# From Central European Intellectual Life

## GA 65 — 9 December 1915, Berlin

### 3. Images of Austrian Intellectual Life in the Nineteenth Century

Consider what is to be the subject of today's lecture only as an insertion into the series of lectures this winter. It is perhaps justified precisely by our fateful time, in which the two Central European empires, so closely connected with each other, must approach the great demands of historical becoming in our present and for the future. I also believe I am justified in saying something about the intellectual life of Austria, since I lived in Austria until I was almost thirty years old and had not only the opportunity but also the necessity from a wide variety of perspectives to become fully immersed in Austrian intellectual life. On the other hand, it may be said that this Austrian intellectual life is particularly, I might say, difficult for the outsider to grasp in terms of ideas, concepts, and representations, and that perhaps our time will make it increasingly necessary for the peculiarities of this Austrian intellectual life to be brought before the mind's eye of a wider circle. But because of the shortness of the time at my disposal I shall be unable to give anything but, I might say, incoherent pictures, unpretentious pictures of the Austrian intellectual life of the most diverse classes; pictures which do not claim to give a complete picture, but which are intended to form one or other idea which might seek understanding for what is going on in the intellectual life beyond the Inn and the Erz Mountains.

In 1861, a philosopher who was rarely mentioned outside his homeland and who was closely connected to Austrian intellectual life, Robert Zimmermann, took up his teaching post at the University of Vienna, which he then held until the 1890s. He not only awakened many people spiritually, guiding them through philosophy on their spiritual path, but he also influenced the souls of those who taught in Austria, as he chaired the Real- und Gymnasialschul-Prüfungskommission (examination commission for secondary modern and grammar schools). And he was effective above all because he had a kind and loving heart for all that was present in emerging personalities; that he had an understanding approach for everything that asserted itself in the spiritual life at all. When Robert Zimmermann took up his post as a philosophy lecturer at the University of Vienna in 1861, he spoke words in his inaugural academic address that provide a retrospective of the development of worldviews in Austria in the nineteenth century. They show very succinctly what made it difficult for Austrians to arrive at a self-sustaining worldview during this century.

Zimmermann says: “For centuries in this country, the oppressive spell that lay on the minds was more than the lack of original disposition capable of holding back not only an independent flourishing of philosophy but also the active connection to the endeavors of other Germans. As long as the Viennese university was largely in the hands of the religious orders, medieval scholasticism prevailed in its philosophy lecture halls. When, with the dawn of an enlightened era, it passed into secular management around the middle of the last century, the top-down system of teachers, teachings and textbooks, which was ordered from above, made the independent development of a free train of thought impossible. The philosophy of Wolff – which in the rest of Germany had been overcome by Kant – in the diluted version of Feder, with a smattering of English skepticism, became the intellectual nourishment of the young Austrians thirsting for knowledge. Those who, like the highly educated monk of St. Michael's in Vienna, longed for something higher had no choice but to secretly seek the way across the border to Wieland's hospitable sanctuary after discarding the monastic robe. This Barnabite monk, whom the world knows by his secular name of Karl Leonhard Reinhold, and the Klagenfurt native Herbert, Schiller's former housemate, are the only public witnesses to the involvement of the closed spiritual world on this side of the Inn and the Erz mountains in the powerful change that took hold of the spirits of the otherworldly Germany towards the end of the past, the philosophical century."

One can understand that a man speaks in this way who had participated in the 1848 movement out of an enthusiastic sense of freedom, and who then thought in a completely independent way about fulfilling his philosophical teaching. But one can also ask oneself: Is not this picture, which the philosopher draws almost in the middle of the nineteenth century, perhaps tinged with some pessimism, some pessimism? It is easy for an Austrian to see things in black and white when judging his own country, given the tasks that have fallen to Austria due to the historical necessities – I say expressly: the historical necessities – that the empire, composed of a diverse, multilingual mixture of peoples, had to find its tasks within this multilingual mixture of peoples. And when one asks such a question, perhaps precisely out of good Austrian consciousness, all sorts of other ideas come to mind.

For example, one can think of a German Austrian poet who is truly a child of the Austrian, even the southern Austrian mountains; a child of the Carinthian region, born high up in the Carinthian mountains and who, through an inner spiritual urge, felt compelled to descend to the educational institutions. I am referring to the extraordinarily important poet Fercher von Steinwand.

Among Fercher von Steinwand's poems, there are some very remarkable presentations. I would like to present just one example to your souls as a picture of this Austrian intellectual life, as a picture that can immediately evoke something of how the Austrian, out of his innermost, most original, most elementary intellectual urge, can be connected with certain ideas of the time. Fercher von Steinwand, who knew how to write such wonderful “German Sounds from Austria” and who was able to shape everything that moves and can move human souls from such an intimate mind, also knew how to rise with his poetry to the heights where the human spirit tries to grasp what lives and works in the innermost weaving of the world. For example, in a long poem, of which I will read only the beginning, called “Chor der Urtriebe” (Choir of Primeval Instincts).

> In the boundless expanse  
> of our ancient mother Night,  
> hark! there seems to be a struggle  
> of the most mysterious power!  
> Do we hear foreboding stride?  
> Has longing awakened?  
> Has a flash of inspiration ignited?  
> Do dreams glide through the vastness?  
> How the forces of the forces intoxicate each other,  
> blissful exchange!  
> Sudden hurrying,  
> quiet lingering,  
> revelatory listening  
> alternates with waving  
> Amazed fear!  
> The charm of attainment  
> Rises, to sink,  
> Sinks, to hate,  
> White with the pale  
> Image of the embrace  
> Hatred not to grasp.  
> Dark ramifications  
> Sprouting affections  
> Seek for tendrils.  
> Heavy thoughts  
> Dawn and falter  
> Over the expanses,  
> Seem to guess  
> Or to guide.  
> What they prepare  
> Are they the seeds  
> Of mighty deeds,  
> Radiant times?  
> Who felt the stirred up  
> Creatively!  
> Who wandered through it,  
> Blissfully enjoying,  
> Or untangled it,  
> Opening up great things!  
> Up there it moves like a ghostly embrace,  
> We in warmth,  
> We also gain,  
> search and ponder,  
> see ourselves lifted,  
> highest endeavor  
> happily interwoven.  
> That blows around us,  
> arises in us:  
> “It is you, ideas! -—"

The poet sees how, as he seeks to delve into the “choir of primal urges” that are world-creative, ideas come to him. He seeks to rise up to that world that lived in the minds of the philosophers I had the honor of speaking of last week: Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. But we may ask ourselves how it was possible for that intimate bond to be woven in Fercher von Steinwand's soul, which must have connected him – and it really connected him – between the urge of his soul, which awakened in the simple peasant boy from the Carinthian mountains, and between what the greatest idealistic philosophers in the flowering of German world view development sought to strive for from their point of view. And so we ask: Where could Fercher von Steinwand find this, since, according to Robert Zimmermann's words, Schiller, Fichte, Hegel were not presented in Austria during Fercher von Steinwand's youth – he was born in 1828 – since they were forbidden fruit during his youth there? But the truth always comes out. When Fercher von Steinwand had graduated from high school and, equipped with his high school diploma, went to Graz to attend the University of Graz, he enrolled in lectures. And there was a lecture that the lecturer reading it on natural law was reading. He enrolled in natural law and could naturally hope that he would hear a lot of all kinds of concepts and ideas about the rights that man has by nature, and so on. But lo and behold! Under the unassuming title “Natural Law,” good Edlauer, the Graz university professor, the lawyer, spoke of nothing but Fichte, Schelling and Hegel for the entire semester. And so Fercher von Steinwand took his course in Fichte, Schelling and Hegel during this time, quite independently of what might have been considered forbidden, and perhaps really was forbidden, according to an external view of Austrian intellectual life. Quite independently of what was going on at the surface, a personality who was seeking a path into the spiritual worlds was therefore immersing himself in this context with the highest intellectual endeavor.

Now, when one sets out to follow such a path into the spiritual worlds through Austrian life, one must bear in mind – as I said, I do not want to justify anything, but only give pictures – that the whole nature of this Austrian spiritual life offers many, many puzzles to those – yes, I cannot say otherwise – who are looking for a solution to puzzles. But anyone who likes to observe the juxtaposition of contradictions in human souls will find much of extraordinary significance in the soul of the Austrian. It is more difficult for the Austrian German to work his way up than in other areas, for example in German, I would say, not so much in education, but in the use of education, in participating in education. It may look pedantic, but I have to say it: it is difficult for the Austrian to participate in the use of his intellectual life simply because of the language. For it is extremely difficult for the Austrian to speak in the way that, say, the Germans of the Reich speak. He will very easily be tempted to say all short vowels long and all long vowels short. He will very often find himself saying “Son” and “Sohne” instead of “Son” and “Sonne”. Where does something like that come from? It is due to the fact that Austrian intellectual life makes it necessary – it is not to be criticized, but only described – that anyone who, I might say, works their way up from the soil of the folk life into a certain sphere of education and intellect has to take a leap over an abyss – out of the language of their people and into the language of the educated world. And of course only school gives them the tools to do so. The vernacular is correct everywhere; the vernacular will say nothing other than: “Suun”, quite long, for “Sohn”, “D'Sun”, very short, for “Sonne”. But at school it becomes difficult to find one's way into the language, which, in order to handle education, must be learned. And this leap across the abyss is what gives rise to a special language of instruction. It is this school language, not some kind of dialect, that leads people everywhere to pronounce long vowels as short vowels and short vowels as long vowels. From this you can see that, if you are part of the intellectual life, you have a gulf between you and the national character everywhere. But this national character is rooted so deeply and meaningfully, not so much perhaps in the consciousness of each individual as, one might say, in each person's blood, that the power I have hinted at is experienced inwardly, and can even be experienced in a way that cuts deep into the soul. And then phenomena come to light that are particularly important for anyone who wants to consider the place of Austrian higher intellectual life in the intellectual life of Austrian nationality and the connection between the two. As the Austrian works his way up into the sphere of education, I would say that he is also lifted into a sphere, in terms of some coinage of thought, some coinage of ideas, so that there really is a gulf to the people. And then it comes about that more than is otherwise the case, something arises in the Austrian who has found his way into intellectual life, something that draws him to his nationality. It is not a home for something that one has left only a short time ago, but rather a homesickness for something from which one is separated by a gulf in certain respects, but in relation to which one cannot, for reasons of blood, create it, find one's way into it.

And now let us imagine, for example, a mind – and it can be quite typical of Austrian intellectual life – that has undergone what an Austrian scientific education could offer it. It now lives within it. In a certain way, it is separated from its own nationality by this scientific education, which it cannot achieve with ordinary homesickness, but with a much deeper sense of homesickness. Then, under certain circumstances, something like an inner experience of the soul occurs, in which this soul says to itself: I have immersed myself in something that I can look at with concepts and ideas, that from the point of view of intelligence certainly leads me here or there to understand the world and life in connection with the world; but on the other side of an abyss there is something like a folk philosophy. What is this folk philosophy like? How does it live in those who know nothing and have no desire to know anything of what I have grown accustomed to? What does it look like over there, on the other side of the abyss? — An Austrian in whom this homesickness has become so vivid, which is much deeper than it can usually occur, this homesickness for the source of nationality, from which one has grown out, such an Austrian is Joseph Misson.

Misson, who entered a religious order in his youth, absorbed the education that Robert Zimmermann pointed out, lived in this education and was also active in this education; he was a teacher at the grammar schools in Horn, Krems and Vienna. But in the midst of this application of education, the philosophy of his simple farming people of Lower Austria, from which he had grown out, arose in him, as in an inner image of the soul, through his deep love of his homeland. And this Joseph Misson in the religious habit, the grammar school teacher who had to teach Latin and Greek, immersed himself so deeply in his people, as if from memory, that this folklore revealed itself poetically in him in a living way, so that one of the most beautiful, most magnificent dialect poems in existence was created. I will just, to paint a picture for you, recite a small piece from this dialect poetry, which was only partially published in 1850 – it was then not completed – just the piece in which Joseph Misson so truly presents the philosophy of life of the Lower Austrian farmer. The poem is called: “Da Naaz,” - Ignaz - “a Lower Austrian farmer's boy, goes abroad”. So, Naaz has grown up in the Lower Austrian farmhouse, and he has now reached the point where he has to make his way into the world. He must leave his father and mother, the parental home. There he is given the teachings that now truly represent a philosophy of life. One must not take the individual principles that the father says to the boy, but one must take them in their spiritual context; how it is spoken about the way one has to behave towards luck when it comes, towards fate ; how one should behave when this or that happens to one; how one should behave when someone does one good; how one should behave towards kind people and how towards those who do one harm. And I would like to say: to someone who has undergone his philosophical studies to the extent that he has become a theologian, this peasant philosophy now makes sense. So the father says to the Naaz when the Naaz goes out:

> *From the first song.  
> Teach your children on the road.*
> 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.  
> I and my mother were dreaming and dreaming, as you know, seeing nothing else.  
> What we see, work and worry about,  
> We do it for the children, what we don't do, is not good enough! —  
> If we are once a little pressed for time and are short of hands, take it easy, but find us a few decent places for the children, preferably under the shade of trees, where the fish spawn. —  
> If your luck turns around, so live not all the days,  
> Stay even, in the middle of the river, don't cut the rope too short.  
> Luck is round and round, so roll it back again soon.  
> If good luck and misfortune happen, it doesn't lie in sorrows.  
> Don't let anything get you down, don't let it get to the clouds.  
> If we're down, we'll pull through, I hope so, he'll do it again!  
> Mocka'r and hocka'r and pfnotten and trenzen with the kimt nix außa.  
> Kopfhängad, grod ols won amt' Heana s Prot häden gfressa:  
> Töös mochts schlimmi nöd guit, gidanka'r ös Guidi no pessa!  
> Look at the situation we are in, think about the future!  
> If you give us something, don't be stingy, take this and that: it's good!  
> Look, my dear, we realize: a little courtesy is not too much to ask for! —  
> It's getting more chivalrous, foreign people, it's a saying, a word of honor.  
> Don't be too proud, don't be afraid of a fool.  
> Don't open your coat, don't let your luck run out.  
> There are two weeks below and one above, so give an old one. If no one chips what is also often there, give a groden. Look after your health, health is allways good for the soul. What have we, who have everything in this world, if we are not healthy? Our friends and our comrades in arms! Olli, they may know us – and fools, fools is the best!
> *Translation:*
> A lesson from my father for the journey
> Ignaz, now listen, what I say to you, your father says to you.  
> In God's name, because it has to be so, and you should seek your fortune in the wide world,  
> That is why I have to tell you this, and take to heart what I say to you.  
> I and your mother are old and have stayed at home; you know that you can't make anything out of that.  
> You slave away, toil, work hard and weaken yourself with worry. You do this for the sake of your children; what wouldn't you do to keep them from going astray. If you have grown weak and sickly later in life, and hard times come, they will also jump in lovingly, but you can find this in proper, righteous children, helping to provide the things that the state and life demand so that we can have some relief.  
> If you should ever be lucky, don't live like a cavalier.  
> Stay as you were, in the golden mean of the middle road, don't stray from the right path in life.  
> Luck is round like a ball; it rolls away from us just as easily as it comes to us. If something doesn't work out or you experience misfortune, don't talk about it to people. Stay calm; don't let anything show on your face; don't be timid; complain about everything to God only; ask him; I tell you, he makes everything better again! Acting sad, withdrawing, making sour faces, being whiny: none of this achieves anything. |  
> Hanging your head as if the chickens had eaten your bread:  
> This does not improve anything bad, let alone make the good even better!  
> Keep the possessions you take with you; plan for the future a little.  
> If someone gives you something, accept it without being ungracious and say, “May God reward you!” —  
> Pay attention, Ignaz; and remember this well: no one has ever been punished for being polite! —  
> Don't be contrary; being away from home makes people modest; that's a saying and it's true.  
> Don't be tempted into gambling; don't pay too much attention to the dance floor.  
> Don't have your cards read; and don't seek your destiny in the dream book.  
> If two paths go in different directions, and one of them is new, then go the old one.  
> If one of them is uneven, which is often the case, then go the even one.  
> Guard your health; of all goods, health is the better one.  
> Admit it: what in the world do you really possess if you don't have your health?  
> -----  
> If you come home one day and no longer find us old people in this little room,  
> then we will be where your grandfather and grandmother are joyfully awaiting us,  
> where our benefactors will find us and our deceased relatives. Everyone will recognize us immediately – and this, Ignaz, is a very beautiful thing. Now it says:
> *From the second song.  
> How the girl leaves her father's house and gives her father's home sorrow and tears.*
> Vodar and Muidar said: “Good luck for all we hope for,  
> We wish you a long life and good health!”  
> “As you wish,” said Muida and wiped the tears from my eyes,  
> “If you want respect and honor in this world, that's how we pray."  
> “People set it up earlier and people later,  
> I and your dad, we pray, child, that no misfortune befalls you.  
> Go to your niece and nephew and bring them to the Moata; stop by in Piasenrait, don't stay at the Moam's, you'll find a welcome, see everything beautiful, Naaz, and say hello a lot; When you come, we will be very happy to see you, when you come home!"  
> The old woman cries and gives him a Guglhupf cake, a soapbox and  
> , in addition, a white, newly washed cloth.  
> Hoamlih gives him three more in a paper bag.  
> The Vada gives him an extra two guilders, more can't be given.  
> “Money, Naaz, is a piglet that won't be viable at will, Naaz."  
> The door opens, and Naaz looks around the room,  
> “Main!” says Muida, ‘that's a terrible thing to say!’  
> He points to the gun rack hanging just inside the door:  
> “Gootsnom!” Muida says, makes a cross on his forehead with a damar – and then  
> -----  
> “I'm serious, Naaz, now goodbye, take care that all is well, Naaz!  
> Come on, let's go to the barn, so that we know right away  
> Where or when or what or said that something has fallen. If you come across the Graanitz, don't take a smudge pot full of ears  
> Drink from a watered well, it helps for the Hungarian crown!»  
> Godspeed once more and once more and go out into the world with trepidation.  
> Hunotmal doesn't ring, they look around and beckon to their father. “Look at your sign,” cries the father of the wide world, ‘it's not valid!” “Go to the Moam,’ cries the old mother, ‘we greet you, don't forget us.’
> *Narration:  
> How Ignaz leaves his father's house and his parents see him off.*
> Father and mother, I bid you farewell and God bless you for all the kindness you have shown me.  
> I hope with all my heart that you live a long life and stay healthy.  
> As God wills, says the mother and wipes her eyes with the corner of her handkerchief,  
> If the Lord calls us from the world, we are prepared for it.  
> For some people it is given up earlier and for some later.  
> I and your father pray, Ignaz, that no misfortune befalls you.  
> We will walk with you for a bit and accompany you to the image of the Mother of God.  
> Once you are in Piasenrait, stop by at your aunt's. You will be welcomed there.  
> Tell her all the nice things, Ignaz, and give her our warmest regards.  
> If she can come, we would be very happy if she visited us.  
> So speaks the old mother and wraps him a crumpet, a pastry, and also a piece of white bread in a freshly washed 'cloth'. She secretly gives him three shiny new twenties, wrapped in paper. The father gives him a two-guilder piece, more he cannot give. We don't have much money, Ignaz, take what you can with good will.  
> Before the door opens, Ignaz looks around and takes one last look at the room.  
> “Oh dear,” says his mother, ‘that's a bad sign, as if you'll never see it again,’  
> and she dips two fingers into the holy water font hanging next to the door.  
> In God's name, says the mother, and makes a cross on his forehead with his thumb – and they leave. Now it's getting serious, Ignaz, now God keep you, be well, Ignaz, Let us hear from you from time to time so that we always know how you are doing or if you are sick. When you come to Graanitz, take a handful of earth beforehand,  
> Austrian for: border. Drink it in diluted wine, it helps against fever.  
> They say goodbye to you, once and again, and part sadly.  
> A hundred times is not enough for them to look around and wave their hands.  
> “Mind your ID,” the father calls from afar, ‘don't lose it.” “Go to your aunt,’ the old woman calls, ‘we send her our regards, don't forget that.’

The entire philosophy of the farming community emerges before the friar, and so vividly that one sees how intimately he has grown with it. But he is also connected to something else: to that which is so fundamentally connected to the Austrian character, to the character of the Austro-German peasantry in the Alps: to the direct, unspoilt view of nature that arises from the most direct coexistence with nature. The description of a thunderstorm is owed to what comes to life again in Joseph Misson. It vividly describes how the Naaz now travels and how he comes to a place where heath sheep graze, which a shepherd, called a Holdar there, knows how to observe closely: how they behave when a thunderstorm is coming. Now he tells himself what he sees there:

> When a cloud appears in the west and it doesn't come from below, it means a thunderstorm.  
> “One,” he thinks, ‘is coming, the other is going, now you have to decide which way you're going.’  
> Get on a donkey and look – now it thunders!  
> Immediately again – and how it rumbles over the Beringer!  
> It roars and rushes powerfully into the wood, that it is completely out!  
> “Oh, where this breaks out, our heaven be gracious!"  
> Then the Holdar, takes off his hat and ‘if only,’  
> he looks at the Guirkan, ‘if only it doesn't scare someone!’  
> “Just as we are,” he says, ‘two thunderstorms are coming together.’ (This convergence of two thunderstorms is now vividly described.)  
> And the dog sticks its snout up in the air and sniffs the air.  
> He points to a swallow, which flies quietly to the barn and drinks.  
> Then it is quiet and sultry and the air thickens.  
> The birds fall asleep in the nests and the sheep bow their heads.
> *Reproduction:  
> How Ignaz gets caught in the weather and doesn't know whether to*
> Listen, he says to himself, sit down for a moment and think about which way you will go.  
> He goes to the heath and looks around – suddenly there is a clap of thunder,  
> followed by another, and how it rumbles over the mountains!  
> It creaks and hisses mightily in the wood, as if it were completely dead. Well, may the Lord have mercy on anyone this happens to, says the lad to himself, taking off his coat, saying, looking at the clouds, just hoping it doesn't start raining. It seems to me, he says, like two thunderstorms mixed together. And the dog lifts its muzzle to sniff the air, then, sensing no danger, draws its tail between its legs, goes over to the lad and lies down beside him. Now it is quiet and sultry, and the leaves tremble in the trees, the birds sleep in their nests, and the sheep put their heads together.
> The good Naaz is aware of all this, and then the poet, who has meanwhile described how the Naaz entered “a Lucka” - a rock cave, a stone cave - waits there until the worst is over. Then he hangs his boots on the other shoulder and continues on his way. But the adventure with the weather is not over yet. Naaz comes to a little stream; which has of course swelled due to the weather. Naaz sees that:
> Now, in such a way, Misson, this man who really created from the depths of the folk tradition, wanted to embody the figure of Naaz. When one takes on such a figure, one sees how deeply, deeply in the subconscious soul, I could say, Austrian nationality sits with 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 nationality for the soul in the higher sphere of education when one looks at this Austrian nationality.
> One must say: mystics, in the sense that the human soul really delves into its inner life, really tries to understand what lives and moves within man, such mystics are not really found in Austria. Mystics who deal a lot with the human ego cannot flourish there. On the other hand, to feel the mysterious forces of nature in a certain way, more than just poetically, I would say, to feel the gnomes, the goblins, the spirits of nature in their liveliness, also with a certain humor, so that at the right moment you do not feel compelled to admit the full reality, but to feel in the co-experience of nature that which lives and moves in nature as a higher spiritual being – that is Austrian again. Therefore, within the Austro-German national character, it is not easy to find mystics who could be successors of Eckhart, Johannes Tauler.
> On the other hand, the remarkable peasant philosopher Conrad Deubler is a truly Austrian figure. He was born in 1814 in Goisern, in the middle of the mountains, and died there in 1884 as an innkeeper. He was and remained a true farmer; but a man who so he has grasped it vividly, has penetrated it with his peasant wisdom, with a certain, I would say, curt peasant wisdom, — Conrad Deubler, such a philosopher could flourish; a philosopher who did not get involved in lengthy justifications, but liked this doctrine, and now he took from the Austrian mind everything to make this teaching appear plausible. From a primitive, elementary, rustic understanding he brought about, I might say, a Darwinian conception adapted to the Austrian peasant, by means of which he was able to carry on a copious correspondence with the great theologian and writer David Friedrich Strauss, with Feuerbach, with Ernst Haeckel, and so on. To grasp the whole expanse of nature with the intellect is more to the taste of the Austrian soul than to mystically immerse oneself in it. Therefore, one finds individual people among Austrian farmers who know every little herb in the mountains, who are also spiritually connected to the inner workings of each little herb, who, for example, engage with philosophers such as Ennemoser and Eckartshausen, who want to give a certain deeper picture of nature in its entirety, and who also want to place the human being in this picture of nature. But within this Austrian peasantry and that which arises from this peasantry, one will not easily find a pure mystic who engages in the contemplation of the human soul, averting his gaze from the external world of the senses. For it is the direct connection with that which makes an impression on the senses that characterizes the Austrian mind in the broadest sense for anyone who sees it – the seeing of more than the sensual, but the direct seeing – the seeing that does not need to reflect, that seeing that, I might say, sometimes skips the mind and goes directly to the heart.
> Therefore, it can be said that in Austrian poetry, the soul and the landscape resonate with each other directly, sometimes in a way that is so moving, as in the case of Lena; but in general, this absorption of the whole soul in what can be done directly by a person, what can be accomplished by him without it being related to immediate usefulness, - that is something that belongs to the emotional qualities of the Austrian.
> I would like to say, on the one hand, on this side of the Leitha, in the Austrian mountains, in the Austrian regions, there is something that can be depicted in a picture, as I attempted with Joseph Misson. On the other side of the Leitha, you are immediately in touch with the wide-open spaces of the Hungarian steppes; but you also live with what resounds in the sensual, I would say, spiritually, which the sensual tries to exhaust spiritually as much as it can be exhausted. Anyone who has ever crossed over to Hungary and listened to a Hungarian band, with all that these people put of their souls into their simple and wonderful playing, in which pain rages demonically, the lust and the exuberance of life at the same time, understands a poem like that of the Hungarian Szäz, which refers to this direct coexistence with the sensual, but which is felt spiritually, deeply spiritually and emotionally:
> You have to look very closely to understand the relevant things, you have to look very closely at the intimate interweaving of the senses with the outside world, so that the senses, in their interweaving with the outside world within the sensual, can more easily see the spiritual than when this spiritual awakens intellectually in the mind. It can be said that when it comes to making a judgment directly from the heart, to criticizing or approving the world, the Austrian will, under certain circumstances, have a little confidence in himself. He will also, especially if he has learned something, like to move in abstract terms, he will like to give something to the culture of the head, but above all want to be rooted in the culture of the heart. But the way from the head to the heart, the way from the heart to the head, is just so long, and it is so difficult to find! Often one easily stops in the middle!
> It is, in a sense, quite characteristic of what, for example, a good connoisseur of Austrian culture, a contemporary, said about an Austrian personality, the former director of the Burgtheater in Vienna, Max Burckhard: that despite all his energy, the most characteristic thing about this quintessentially Austrian man, Max Burckhard, was that he never really wanted to undergo the transition from feeling to understanding or from understanding to feeling. He wanted to keep them both separate. While Max Burckhard was director of the Vienna Burgtheater, Hermann Bahr recounts, and Wilbrandt's play 'The Master of Palmyra' was to be performed at the Burgtheater, a play that is considered by many to be particularly significant and that for many is something tremendously high-minded, Burckhard did not want to stage the play. He could not understand why something so significant was seen in it; he always rejected it. So it was that well-meaning people, that is, people who meant well by Wilbrandt and the “Master of Palmyra,” managed to at least get Burckhard to attend a lecture on the “Master of Palmyra” in a really high-level society. He knew the piece, of course, but it was not to be read to him, but all the beautiful, aesthetic passages, the treatises were to have an effect on him, which the invited real professors and asthetics had to present about the mastery of this piece. Well, Burckhard was really a very clever man who, when it came down to it, was able to dialectically stand his ground and get into the spiritual ideas. He listened to the lecture. He did not just listen to the lectures of the aesthetes and professors, who said that something had been created “from the depths of human nature that points to the highest regions of spiritual life”. He also listened to how the beautiful characteristics are to be understood according to all chapters of aesthetics. He was silent. He did not allow himself to follow these trains of thought in any way. He could understand them, of course. It would have been easy for him to refute the matter from his point of view, to get involved in it. On another occasion, he might have done so, getting involved in long-winded discussions about the matter. He remained silent, he said nothing. Then ladies, especially the lady of the house, approached him: didn't he at least want to say how he related to all the witty remarks about one of the most witty plays ever written. Was it not the duty of the Burgtheater to perform the epoch-making play? But he did not engage in a discussion. He said: “I'm not putting it on!” And why? Why? They wanted to hear from him, the witty man, how he related to all the things that had been discussed wittily for hours. He just said: “Because it's a Holler!” — “A Holler” is something that means the same in Austria as “quatsch” in Berlin. But he did not engage in a discussion. That is to be taken as characteristic. He relied on his immediate judgment of the heart, on what his mind told him, and he did not find it necessary to engage in discussions of dialectics and so on; his whole criticism was that it is a “Holler”.
> And so it is interesting to see, actually, how at a time when the most wonderful and glorious discussions were being held within the rest of the German-speaking world about the significance, nature and essence of drama, discussions in which Goethe and Schiller participated in such a profound way – I am referring in particular to the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century – how in this period a discussion of aesthetics, of the meaning and essence of drama, was also ignited in Austria. But how was the discussion of drama ignited there in Austria? In a very strange way, everything that was presented there for and against this way of thinking ignited in Austria; what was discussed in such a well-known profound way within the Schiller-Goethe circle and the broader circles of the whole of German intellectual life, all of this ignited in Austria in a very peculiar way, namely through dance. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, two types of dance were the subject of a very energetic and significant discussion there. At the turn of the century, Noverre was the master of dance; and his student was then Muzzarelli. Muzzarelli represented a dance, a style of dance, in which the main thing was to make beautiful movements, artificial movements, to intertwine artificial movements through their lines, where the external spatial image of presenting oneself was taken into account. Now, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, an opponent of this 'dance form' emerged in the person of Salvatore Vigano. And for this dance form of Salvatore Vigano, whose wife in particular danced the dance form he represented in a masterly fashion, whole texts were written, which did not apply to any other dance form. Whole stories, whole narratives were clothed in the dance form, so that the situations, the gestures, the form of expression, the events, the content to be told, were expressed. And now one should just delve into the far-reaching, passion-stirring discussions that have arisen about which dance is artistically the right one.
> There was the Austrian playwright Ayrenhoff, who had already grown old at the time, the author of a large number of plays, who was completely on the side of the Muzzarelli dance, who spoke out most negatively against Salvatore Vigano and against the impossibility of expressing inner feelings through dance in such an unchaste way. Ayrenhoff could not understand that they even wanted to dance entire pieces, such as 'Richard the Lionheart' or 'The Daughter of the Air'. Ayrenhoff had been educated in the appreciation of beautiful form, of the sweep of lines, and his dramas were also constructed in this way. The sweep of lines in the portrayal of characters, seeing how some situation dissolves into a joke, or the transition of a situation into a joke, that was what mattered. These extraordinary forms were what mattered. He saw this in Muzzarelli's dance as well. And he was an important poet for Austria at that time. His importance can be seen from the fact that he received extraordinary recognition from Frederick the Great, who otherwise had no interest in German literature of the time. And “The Stagecoach”, a comedy by Ayrenhoff, Frederick the Great called “the best comedy that is written at all except the comedies of Moliere”. Yes, Frederick the Great went so far as to once show himself at a parade of the field marshal lieutenant - because that was Ayrenhoff and at the same time a poet - because he, Frederick the Great, was so interested in him.
> On the other side, on Viganos' side, was Heinrich Joseph von Collin, who came from Belgium; but in a sense, Belgium belonged to Austria at that time. He had written the tragedy “Regulus,” but also other plays. Collin now advocated expression in dance with great enthusiasm. And he now staged his dramas in such a way that they expressed inwardness in what was being portrayed; that it was not so much about the way situations and jokes followed one another, about the external forms, but rather that the inner nature of the human being was expressed in what happened on stage. And Robert Zimmermann, who is deeply rooted in Austrian intellectual life, has spoken very beautifully of this Heinrich Collin, showing that this Heinrich Collin, who is basically also completely forgotten in Austria, but who But who can lead us deep into the course of Austrian intellectual life, who knew nothing of Fichte, and in his dramas revived the same kind of soul-feeling that lay in Fichte's philosophical representations. To make matters worse, Heinrich Collin's brother, Matthäus von Collin, has explicitly shown how Heinrich Collin knew nothing of Fichte, how he arrived at Fichteanism, but in a poetic way, in his Austrian way, entirely out of a strange parallelism of intellectual life, in the way that I have just described.
> Without reflecting on the intuition, without merging into the intuition, Fichte comes back to what I described eight days ago. He says: The outer sense world, that which man lives out in the sensual, outer existence, is the sensualized material of our duty. Now that duty confronts him in such a deeply objective way and at the same time becomes related to the divine weaving and being that permeates the world, Fichte comes to say: one must not think in such a way that external sensual happiness could be bestowed on the one who faithfully fulfills his duty, but — even if this is somewhat one-sided, in the way it is presented, the energy of a certain striving of German idealism expresses itself in it; things must not be taken dogmatically – but what Fichte says is: the one who is completely absorbed in his duty must not claim that the reward for it will somehow be found in the external world of the senses. Therefore, the truly tragic – and this was Fichte's conviction – will appear when duty does not find any reward, but rather finds misfortune in the external world.
> Heinrich Collin presents the same tendency in his plays. He wants to embody in a dramatic way the human soul that is built upon itself, that can live within itself without combining the happiness of the sensual world with duty. And so a deeply ethical trait emerges, but one that is intimately connected with the direct contemplation of the world as it presents itself to the senses; one that has even emerged from an aesthetics that has been formed through dance.
> This close connection with observation, this life in direct perception and also the placing of what the heart experiences in direct perception, the reluctance to seek the way from the head to the heart, must be seen as one of the characteristics that are really deeply connected with this Austrian intellectual life.
> And so many things in this Austrian spiritual life appear to us in such a way that contradictions are present in it, but contradictions that, if one lets them take effect in the right way, seem understandable in people who, within Europe, are placed in difficult tasks, in the mediation of the West with the East, and, I would like to say, must feel this placing in every detail of their way of life.
> One can say: Wherever we touch this Austrian intellectual life, it appears to us as follows: the innermost is directly fanned in the outer world, without the mediation of a mystical dialectic. And from this underground, a phenomenon as likeable as the Austrian philosopher Bartholomäus von Carneri can be explained – as I said, I only want to present images. He was born in Trento in 1821, the son of an Austrian civil servant; deformed from birth (he was a twin), he already went through a difficult, painful youth, and then, after he had familiarized himself with the diversity of Austrian intellectual life, he became acquainted with Darwinism. For Carneri, Darwinism is not something that he simply accepts, but rather, for him, Darwinism becomes a life riddle itself. That the world, in the sense of Darwinism, can be explained by the externally observable development, is understandable to him, despite the fact that he has immersed himself deeply in German idealism. But in a certain respect, Darwinism becomes a life riddle for Carneri, the Austrian philosopher: If Darwinism is correct, what about human morality, human ethics? And so Bartholomew of Carneri becomes, one might say, the greatest ethicist, the greatest moral teacher of Darwinism. He interprets Darwinism in such a way that he seeks within the purely natural development, how the forces of nature complicate up to man, so that he still sees a spiritualization in this complication 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 chase the spirit out of itself in the configuration of the forces of nature. At the same time, he wants to find the connection between human ethics and human moral life and the explanation of nature in terms of Darwinism. Thus, for Carneri, the necessity to create an ethic arises directly from the world that appears vivid to him through Darwinism. I would like to say that what the human heart wants and needs to set before itself must be directly connected to the secrets and mysteries of nature. And it is particularly interesting to see in Bartholomäus von Carneri how he now strives for a unified world view, for a world view that fully embraces Darwinism in the spirit of the times, in the spirit of nineteenth-century materialism, but can only embrace it if if spirituality springs and can spring everywhere in nature itself, but a spirituality that is grasped directly in feeling, that is not first brought down from some transcendental spheres, as with Fichte, but that appears to him directly during the experience of sensuality. It is remarkable how the characteristic of Austrianism appears precisely in such a personality, in a personality like Carneri, who, however, also wants to place himself uniformly in the world in a different way, who everywhere sets out to show how, on the one hand, nature reaches up to the spirit, and on the other hand, the spirit works down to nature, how a unity lives in everything. Carneri also sought to depict this unity in life. He sought to bring it into life. And so one of the personalities arises, who appeared in particular in the 1860s and 1870s in Austria as fine minds, one of the personalities who were then also politically active. Carneri was on the side of the intellectual Austrian politicians of the 1870s, Plener, Beer, Herbst, Berger and so on. But wherever he spoke – and he often spoke – his words were imbued with a lofty idealism, but precisely with an idealism rooted in Darwinism, which was aware of its roots in Darwinism: I may be an idealist because my ideals come to me directly when I immerse myself in the development of nature.
> It is the same spirit, in another field, that then again held sway in Robert Hamerling. In Robert Hamerling, in whom, I might say, the Austrian German found expression in the fact that Hamerling's motto was: “Germany is my fatherland, Austria is my motherland,” which combined good Austrian-ness with good German-ness. In this Hamerling everything that can be called the interpenetration of idealism with direct feeling and with intuition found direct expression. Even in Austria, where people might have been better able to understand it, Hamerling's vividly sensual images, I would say sensually imbued images, were often condemned, for example in his “Ahasver,” also in “Aspasia” and in “King of Sion.” But they did not understand that it was precisely Hamerling's idealism, which I would call Austrian idealism, that needed the sensory image to visualize itself in, so as not to suffer from the division of the world into the sensual on the other. And so for Hamerling the spiritualized sensual, the aesthetic idealism, became the goal toward which he directed his whole feeling, his whole perception and his whole thinking as a vision of the future. And in many respects it is precisely in the case of such intellectuals as Carneri and Hamerling that the difficulties of Austrian intellectual life come to light, difficulties which consist in the fact that one is placed in a multiform surging mass of humanity and has to find one's way. Hence the phenomena that so often occur within Austrian intellectual life, where a clear view of this or that remains with mere description and does not somehow find its way into action and then peter out in a certain pessimism. Hence certain phenomena are only possible in Austrian intellectual life.
> Is it not really somewhat strange that there was an Austrian in the first half of the nineteenth century who was born near Znaim, who bore the typically Austrian name Karl Postl, who also became a clergyman at his mother's request, but then, like the Barnabite monk Karl Leonhard Reinhold, also cast off the robe of the order and disappeared? He has disappeared. Then a book appears: “Austria as it Is,” from America; it describes Austrian views. That was in 1828. Then, from this same Karl Postl, who called himself not Karl Postl but Charles Sealsfield, appear, for example, descriptions of the decline of the Native Americans, from which one can see how fundamentally sound this man's direct view of nature is. No one at that time had any idea that the simple Karl Postl from Austria was hidden in this Charles Sealsfield. All the stories that otherwise appear on similar subjects – just see for yourself – are written, so to speak, from the point of view of a certain education, written in a certain way, so that you notice the theory. These Postl stories are written in such a way that the eye immediately grows into what it sees; the whole soul grows together with direct perception. He then spends his lifetime from the age of thirty to the age of sixty in the canton of Solothurn in Switzerland, where he is also buried. He returns and describes the life of Germans in America in such a vivid way that it should still have a significant effect on the soul today, if only it were read.
> A specifically Austrian phenomenon is also a personality, whom not only the younger, but perhaps the older members of the audience gathered here have met, those books that are written, as is modestly stated on the title page, “for maidens”; “Weihgeschenk für Jungfrauen” it says. A story, a wonderfully vivid story, steeped in a Goethean, one might almost say, Greek spirit. On the title page it says: “Weihgeschenk für Jungfrauen” by Christian Oeser, “Letters on the Main Subjects of Aesthetics.” Published in the first half of the nineteenth century in the first edition, these books experienced many editions. Those who read them today still get something from them that can expand the heart, that can 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 that nobody knew the author of – “Life and Deeds of Emerich Tököly” “by A. Z.”, that is, from A to Z, so that all the letters between A and Z are included. Those who understood something about dramatic characterization saw in the figure of Tököly a Hungarian Götz. It is a portrayal that can be directly compared to Goethe's “Götz von Berlichingen”, which was born out of the struggles that took place in Hungary shortly before the drama was written and that moved many, many souls and the world. The drama went out into the world, and so did several others by the same author. No one knew who it was from. That remained so. In 1869, the German Schiller Foundation took a decision to pay the then support allowance to a Mrs. Therese Schröer in Vienna. The document with which the allowance was paid stated that it had been learned that the widow of one of the most worthy German writers was not living in circumstances befitting her and his merits, and that she was therefore being paid this annual allowance. It was the widow of Tobias Gottfried Schröer, the author of many plays, who had to remain unnamed, the author also of that “Weihgeschenkes für Jungfrauen”, which is imbued with the spirit of Goethe; a quiet man who was a secondary school teacher in Preßburg, but who, as such, wrestled with the highest problems of human life, who was poor and whom no one knew. Even in his own town no one could or might know that this man was the author of these dramas.
> Many similar phenomena could be cited. They show that in order to get to know Austrian intellectual life, one must not consider it in terms of what, I mean, goes as a more or less Catholic, as a more or less Protestant current through the development of the times but how one must grasp this Austrian intellectual life where it works out of the root of the people and where it can appear directly in its great significance. One must not look at Austrian intellectual life through the lens of the fact that Austria is a more Catholic country. On the one hand, this Austrian intellectual life works its way to the roots of the nation, as we have seen with Misson; on the other hand, however, it works its way up to great heights in a remarkable way. Consider, for example, the following phenomena: When the Protestant pedagogue Friedrich Dittes, who was brought from Germany during the so-called Liberal Era of Austrian development and placed at the head of the K.K. When the Protestant pedagogue, who had been brought from Germany during the so-called Liberal Era of Austrian development, looked around for important pedagogues of the immediate past, he, the Protestant pedagogue who had been brought from Germany, found the Austrian Vincenz Eduard Milde to be one of the most important pedagogues of the immediate past. In 1811, Milde published an “educational theory”. In Misson, we have come to know a mind that, clothed in the robes of a religious order, worked its way up to what I would call the management of educational life, and then worked its way back down to the roots of folklore, creating his “Naaz”: peasant philosophy! In Milde we see another priest, a good Catholic; a Catholic in whom Friedrich Dittes, the Protestant pedagogue, finds one of his most important pedagogical predecessors. Spiritual life reaches out across the differences of confession in a wonderful 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 can see how, in this book, published in 1811, educational work is understood in a soul-drenched way; how, in contrast to on, who worked his way down into the people, to the highest views, the most ideal views of general human activity through pedagogy, the Catholic priest Milde works his way up, how seriously, how dignified, how tremendously deep he takes the pedagogical profession. He describes how the teacher should behave in order to gain the right relationship with the pupil; first:
> "1. Through diligent study of anthropology; 2. through reading well-written biographies and truthfully portrayed educational histories; 3. through thoughtful interaction with children, through unnoticed, quiet observation of them, especially of their behavior towards other children; 4. by remembering his own youth, by reflecting on the course, the reasons, the means and obstacles his own education, on the difference between his present and former way of thinking and feeling; 5. by reflecting on the success and failure of his efforts in educating the pupil; 6. by observing the methods of other educators and the success of their way of treating the children”; - finally - ‘7. by observing the course of development of nature left to itself.’
> The meaning of life should be built on a healthy anthropology, that is, the study of man. Then the teacher should constantly consult with himself, as it were, meditating, in order to always find the way to the child's soul. A truly soul-filled educational vision is also poured out on this quite remarkable work, which arose, so to speak, in the quiet of Austrian intellectual life through a man who was a clergyman in the outer life, who rose to become Archbishop of Vienna and who, in his way, truly represents that Austrian intellectual life to which one attaches such great importance and to which one must attach such great importance; that Austrian intellectual life that is directed towards the general human and basically maintains the connection with the roots of the people everywhere. Yes, I say, in 1811 a leading work on education appeared in Austria that had a great impact and was also highly praised by the Protestant pedagogue Dittes in the 1860s and 1870s. It was published again very recently by the Austrian pedagogue Franz Tomberger in a short outline. One must only consider what that means. In 1811, it had only been a short time since teachers in very, very remote areas of the Austrian lands, namely the German-Austrian lands, had a very strange position, not only in the village but also in the city. Not only did the teacher not have a school building – in many areas, shortly before this “Erziehungslehre” was published, a school building was a rarity; the students gathered around the teacher, the teacher went from house to house, sometimes he was there, sometimes in the next house; wherever there was space, he taught. But that was not the only thing. For example, paying the teacher a salary, yes, that would not have been understood; that is something that must be given freely! But the teacher only needed to teach the students in winter; in summer, the children were needed outside in the fields anyway. Well, so that he doesn't starve, he is granted the right to herd cows during the summer, to be a “Holdar”. But that did not prevent all that I have just described from happening. And that did not prevent a work on the art of education from appearing after such a relatively short time in Austrian intellectual life that it was not only exemplary but also epoch-making. One has to familiarize oneself with this juxtaposition of contradictions that arise from the difficulties of Austrian life.
> But this is also why the Austrian needs what appeared in the most diverse forms in Viennese life in the course of the nineteenth century. Actually, a piece of Viennese life is also what you were able to get to know here in Berlin some time ago, although it had been quite “de-Viennified” to a certain extent, as connoisseurs generally admitted – what you were able to get to know through the performance of “Alpenkönig und Menschenfeind” by Ferdinand Raimund, with the character of Rappelkopf, and, what is also well known from the same author, “Verschwender”. I do not want to speak of a well-known matter, but rather show how Austrian intellectual life can be illustrated here and there, as it were, by the splashing of a wave that makes visible in pictures what lives in Austria. Therefore, I want to speak less about Ferdinand Raimund than about the man who replaced him in the hearts of the Viennese in the 1830s and 1840s, when Raimund had become very much a part of their lives: Nestroy. And Johann Nestroy, as a folk dramatist, is, I would say, truly an Austrian product. Indeed, one has even had to hear from some clever people of the present day that Nestroy is even characterized by his fellow countrymen as not being a real Viennese, because in the early days of his career, in particular, he only told the Viennese rough truths, not only created folk plays where honest people are always right, but where he could really, forgive the harsh expression, give the people a piece of his mind. Plays like these made up the content of his first theatrical career. He actually created a great deal; in thirteen years, he wrote around seventy such farces. But they truly contain that Austrian spirit that those who know it recognize as being truly embodied in Nestroy. It is not true that the Austrians of that time wanted to hear honest portrayals of characters from the theater, of people who recognize the simplicity of life. No, that was then and Nestroy grew out of it – what was demanded was that one could say: Now he has given them what for again, that is, he has really given them a telling-off. And with such a scolding, Nestroy, himself playing at the Vienna Karl Theater, actually entertained the Viennese so much that one can say: one sees in the spirit that lives in these Nestroy folk farces, one might say folk city farces, the Austrian spirit that needs to, in the criticism of life as well as in the jokes about life, in the humor of life, to overcome many a difficulty; who needed to let his soul feel at ease after hard work in a light way, and yet in a way that was not entirely free of sympathy and antipathy. And so Nestroy is truly a typical figure of Austrian urban popular theater around the mid-nineteenth century. He had his view of life and of the events of life expressed by a character in the following manner: “I believe the worst of everyone, even of myself, and I have seldom been mistaken!” With this view of life, he, who was personally kind and loving, and who in personal dealings actually had only kind and loving words, really created character figures that easily illustrate the view of life of the Austrians in Vienna at that time , that Austrianness that wanted to be hard at work, but that wanted to build a philosophy of life from the heart, without much dialectic, that also had to have humor, that also should not exaggerate the seriousness of life too much. There was a lot in the way of facing life. So Nestroy created a character that kept reappearing under this name or under a different name; once he called him “Schnofer!” And this Schnoferl also had an attitude towards life. For example, he once talks about how he fared in life with love: “With love, things went splendidly for me, it was all right, but with dislike, things are always bad!” This same Schnoferl, who, as I said, cannot see the funny side of life, once said about what he saw in his own heart: “The pragmatic story of my heart falls into three miserable chapters: futile musings, failed attempts and worthless triumphs.” Those are the three miserable chapters. Nestroy portrayed such characters with great acuity, so much so that an important Viennese critic once said: “In Nestroy, you could see the demonic expression that could intensify to the point of being devilish when he let his eyes play from the stage into the audience.” And so Nestroy expressed well a certain Austrian view of life in need of humor in the years before 1848, or even from the beginning of the forties.
> Then came a time when one could not bear this outpouring of good and evil, this Nestroyan world beyond good and evil, of good, over-good and evil people, for a while. One wanted more honest figures, one wanted to be moved more and sworn at less. One had had enough of swearing for a while, one wanted to be moved. Nestroy didn't really like that, and so he said: Yes, in the past people still knew something about what a life story is; in modern times, if you go by those who now create life stories for the stage, if there are only three jokes in it - in Nestroy's plays there was one joke after another - there are only corpses in their blood, gravediggers and blubberers. He didn't really want to go along with that. But then again, he was able to keep up with the times. And so Nestroy found a peculiar, I would even say humanly free point of view, especially during the difficult year of 1848. He was a liberal man, he was a man who was thoroughly on the side of the progressives, who did not depend on anyone in any direction, but at the same time he found the right words for many a cry for freedom, for those who only go so far. And so he managed to maintain Austrian humor even in these difficult times. Just look at this: in a play that was written during one of Austria's most difficult times, “Freedom in Krähwinkel” – he also played in this play himself – this Austrian describes how the mayor of Krähwinkel imagines freedom. He has the constable Klaus express it: “Freedom is something terrible. The Lord Mayor always says: the ruler is the father, the subject is a little child, and freedom is a sharp knife.” And one of those who, in a Nestroyesque way, understands this a little, who also understands the people of Krähwinkel in their pursuit of freedom, characterizes them in the same way: ”No, I know the people of Krähwinkel. I know the Krähwinkler, you just have to let them run riot; once the rapture is over, we'll catch them with our hand in it, and then we'll really tweak the people's nose.” In the role that Nestroy himself played, to which he gave the name ‘Ultra’, a freedom fighter now appears who is really portrayed in such a way that humor can once again take hold of him. Nestroy spoke the following through the Ultra: “Now that the fight that had broken out has ended happily, he proclaims freedom: 'I proclaim freedom of speech, of the press and other freedoms for Crowwinkel, indifference of all classes, free speech, free elections according to previous opinion, an infinitely broad basis, which will gradually extend in length, and in order to avoid all disputes in this matter, no system at all.” Then Ultra comes – one must always imagine him as presented by Nestroy himself – to an opinion about what reaction actually is. What is reaction? “Well,” says Ultra, ‘as it was on a large scale, so we have had it here on a small scale. Reaction is a spectre, but spectres only exist for the timid: so don't be afraid of it, then there will be no reaction at all.’
> But in Nestroy's personality itself there is something like a thoroughly correct placing of his own personality in life. A person like Nestroy was thoroughly a personality who was accessible to the depths of the soul. But what he created, he wanted to create from direct life and for direct life. And so Nestroy is not at all inclined to reflect on the ego. Once, he came into contact with the profound, inestimably esteemed poet Friedrich Hebbel, the great poet Hebbel. But Hebbel and Nestroy were like the north and south poles. Friedrich Hebbel, outwardly impeccable in his suit, correct in every gesture, Nestroy naughty in every gesture, with a rustic suit that he wore with particular dignity! Now Nestroy became acquainted with a play like “Judith and Holofernes”, a play in which Hebbel has actually exhausted the infinite depths of the human soul and embodied them in dramatic form so that one must say: It is truly a wonderful struggle with the existential problems of life, reaching the heights of the human spirit, but not for Nestroy, one might be tempted to say, because it cannot be readily and directly taken humorously. But he took it humorously, precisely as a taunt, saying, “No, that's nothing!” He also thought, “That's a nonstarter!” I'll do a Holofernes now, Judith and Holofernes, that must be the right thing; that's not something that Hebbel did.” But now he wanted to create a character in Holofernes who was so completely turned inward, to his human ego. Nestroy was very good at creating a character who acted entirely out of the abundance of the soul's will and wanted something. But he only wanted into this ego in a genuinely Austrian way, so to speak. Yes, not through speculation, not through dialectics, not even through dramatic dialectics! So he presents himself as a figure of Holofernes, full of ego, full of the power of personality, so strong that he wants to see who is stronger, “I” – or, as he said – “I or I!” – so that he feels doubly. So he wants to wrestle with himself, so that he sees who is stronger, I or I. That becomes Nestroy's Holofernes. But he knows how to position himself in life just right. And when he hears that people say that he denies a purely artistic principle with his plays that are directly inspired by folklore, well, he says that he will not allow such an accusation, because people should consider what it actually means to write folk plays. Anyone who writes popular plays and even wants to compare himself to Goethe is just like someone who makes a Zwetschkenkrampus and wants to act as a rival to Canova. A Zwetschkenkrampus is a figure made out of dried plums on St. Nicholas' Day to look like a clown or Santa Claus.
> We also need to be thoroughly familiar with this side of Austrian identity. Because it is deeply, deeply interwoven with what the Austrian soul seeks in a certain view of life, which I would characterize in the following way: Because of the difficulties of his life, the Austrian feels the need to rest in a view of life that makes one forget the seriousness of life and yet, in turn, brings strength in the subconscious soul to be prepared for life. Nestroy is certainly deeper than those who took over from him at the end of the nineteenth century. You cannot compare Nestroy's farces with those of Berg, who certainly wrote more in the same period, but had sunk to a much lower level. But this peculiar view of life, which in turn goes back to a general human one, is part of the overall shaping of this Austrian's soul. And this view of life also shows that in Austria something comes from much deeper human sources and shapes the life of the soul than all that which is usually conceived of as ideas that draw together human development. One must not think of the Austrian as being wrapped up in this or that prejudice, but to get to know him, one must consider Austrian national character.
> I have only been able to present it to your minds in a few images today; I have not really chosen them with the aim of making the Austrian lovable, but simply to describe him as he is. I did not want to summarize anything special, but only to show individual traits, of course very individual lost traits, but which can nevertheless illustrate this or that, illustrate above all how a special note, a special tone, lives in this Austrian character, over the whole of this Austrian culture, from such figures as I have described to you today, to the Magyar Emmerich Madách, the man who created the well-known “Tragedy of Man”. Out of a life of suffering, and truly out of a life of suffering, Madách rose to create a form of human philosophy that suited him. He shows the creation of man, Adam and Eve. He shows how Adam and Eve are placed in the world by the divine creator, perceiving this world as a mystery. Now Lucifer shows them what will follow. Adam is shown how he will live again, how he will return in Egyptian times, how he will live as an Egyptian, as a pharaoh; how Eve will be his slave. The Egyptian culture with all that it can trigger in the soul of the re-embodied Adam is presented by the poet. And further, we are led into the Roman period; Adam is reborn in the time of the Roman Empire. In the time of Christianity, in turn, in the time of the Franco-English culture, in the time of the German culture; at the end of the earth time, he is placed in an embodiment. The whole of human life is led past him.
> As one can see, there are many paths that lead up from the depths of joy and suffering that can arise in the Austrian soul, up to the peaks of human world and life views. And it is a special note that one must say: It is precisely through the contemplation of this special note, this special 'tone in Austrian folklore that it already corresponds to an inner necessity that, for example, the German-Austrians were separated for a time from the general German intellectual life. It was precisely through this separation that they developed their innermost selves properly, that they emphasized what was truly their own in the right way. But such a separation does not destroy what connects the peoples. And what we see today, this interaction of the two Central European empires into a great overall concept of Central Europe, into an overall being of Central Europe, is firmly anchored in both the inhabitants of the one and the inhabitants of the other empire, if one looks straight into the depths of the soul. This can be seen in the depths of the national character, for example, where the will of Austria is realized, and again in the heights of Austrian achievement. When, as it seemed, a deep rift had opened up in 1866 between the hearts of the great German Empire and the hearts of the best Austrians, there was not a mood at the height of humanity after that year 1866 that cried out for revenge. There was not a mood that was later in other places, after a people had been defeated, where it was said that one must always and again and again bring the thought of revenge to life in one's soul. No, but an 'Address was delivered to the throne immediately after 1866 in Austria, which contained the words; 'It is not the secret thought of retaliation that guides our steps; a nobler satisfaction is granted to us if we succeed more and more in transforming disfavor and enmity into respect and affection through what we achieve and what we create.
>
> These words also express the bond between the Austrian and German hearts that has been so beautifully realized today. That bond, which is expressed so beautifully in a poem by von Hamerling that truly springs from the Austrian soul: Germany is my fatherland, but in Austria I feel my motherland. I feel a sense of belonging to my mother country. This sense of belonging was so vividly experienced that it can be expressed in a few words that originated in Austria. These are strange words, perhaps not in a completely satisfactory form, but they are words that may be read aloud, especially in our time. I will say afterwards in which period these words were written. In a poem entitled “Austria and Germany” it says:
>
> > Let Russia and England prudently confer,  
> > Perhaps not even unhappily find it,  
> > If we here engage in a little battle,  
> > If they try to take away our just rights!
> > You, German brothers, will not advise here –  
> > The enemy's attack will only unite us  
> > And among us every ambition will fade  
> > Before the: One people in word and deed.
> > And if one among us has failed,  
> > If discord has existed anywhere in German hearts,  
> > There is only one thing that now inspires us:
> > What we have in common, our joys and our sorrows!  
> > So let us also have in common:  
> > A German war, if not a German peace!
>
> They could be words written in our time. But they were written in April 1859 by the son of that Tobias Gottfried Schröer I mentioned, by Karl Julius Schröer, who worked in Vienna, having come from Zisleithania, in Austria. He worked in a way that can be said to have been suitable for, on the one hand, connecting the soul with what lives and weaves in the people and, on the other hand, carrying the souls up to the heights of spiritual life – Karl Julius Schröer, who first developed a beneficial activity as director of the Viennese Protestant schools and then as professor of German literature at the Technical University. I myself feel — please excuse this personal remark — deeply connected with this activity, because Karl Julius Schröer was once my dear teacher. This Karl Julius Schröer, on the one hand, he carried his popular research into the really deep foundations of folklore. First of all, he had Christmas plays printed that were performed among the farmers during the Christmas season but that had emerged from the people themselves. Then he was a dialect researcher, a researcher who studied the peculiarities of the Austrian dialect in the Gottschee region in Carniola, among the Germans of Spiš in Slovakia, among the so-called Heanz in western Hungary, who also researched the dialect of Lower Austria and everywhere pointed out the close connection between all Austrian intellectual life and its roots in the folk tradition; and who, on the other hand, carried the soul up to the heights of Goethe's world view through research into Faust, and in this sense again had a beneficial effect on his students. In 1859 this man expressed Austria's unity with Germany in this way. I have quoted his words to show how the Austrian national character leads to that beautiful and glorious ideal towards which we must strive today and which must develop out of the great demands and devoted deeds of our time: a Central Europe in which everything that has long been working together in our hearts will finally be united. And especially by considering the special tone that prevails in Austrian nationality and Austrian intellectual life, one can say that what should be achieved there in separation will be able to combine with the wider Germanic character in a more intimate way for the benefit and blessing of Central European development. And so we see, I would say, even if we look with an understanding of the essence of nationality at what is developing out of blood and suffering and pain in our time as a future ideal for Central Europe, we see that something is developing that must be created by the devoted and courageous deeds of arms, but which is firmly rooted, so firmly rooted that the guarantee of its durability can be seen in the hearts and souls of those who are drawing closer together and have joined forces for common action.
>
> In conclusion, let me say: what is now coming together historically is not only coming together through external necessity, it is coming together through the inner bonds of the souls, the hearts of the peoples of Central Europe.