- Person
- Stefan Zweig
- Lived
- 1881–1942
- Field
- Literature
- From
- Austrian
The story
Stefan Zweig was fascinated by history and by the moments when individual choices changed the course of events. In his preface to Sternstunden der Menschheit, often called Decisive Moments in History in English, he described such fateful hours as rare moments in which a decision that outlasts its time is compressed into a single date, a single hour, often a single minute. He called them Sternstunden, star hours, because like stars they shine on through the night of transience.
The book first appeared at the end of 1927 as a small volume of five historical miniatures in the popular Insel-Bücherei series from the Leipzig publisher Insel, a series Zweig himself had helped to inspire. Two more pieces were added in 1936, and further stories after his death, so that modern editions contain fourteen.
Each piece brings a single moment to life with the vividness of a novella, drawing on Zweig's gift for psychological storytelling. The stories include Marshal Grouchy's fatal hesitation at Waterloo, Goethe's late love that produced his Marienbad Elegy, the ruin of the Swiss settler Johann Sutter in the California gold rush, Dostoevsky's last-minute reprieve before a firing squad, and Robert Scott's tragic race to the South Pole. They are not historical analyses but dramatic retellings, and Zweig sometimes shaped the facts to fit his heroic view of history.
The book made history accessible and exciting for general readers. The Austria-Forum biography counts it among the best-selling books of its time, and the original Insel edition is still in print. It appeared in English in 1940 as The Tide of Fortune: Twelve Historical Miniatures, and it was translated again in 2013 by Anthea Bell as Shooting Stars, bringing Zweig's historical miniatures to a new audience of English readers.
Together with his biographies of figures such as Marie Antoinette and Mary, Queen of Scots, it helped make Zweig one of the most popular authors of his time, read for both its storytelling and its humane view of the past. Nearly a century after they first appeared, his star hours are still read in many languages.
Why it matters
Zweig's historical miniatures have introduced countless readers to the drama of history and the impact individuals can have on it.
About Stefan Zweig
Viennese Jewish novelist and biographer, among the world’s most translated writers of the interwar years, whose exile memoir The World of Yesterday mourns a lost Europe.
More about Stefan Zweig
- Stefan Zweig's Chess Story became his most-read workWritten in exile in 1941, Stefan Zweig's Chess Story (Schachnovelle) became his most successful and most widely read work, inspiring several films.
- Zweig championed tolerance through Erasmus and CastellioIn exile from the Nazis, Stefan Zweig wrote biographies of Erasmus (1934) and of Sebastian Castellio, A Conscience Against Violence (1936), celebrating tolerance against fanaticism.
- Zweig's manuscript collection is at the British LibraryStefan Zweig assembled a great collection of autograph manuscripts, including Mozart's handwritten catalogue of his works. His heirs donated it to the British Library in 1986.
- Stefan Zweig worked for peace and European understandingAfter the First World War, Stefan Zweig became a pacifist who worked for understanding between European countries and lasting peace, long before European unity had institutions.
- Stefan Zweig wrote the libretto for a Richard Strauss operaStefan Zweig wrote the libretto for Richard Strauss's opera Die schweigsame Frau. At the 1935 Dresden premiere Strauss refused to remove Zweig's name from the programme.
- Zweig's The World of Yesterday preserved a lost EuropeStefan Zweig's memoir The World of Yesterday, sent to his publisher in 1942, has been called the most famous book on the Habsburg Empire.
Sources
- Stefan Zweig Wikipedia
- Sternstunden der Menschheit Wikipedia (German)
- Zweig, Stefan Austria-Forum
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.