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Zweig and Rolland: The Literary and Personal Relationship

1953; Routledge; Volume: 28; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/19306962.1953.11786701

1930-6962

William H. McClain, Harry Zohn,

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size NotesStefan Zweig, Die Welt von gestern (Stockholm, 1944), p. 279.We wish at this time to express our gratitude to Madame Marie Romain Rolland for graciously granting permission both to consult these letters and to quote from them in this study.Stefan and Friderike Zweig, Briefwechsel 1912–1942 (Bern, 1951), p. 181.A. Vallentin, “Stefan Zweig,” Europe, XXV (October 1947), 55.“Wir hatten nur einen einzigen Mahner unter uns, einen einzigen weit vorausblickenden Erkenner; doch das Merkwürdigste war, daß er mitten unter uns lebte und wir von ihm lange nichts wußten, von diesem uns vom Schicksal als Führer eingesetzten Mann. Für mich war es einer der entscheidenden Glücksfälle, daß ich ihn mir noch in letzter Stunde entdeckte”—S. Zweig, Die Welt von gestern, p. 233.This and all subsequent quotations from the letters of Zweig and Rolland are taken from the as yet unpublished volume of correspondence in the archives of the Association des Amis de Romain Rolland, Paris.S. Zweig, Romain Rolland (Frankfurt a. M., 1921), pp.189–90.Ibid., p. 193.In its issue of September 2, 1914, the Journal de Geneve printed Rolland’s letter to Hauptmann, prefacing it by Zweig’s open letter to Rolland which had appeared in the Berliner Tageblatt of December 22, 1912 (in the French translation which Paul Seippel had used in his Rolland biography). Rolland later included his letter to Hauptmann in his Au-dessus de la mêlée (Paris, 1915), pp. 5–8.Erwin Rieger included this letter in full in his book, Stefan Zweig: der Mann und das Werk (Berlin, 1928), pp. 63–70. One of Zweig’s French friends polemicized against this letter in the Mercure de France. This supposed attack served as the pretext for reprinting a complete French translation of Zweig’s words—which had been the intention all along!In view of Rolland’s uncompromising stand, it is not surprising that he should have been attacked in Germany, Austria, and France alike. In the former two countries he was defended by a mere handful of friends including Zweig, Otto Grautoff, Hermann Hesse, and Fritz von Unruh. His articles were carried chiefly by the Swiss review Wissen und Leben, by Das Forum, and by the Vienna Neue Freie Presse. In his own country Rolland had few supporters. Zweig names those who stood by him: Dunois, Deprès, Pioch, Renaitour, Rouanet, Mesnil, Thiesson, Martinet, Severine, and Capy. In Geneva Rolland’s friends were Jouve, Baudoin, Masereel, Guilbeaux, Debris, and de Maguet.S. Zweig, Romain Rolland, p. 218. Rolland himself speaks of this campaign against hatred in a letter to Zweig from Beauséjour, March 15, 1915: “J’ai eu de cruelles attaques à subir; elles deviennent, chaque jour, plus violentes, et je suis, chaque jour, plus isolé. Mais je continue ma route. La politique n’est pas mon affaire. Mais ce qui est mon affaire, c’est la pensée, et c’est l’amour. Je ne combats point la guerre (elle n’est pas de mon domaine); mais je combats la haine.”In his letter of April 15, 1915, Rolland proposes to Zweig that they embark on a similar campaign to further international understanding in the postwar years: “Je pense souvent à ce que nous devrons faire après la guerre—si nous sommes encore de ce monde. Une grande oeuvre, qui dépasse tous les projets politiques et artistiques. Une oeuvre apostolique d’union universelle. Le grand coeur de Tolstoi, avec une raison plus riebe et nourrie, plus de calme aussi, plus de lumière. Une Eglise de toutes les églises. Une Élite de toutes les élites (et de toutes les classes). De toutes les parties du monde je sens (chez quelques-uns) monter les mêmes aspirations fraternelles. Dans toutes les parties du monde j’ai des frères plus proches que s’ils étaient de mon sang. Une puissante ère religieuse commence (‘religieuse’ au sens propre: ‘qui relie les hommes’).”Zweig, Die Welt von gestern, p. 231. In his biography of Rolland Zweig writes (p. 232) : “Ohne ihn, ohne das Genie seiner Freundschaft, das Bindende seiner Natur, das mit zarter, wissender und gütiger Hand uns verknüpfte, hätten wir nie die Freiheit, die Sicherheit unseres Wesens gefunden. Jeder liebte ihn anders, und alle verehrten ihn gleich: die Franzosen den reinsten geistigen Ausdruck ihrer Heimat, wir den wunderbaren Gegenpol unserer besten Welt …. In seiner Nähe fühlte man sich im Herzen des wahren Europa.” Zweig had already used the same metaphor, “the heart of Europe,” in an essay written in December of 1917 which gives a touching account of Zweig’s visit to the Red Cross Building in Geneva where Rolland had worked. “Hier hatte Romain Rolland mehr als zwei Jahre tagtäglich und unermüdlich freiwillig im Dienste des deutsch-französischen Gefangenenaustausches gearbeitet. Und als mitten in dieser Tätigkeit der Nobel-Preis im Betrage von fast einer Viertelmillion ihm zufiel, stellte er ihn bis zum letzten Franken wohltätigem Wirken zur Verfügung, damit sein Wort die Tat und die Tat sein Wort bezeuge. Ecce homo! Ecce poeta!”—S. Zweig, Begegnungen mit Menschen, Büchern, Städten (Vienna, 1937), p. 215. The essay originally appeared in Zurich in 1918.This essay was later included in Les Précurseurs, where the above quotation appears on p. 128.O. Grautoff, Romain Rolland (Frankfurt a. M., 1914), p. 36.F. Braun, “Erwin Riegers Stefan Zweig,” Die Literatur, XXXI (October 1928), 51.Rolland found much support und understanding in the person of Carl Spitteler who shared his pan-European views. The first comprehensive Rolland biography was that of the Swiss writer Paul Seippel, Romain Rolland: l’homme et l’oeuvre, Paris, 1913. The first book on Rolland in German was published by Grautoff in 1914. It is largely a discussion of Jean-Christophe, from which the author quotes copiously and which he uses as a point of departure for an evaluation of Rolland’s stature and of his message to Germany. About one-third of the work is devoted to a discussion of Rolland and Germany. Germans know France very imperfectly, Grautoff points out, and the reverse is also true. Since Madame de Staël no Frenchman has attempted a picture of German spiritual life on the scale of Rolland’s great work, and he may thus be accredited with having finally bridged the great gap between the two nations and with having interpreted the two to one another in a masterful way. Writing on the eve of World War I, Grautoff states: “Auch Deutschland wird jetzt nicht länger zögern, den größten und freiesten Europäer unserer Zeit zu grüßen; denn er gehört in seinem kräftigen Idealismus der ganzen Welt; er gehört auch uns”—p. 36.Some of the chief translators of Rolland’s works into German were Otto and Erna Grautoff (Jean-Christophe, Colas Breugnon); O. R. Sylvester (Vie de Tolstoy); Wilhelm Herzog (Les loups, Danton, Michelange); Paul Amann (Pierre et Luce); and Emil Roniger (Mahatma Gandhi).S. Zweig, Romain Rolland, p. 247.Ibid., p. 252.Published in 1921 by Rütten und Loening, Frankfurt a.M. A third, augmented edition appeared in 1926.Ibid., Preface.Ibid.The end of the war, Zweig recalls, found enmities, hatreds, and chauvinistic passions still raging unabated everywhere, and Rolland saw in face of these conditions the need for a strong moral stand. He issued first an appeal to President Wilson for the expression of such a stand in the sphere of politics (“Lettre ouverte au Président Wilson,” Les Précurseurs, pp. 216–18). He followed this vain appeal with a manifesto entitled “ Déclaration de l’indépendance de l’esprit” which was published in Humanité on the day of the signing of the peace treaty, in March 1919. Hundreds of intellectuals, scientists, writers, philosophers, theologians, later subscribed to this manifesto which sought once more to rally the intellectuals of all nations around the idea of international brotherhood. Zweig hailed this manifesto as signalling the realization of “Die unsichtbare europäische Republik des Geistes inmitten der Völker … das Allvaterland.” Zweig calls all those who endorse Rolland’s manifesto true citizens of the world, guardians of the spiritual heritage of all peoples, at home in all nations and in both past and future. By the time of its appearance in Les Précurseurs (1919) Rolland’s “Déclaration” had been signed by 126 eminent Europeans. In addition to Zweig, notable representatives of the German-speaking world were Albert Einstein, Leonhard Frank, Ivan Goll, Wilhelm Herzog, Hermann Hesse, Käthe Kollwitz, Heinrich Mann, G.-Fr . Nicolai, Fritz von Unruh, and Franz Werfel.S. Zweig, Romain Rolland, p. 265.Rolland proclaims this ideal in the introduction to his collection of essays, Par la Révolution, la Paix, which appeared in 1935. It will be his preoccupation henceforth, he tells us, to harmonize the two forms of revolutionary action represented in our age by India and Russia: non-violence and social revolution (p. 16). It is interesting to note here parenthetically that Rolland’s sister, Madeleine, was in the forefront of European efforts to secure freedom for India and that she was hence in constant contact with Hindu leaders. During his unsuccessful visit to Europe Gandhi stayed for a few days at the Rollands’ Villa Olga on Lake Geneva.In Erwin Rieger’s German translation the dedication reads: “Dem Freien im Geiste, dem Europa die Heimat und Freundschaft Religion bedeutet. Stefan Zweig, der mir die Feder in die Hand drückte, um das Heldengedicht der Revolution fortzusetzen, widme ich liebevoll dieses Stück, das ihm sein Entstehen verdankt.”Stefan and Friderike Zweig, Briefwechsel, p. 181.This is Rolland’s own interpretation of the verses as expressed in the essay “Goethe: Meurs et Deviens!” Compagnons de raute, p. 106.R. Rolland, L’Âme Enchantée, Mère et Fils, II, 238–39.Among the more outstanding names are those of René Arcos, Hermann Bahr, Léon Bazalgette, Johan Bojer, Georg Brandes, Ernst Robert Curtius, Albert Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi, Sigmund Freud, Waldo Frank, Hermann Hesse, Ellen Key, Annette Kolb, Selma Lagerlöf, Andreas Latzko, Roger Martin du Gard, Arthur Schnitzler, Albert Schweitzer, Upton Sinclair, Richard Strauss, Rabindranath Tagore, Ernst Toller, Miguel de Unamuno, H. G. Wells, and Israel Zangwill.Liber Amicorum Romain Rolland, p . 388. Zweig wrote on Rolland on a number of other occasions. The article “Romain Rolland, el hombre y la obra” in the Mexican journal Universidad of April 1936 briefly traces Rolland’s life and works for the Mexican public. In honor of Rolland’s seventieth birthday Zweig contributed to the symposium, “Hommage à Romain Rolland,” published in Commune. Terming Rolland “l’homme qui a donné à notre génération le plus grand exemple d’indépendance humaine et de liberté spirituelle,” Zweig goes on to state that Rolland was too free a spirit to be bound to any schools or movements or to approve of any rigid ideology: “Rolland nous a donné la plus haute preuve de son indépendance d’esprit en se refusant à former des disciples et des adeptes”—Commune, III (March 1936), 795. It is interesting to note that even in this article which appeared in a communist periodical Zweig cites the quality in Rolland, his independence of spirit, which kept him from becoming a fellow traveller and an all-out adherent of Russian communism.“Il représente dans les lettres allemandes, avec le plus d’éclat et une fidélité constante, l’esprit européen, les plus hautes traditions d’art et d’intelligence de la vieille Allemagne…. Il est un des plus purs artistes d’Allemagne, un poète et un nouvelliste de la ligne des Goethe, des Gottfried Keller et des Hermann Hesse. Il importe que la France n’oublie point tout ce que Stefan Zweig a été pour elle: pour son art le parfait traducteur et critique, rien ne lui est étrange, aucune forme d’art, aucune forme de la vie”—Rolland, Preface to Zweig’s Amok, Paris, 1927.This letter was later printed in Les Précurseurs where it appears under the title, “A la Russie libre et libératrice,” pp. 39–40.In the prologue to his Quinze Ans de Combat Rolland tells how his readings in Karl Marx were most helpful in the final overcoming of his objections to communism from the humanistic point of view.Originally in the form of a series of articles in the Neue Freie Presse, this account now appears in the collection of Zweig’s writings entitled Zeit und Welt (Stockholm, 1946), pp. 203–45.