Cultural history of antiquity
The “Cultural History of Antiquity” is an unfinished, three-volume, cultural-historical essay by the writer, actor and cabaret artist Egon Friedell (1878–1938). It is a mirror image of his best-known work, the “ Cultural History of the Modern Era ”, which was originally also published in three volumes. While the cultural history of modern times bears the subtitle “ The Crisis of the European Soul from the Black Plague to the World War ”, the Jew Friedell, who converted to the Protestant faith , gave the “Cultural History of Antiquity” the subtitle “ Life and legend of the pre-Christian soul ”.
Emergence
After the success of the “ Cultural History of the Modern Era ”, the third and last volume of which appeared in November 1931, Friedell began work on another essay on cultural history. In a similar way as in the cultural history of the modern age, he partly resorted to previously published essays, expanded them and added them to the overall works of the cultural history of antiquity . Excerpts from the later chapter in Egypt could already be read in the New Vienna Journal in 1918 , parts of the chapter The Fairy of World History were printed in two editions of the New Free Press in February 1934 .
After Hitler came to power in 1933 , Friedell, who until then had repeatedly appeared as an actor in GB Shaw's “ Kaiser von Amerika ” or in a self-written adaptation of Offenbach's “ Hoffmanns Erzählungen ”, could neither publish nor appear publicly in the German Reich . Therefore, the Munich-based CH Beck Verlag was forced to part with its successful author. Since there was no publisher in Austria either, the first volume of “ Kulturgeschichte des Altertums ” was published under the title “ Kulturgeschichte des Ägyptens und des Alten Orient ” by Helikon-Verlag in Zurich. It was the last significant work to be published during Friedell's lifetime.
In the following years, 1936–1938, Friedell worked on the second volume of the “ Cultural History of Antiquity ”, which was to deal with classical Greece and the Hellenistic epoch . The partially completed, " Hellas " overwritten manuscript was in March 1938 when Friedell from imminent arrest by the SA to suicide elected by jumping out the window, from the grasp of the Gestapo be brought to safety and even before the war by a liaison officer Max Reinhardt , a certain Erwin Goldarbeiter, to be taken abroad. In 1940 it finally appeared in the Norwegian language in occupied Norway , without the German occupation authorities there having taken offense.
In 1950, the text-critical edition of “ Hellas ”, edited by Walther Schneider, was also published in German under the title “ Cultural History of Greece ” , which is still used today, again by CH Beck Verlag. A third chapter intended for the second volume with the title “ The Shadow of Antiquity ” exists as a previously unpublished draft manuscript and, like the manuscripts of the other parts in Friedell's legacy, is in the possession of the literary archive of the Austrian National Library . This last draft was supposed to cover the period of Hellenism , an insert on Jewish history from Antiochus IV and Roman history up to Tiberius .
content
Both volumes together comprise around 830 printed pages in the paperback edition that was first published by dtv in 1981/82 and has since been reissued many times . Of these, about 480 pages relate to the “ Cultural History of Egypt and the Ancient Orient ” and about 350 pages to the unfinished “ Cultural History of Greece ”. The number of printed pages per chapter tapers towards the back. Are the chapter on ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia with 140 or 130 printed pages still in about the same length, the last two chapters cover the first volume about the ancient Israel and the pre-classical Crete only 95 or 50 printed pages.
The first chapter from “ Cultural History of Egypt and the Ancient Orient ” with the title “ The fairy tale of world history ” can now also be read as an insight into the zeitgeist and the intellectual fashions of the interwar period . From a purely literary point of view, Friedell's attempt to sound out the limits and, above all, the beginning of human history in a philosophical and essayistic way, takes up completely untenable catastrophic ideas on the basis of Hanns Hörbiger's erroneous theory of world ice . B. with regard to the flood , alleged serial "moon catches", up to Atlantis . Friedell also rejects the scientifically recognized theory of evolution because to him, as he puts it in essayist-feuilletonistic terms, it appears like the “ chapter division of a zoology textbook ” and therefore completely “ unimaginative ”.
This introduction is followed by chapters on ancient Egypt (“ The Secret of Egypt ”), ancient Mesopotamia (“ The Tower of Babel ”), ancient Israel to the prophets (“ God and Earth ”) as well as an excursus on the Minoan culture in Crete (" The Enchanted Island "). The individual chapters are not presented in chronological order, but rather in a “cultural-historical way” - Friedell largely describes everyday life, the landscape, architecture, literature and language. Friedell, however, offers an introduction to the succession of the Egyptian dynasties and puts these huge periods of time in clear and entertaining relationships, which is one of his strengths as an author.
The two chapters in “ Cultural History of Greece ”, “ Ionian Spring ” and “ World Day Athens ”, on the other hand, are embedded in historical references, although they also serve the genre of cultural history. The presentation begins with the Ionian natural philosophers and extends to the end of the Alexanderzug . There are always digressions into Persian and early Roman history , which Friedell relates to Greek history.
In 2009 Diogenes Verlag published a complete paperback edition under the title Kulturgeschichte des Altertums , which includes the cultural history of Egypt and the ancient Orient and the cultural history of Greece in a single volume.
See also
literature
- Egon Friedell: Cultural History of Egypt and the Ancient Orient , Munich: dtv 1982.
- Egon Friedell: Cultural History of Greece , Munich: dtv 1981.
- Wolfgang Lorenz: Egon Friedell. Moments in the life of an unusual , Bozen: Edition Raetia 1994.
Web link
- Otto H. Urban, early historian on Egon Friedell and prehistory