Postcards from Vienna III

Anna Whitehead

Credit: Ann Whitehead

Your columnist is delighted to report that this week, after seven months of lockdown-induced hibernation, life has finally returned to Vienna. The streets of the first district are lined with locals enjoying a drink or two in the sunshine, happy shoppers kitting themselves out for European summer holidays, and teenagers queuing for the latest, and dare I add, rather baffling, addition to the elegant Graben shopping street – Five Guys. It feels incredibly strange to have gone so quickly from nervously checking your watch to make sure you were back before the 8pm curfew, to being able to choose between a plethora of museums, restaurants, and theatres. It certainly wasn’t what he had in mind when he sang it, but it seems there is some truth in Billy Joel’s chorus: Vienna waits for you.

Come to think of it, the only postcard I sent this week was from a spontaneous day trip to Bratislava, internal EU borders having also opened and it being yet another national holiday in Austria. For the sake of continuity, and given that most of the day was spent sheltering from the pouring rain and recovering from the immense traditional Slovakian lunch (imagine mountains of unpronounceable, hefty dumplings smothered in sheep’s cheese and bacon), I’ll keep this column on Austrian territory.

Perhaps one of the most highly anticipated reopenings, and personally one of the most exciting, has been that of the Kaffeehäuser. I invite you for the next few minutes to trade the buzzing atmosphere and avocado toasts of Cambridge’s Hot Numbers or even the Locker Café, for the gemütlich wooden interiors and majestic slices of cake offered in any of Vienna’s coffee houses. Featured on the UNESCO list of ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage’, the culture surrounding the famed establishment forms a key part of the city’s history and identity today, and that’s not to mention its contribution to tourism. My brother once flippantly suggested I research ‘The Role of Cake in the Demise of the Austro-Hungarian Empire’, and I have come to realise that this proposal is not as outlandish as it sounds. I even once noticed a book while browsing the Austrian literature section entitled ‘Kaffeehäuser als Menschenrechte’ (‘Coffee houses as a human right’), which only underlined the fact that writing about a topic so close to the Austrian heart would not just be a piece of cake, if you’ll excuse the inevitable pun.

In his autobiographical work Die Welt von Gestern (The World of Yesterday), Stefan Zweig depicts life in Vienna at the turn of the 20th Century, in the final years of Emperor Franz Josef I’s rule. Zweig writes that the Kaffeehaus was ‘a unique institution, incomparable to any other in the world’[1], and indeed the atmosphere appears to elude description. Smartly dressed waiters bring coffee on small silver trays, always accompanied by a glass of a water, and although they are known for being on the grumpy side, this week they seemed elated to be serving Wiener Melanges and Kaiserschmarrn once again. The wide selection of the day’s newspapers on wooden reading sticks forms an integral part of the Kaffeehaus, and allowed the intellectuals and authors who frequented them to keep abreast of political and international developments. The Kaffeehäuser soon became places where figures such as Arthur Schnitzler, Karl Kraus, and Hermann Broch (to name but a very few) would meet to exchange ideas, discuss the events of the day, and write journals and literature.

The group ‘Jung-Wien’, whose meeting place was Café Griensteidl, located on Michaelerplatz, was one such group of Kaffeehausliteraten. Formed in the 1890s, the group’s spokesman was Hermann Bahr, and members included Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Peter Altenberg and Felix Salten (the reputation of the latter somewhat overshadowed by his famous creation, Bambi). Bahr, who had co-founded the weekly newspaper Die Zeit, used his connections with publishers and newspapers to promote the work of younger authors who were trying to break into the literary scene. The influence of the group on literary developments was considerable, most notably in their move away from Naturalism and towards Symbolism and Impressionism. Even if authors such as Kraus would later distance themselves from the group or criticise it, the contribution it had already made was far from insignificant. Prominent early 20th Century authors such as Robert Musil – known for his monumental Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften - and Joseph Roth, who wrote the highly-acclaimed Radetzkymarsch, were also greatly influenced by the work of ‘Jung-Wien’. Sitting in one of the cosy window alcoves and digging into some Sachertorte last week, I wondered what the group might have had to say about the extended closure of the Kaffeehäuser, and then started thinking about what ideas and literature might have been lost over the past year, with so many places of creative encounter firmly closed.

Under the vaulted arches of Café Central, at a table just beside the pièce de résistance that is its cake counter, sits a life-size statue of Altenberg. A key figure in Viennese Impressionism, Altenberg wrote short stories based on observations from his daily life, fragmentary snippets of his encounters and conversations. I’ll leave with you the following excerpt from his anthology Wiener Geschichten, which suggests that the Kaffeehaus is the answer to whatever dilemma, worry, or issue you might possibly have. I’m glad they’re open again then.

KAFFEEHAUS

Du hast Sorgen, sei es diese, sei es jene --- ins Kaffeehaus!

Sie kann, aus irgendeinem, wenn auch noch so plausiblen Grunde, nicht zu dir kommen --- ins Kaffeehaus!

Du hast zerrissene Stiefel --- Kaffeehaus!

Du hast 400 Kronen Gehalt und gibst 500 aus --- Kaffeehaus!

Du bist korrekt sparsam and gönnst Dir nichts --- Kaffeehaus!

Du bist Beamter und wärest gern Arzt geworden --- Kaffeehaus!

Du findest Keine, die Dir paßt --- Kaffeehaus!

Du stehst innerlich vor dem Selbstmord --- Kaffeehaus!

Du haßt und verachtest die Menschen und kannst sie dennoch nicht missen --- Kaffeehaus!

Man kreditiert Dir nirgends mehr --- Kaffeehaus!

– Peter Altenberg, Wiener Geschichten

[1] „Das Wiener Kaffeehaus stellt eine Institution besonderer Art dar, die mit keiner ähnlichen der Welt zu vergleichen ist.“