Teta Joleschová aneb Zánik západní civilizace v židovských anekdotách – Torberg Friedrich (2013)

In Aunt Jolesch's, Friedrich Torberg introduces us to the café life of Prague and Vienna in the 1920s and 1930s, where the cozy and tolerant culture of multi-national old Austria still survives, where the middle class still considers themselves fellow citizens and spends incredible thousands of hours (often until morning) in friendly discussions about people, culture, and the state of the world. Here, the now-extinct conversational art of repartee was cultivated – immediate, quick, and above all, witty responses. As Torberg's anecdotes demonstrate, the renowned and infamous Jewish eloquence, self-irony, and self-defensive humor undoubtedly excelled in this environment, not least because Jews lost the protection of the old monarchy. A bon mot or epigram can only arise in such a colorful community. Indeed: in a remarkable symbiosis, the world of merchants and procurators intertwines with writers and artists of all kinds in the cafés of that time, and the late bloom of Austrian culture after the First World War has its collective roots, often Jewish and Czech, right here: Stefan Zweig, Rainer Maria Rilke, Karl Kraus, Peter Altenberg, Leo Perutz, Franz Werfel, Robert Musil – to name just a few of the most prominent. The world of Austrian cafés has vanished, the legendary Tante Jolesch is gone, but the wit endures.