Centaur

Biography

Zweig was the son of Moritz Zweig, a rich person manufacturer of Jewish fabric, and Ida (Brettauer) Zweig, the girl of an Italian banker. He studied the Philosophie and the history of the Littérature, and in Vienna, he was associated with the movement avant-garde " Young Vienna ".

The Religion did not play a central role in its education. Zweig says later in an interview: " My mother and my father were Jewish by the chance of their naissance". Although its first tests were published in " Die Neue Freie Presses " , whose literary writer is leading the Sioniste, Theodor Herzl, Zweig was not attracted by the Jewish Nationalisme of Herzl.

He traversed the Europe during many voyages before the First World War, and will go in India in 1910 then to the the United States in 1912.

Though engaged with the service of Austria at the beginning of the First World War, Zweig is a Pacifiste convinced in.liaison.with the French writer Romain Roland. Its text Jérémie (1916) where it lets foresee the possibility of a defeat of Austria, gives the opportunity to him to pass to Switzerland in 1917 to attend the repetitions of this part, with Zurich. It benefits from it to meet many pacifist, in particular his friend Romain Roland with Geneva. They summon the intellectuals of the whole world to be joined them in an active pacifism, which leads Romain Roland to be seen allotting the Nobel Prize literature. Zweig remained pacifist all its life and also recommended the unification of Europe before the arrival of the Nazi S. Like Roland, it wrote many biographies; It described later that on Érasme of Rotterdam like a Autobiographie hidden.

It was caught friendship with in particular Sigmund Freud (of which it wrote the funeral oration and with which it made read its news before publication), Emile Verhaeren on which it produced a remarkable biography full with admiration and recognition for the large Flemish poet. Achieved polyglot, it translated many works of Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, John Keats… Grand expert of the world of arts and letters, it nourishes all his life a great passion for the autographs and the portraits of writers, whom it collected. Affected by the exit of war of the Austria, largely reduced, the difficulties material and the devaluation which followed, he considers that the decade 1924-33 constitutes the most intense period of its artistic creation.

In 1934, Zweig flees Austria and leaves in England because of persecutions anti-semites. It is defended by famous the Compositeur Richard Strauss, which refuses to withdraw the name of Zweig (Librettiste) of the poster for the first, with Dresden, of its opera Die schweigsame Frau (the quiet Woman). That led Hitler to refuse to come to the first as envisaged and it opera was interdict after three representations.

In England, it settles in Bath then London or it begins the writing from a Biographie of Marie Stuart. It attracted the anger of the Nazi S during the film adaptation of the one of its works ( Brûlant secrecy 1938) and a Autodafé of its works took place with Berlin. It is established finally in Brazil in 1941 where it commits suicide with Pétropolis, close to Rio de Janeiro, on February 23rd, 1942, with Lotte (Charlotte Elisabeth Altmann), his wife, too affected to see the Second world war destroying its dreams of Humanisme and pacified Europe.

Its autobiography the world of yesterday - Memories of an European , is an anthem with the European culture which he regards as lost.

Works

Its work, particularly eclectic, comprises some collections of poetries, some plays ( Thersite 1907, Volpone 1927…).

It is especially known for its news ( Amok 1922, the Confusion of the feelings 1926, Twenty-four hours of the life of a woman 1934), stories of intense passion being able to go sometimes until the morbid one or to the madness. Its work headlight, the Player of failures , was published in posthumous title. He wrote many biographies (Fouché, Marie Stuart, Magellan, Marie-Antoinette…) of a great psychological acuity and which comprises a reflection on the problems of its time ( Érasme 1935). He worked during more than twenty years to his collection of news the very rich hours of humanity which recall the 14 events of the world History most outstanding in its eyes.

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