrate this or that, above all how a particular note, a particular tone, lives within this Austrian spirit, permeating the entirety of Austrian culture—from figures such as those I have described to you today, all the way to, for example, the Magyar Emmerich Madaách, the man who created the “Tragedy of Man,” which is, after all, widely known. Out of a life of suffering—truly, once again, out of a life of suffering—Madách rose to formulate, in his own way, a view of human existence. He depicts the creation of humankind, Adam and Eve. He shows how Adam and Eve are placed into the world by the divine Creator, perceiving this world as a mystery. Now Lucifer reveals to them what will follow. Adam is shown how he will live again, how he will return in the Egyptian era, how he will live there as an Egyptian, as a pharaoh; how Eve will be his slave. The poet depicts Egyptian culture with all that it can evoke in the soul of the reincarnated Adam. And we are led further into the Roman era; Adam is reborn in the time of the Roman Empire. —Then into the era of Christianity, into the era of Franco-English culture, into the era of German culture; at the end of earthly time, he is placed in an incarnation. The entire course of human life is played out before him.

[ 37 ] As we can see, there are many paths that lead upward from whatever joy or sorrow may arise in the Austrian soul, all the way to the heights of human worldviews and perspectives on life. And there is a distinctive quality to it, so that one must say: It is precisely through the contemplation of this distinctive quality, this particular “tone” in Austrian folklore, that an inner necessity is fulfilled—namely, that the German-Austrians were, for a time, separated from the general German intellectual life. It is precisely through this separation that they have fully developed their innermost essence and have brought to the fore, in the proper way, that which is uniquely their own. Yet such a separation does not, in truth, diminish what unites peoples. And what we see today—that interplay of the two Central European empires into a grand, overarching concept of “Central Europe,” into a unified entity called “Central Europe”—is firmly anchored in the inhabitants of both empires, if one looks deeply into the depths of their spiritual lives. This becomes evident in the depths of national character, just as, for example, where the will of Austria finds its expression, the heights of Austrian achievement are in turn remembered. When, as it seemed, a deep rift had opened in 1866 between hearts that were, at least inwardly—especially among the finest Austrians—deeply connected to the hearts of the great German Empire, even at the height of humanity after that year of 1866, there was not a single sentiment—even in tone—that cried out for revenge. There was not a sentiment like that which later arose in other places after a people had been defeated—where it was said that one must keep the thought of revenge alive in one’s soul over and over again. No, rather, a “throne speech” was delivered in Austria immediately after 1866, which contained the words: “Let it not be the secret thought of retaliation that guides our steps; let us be granted a nobler satisfaction when we succeed more and more in transforming disfavor and enmity into respect and affection through what we accomplish and what we create.”

[ 38 ] Such words also express that bond which has today found such a beautiful fulfillment between the Austrian heart and the German heart. That bond, which—springing truly from the Austrian soul—is expressed by Hamerling: “Germany is my fatherland, but in Austria I feel at home.” - This sense of belonging is my motherland. - This sense of belonging was so vivid that it can be illustrated by a few words that originated in Austria. Remarkable words, perhaps not in a completely satisfying form, but nonetheless words that may perhaps be read aloud especially in our time. I will explain later when these words were written. A poem titled “Austria and Germany” reads as follows:

Let Russia and England consult wisely,
And perhaps not find it unwelcome,
If we get into a bit of a fight here,
If they seek to wrest our rightful claim from us!

You, German brothers, will not—advise here,
The enemy’s attack will only unite us
And among us, all ambition will fade
Before this: to be one people in word and deed.

And if that one thing was lacking among us,
If there was discord in German hearts,
There is but one thing that now inspires us:

What we share in joy and sorrow!
So let it also be our shared fate:
A German war, if not a German peace!

[ 39 ] These words could have been written in our own time. But they were written in April of 1859 by the son of that Tobias Gottfried Schröer I told you about—Karl Julius Schröer, who worked in Vienna, having come from Cisleithania in Austria. He worked in a way that can be said to have been suited, on the one hand, to establishing a connection between the soul and what lives and thrives among the people, and, on the other hand, to lifting souls up to the heights of spiritual life—Karl Julius Schröer, who carried out a beneficial ministry first as director of the Vienna Protestant schools and then as a professor of German literature at the Technical University. I myself feel—please forgive this personal remark—deeply connected to this work, for Karl Julius Schröer was once my dear teacher. This Karl Julius Schröer, on the one hand, delved with his folkloric research into the truly deep foundations of folklore. First, he had Christmas plays printed that were performed among the peasants during the Christmas season, but which had truly sprung from the people themselves. He was also a dialectologist—a scholar who explored the distinctive features of the Austrian dialect in the Gotscher regions of Carniola, among the German-speaking people of Spiš, and among the so-called Heanzen in western Hungary; who also studied the dialect of Lower Austria; and who consistently pointed out the direct connection between all Austrian intellectual life and its roots in folklore; and who, on the other hand, lifted people’s spirits to the heights of Goethe’s worldview through his research on *Faust*, and in this sense, in turn, had a beneficial influence on his students. In 1859, this man expressed Austria’s unity with Germany in this very way. I have quoted his words to show how Austrian folklore gives rise to that which we must regard today as a beautiful, magnificent ideal—one that is to develop out of the great demands and selfless deeds of our present: a Central Europe in which all that has long been working together in people’s hearts actually comes together. And it is precisely by considering the distinctive spirit that prevails in Austrian national character and in Austrian intellectual life that one will be able to say: What was to be achieved there in isolation will, in the development of Central Europe, be able to unite in a more intimate way with that which constitutes the German essence in the wider sphere. And so we see—I might say—even when we look, with an understanding of the essence of folk culture, at what is seeking to develop in our time out of blood, suffering, and pain as a future ideal for Central Europe— we see that something is developing there that must be forged through the self-sacrificing, courageous acts of arms, but which takes such firm root—so deeply rooted, in fact, that the guarantee of its permanence can be seen in the hearts and souls of those who are drawing closer together and have united in common action.

[ 40 ] Truly, let me conclude with this: What is now coming together historically is not merely the result of external necessity; it is coming together through the inner bonds of the souls and hearts of the peoples of Central Europe.