Bio-Bibliographisches Lexikon der Literatur Österreichs ed. by Herbert Zeman (review)

When completed, this monumental scholarly project will comprise eight volumes, the history of whose preparation, coordinated across many contributors and developed over many years, chief editor Zeman details in a foreword (vii–ix). His claim to unprecedented comprehensiveness at once raises high expectations, many of which are fulfilled in this first installment. If its amplitude and depth are maintained, it will be an exhaustive reference work, a standard research tool for a long time to come, especially since it is meant for both scholarly specialists and general readers, again as stated in the foreword (xi). The good news is very good; it is that this work achieves praiseworthy balance and comprehensiveness—more as we go. Unfortunately, however, there is bad news as well—bad news that, to be blunt, animates the present reviewer’s concern.

A fairly arbitrary sample of the entries on individual authors (Aichinger, Artmann, Anzengruber, Frau Ava) found the discussions clear and well organized—the standard format consists, unsurprisingly, of biography, lists of publications, discussion of general themes and traits, and critical reception both positive and negative. Authors include not only those who were native to what would be thought of as Austria and then Austria-Hungary but “ferner jene deutsch- und fremdsprachigen Autoren, die vorübergehend oder ab einem gewissen Alter [ . . . ] das literarische Österreich beeinflussten” (xi)—examples include Pietro Metastasio, Friedrich Hebbel, and Jean Amery, among others. Of course all the well-known names are present, but this reviewer is probably not the only reader to find specific treatments of authors of whom the reader had no previous knowledge; the coverage appears to be in depth.

In addition to the “Autorenartikel: Dichter und Schriftsteller [ . . . ] Buckdrucker, Buchhändler und Verleger” (xii), this reference work also incorporates what it calls “Sachartikel: anonyme Werke, Almanache (Taschenbücher), Dichterkreise, Schriftstellervereinigungen, Kabaretts, Leihbibliotheken, Verlage, Zeitschriften (Jahrbücher)” (xii). The editor is very explicit to the effect that the range of inclusion is greater than in any previous work of its kind. True to its mission, this lexicon includes ample discussions of institutions like the Beck’sche Universitätsbuchhandlung, lesser-known periodicals like Bakschisch: Zeitschrift für humorvolle und skurrile Texte, publishers like the Bergland-Verlag, yearbooks like Balsaminen: Ein Taschenbuch für das Jahr 1823, and celebratory collections like Aus Österreichs Herzen!, all with tables of contents and/or lists of authors included. Special attention to anthologies is promised and mainly fulfilled with detailed accounts of Aurora-Album, 1856; Begegnung mit dem Burgenland: Das Grenzland in der Literatur; or, of particular interest to American readers, Austrian Poetry Today, a bilingual anthology published in New York in 1985.

This reviewer turned with special anticipation, then, to the famous anthology Bekenntnisbuch österreichischer Dichter published in 1938 by the Bund österreichischer Schriftsteller, a collection of effusive tributes to the new order and a key source for documenting who openly proclaimed allegiance to the Nazi regime. As a primary source, the Bekenntnisbuch is a powerful antidote to the denial, amnesia, and outright mendacity practiced by more than a few Austrian writers after 1945. The bombastic praise for the Führer is its own indictment rhetorically, and it took courageous, meticulous work by historians and literary scholars over several decades to detail this collection fully in their specialist publications (examples include Klaus Amann, Zahltag: Der Anschluß österreichischer Schriftsteller an das Dritte Reich; Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler, Ohne Nostalgie: Zur österreichischen Literatur der Zwischenkriegszeit; and Anton Pelinka and Erika Weinzierl, eds., Das große Tabu: Österreichs Umgang mit seiner Vergangenheit). This new lexicon, explicitly designed to appeal to the general reader, not just the specialist, would have been the ideal place to clear the record by summing up what earlier scholars had documented about collaboration on the part of authors who were fleetingly banned after World War II but then quickly restored to favor and grace—and profit.

This reviewer was obliged to check several times, looking incredulously between “Beitl, Richard” and “Bekessy, Emmerich,” to ascertain for certain...