In his latest publication Chronik der laufenden Entgleisungen Thomas Köck talks about the rise of right-wing populism in Austria and Germany and the intensification of social debates, where he meets Stefan Zweig, who addressed a similar topic 100 years earlier in his political essay Das große Schweigen and other works. As part of the literary-political journey from the past via the present into the future, Birgit Minichmayr will also read from Stefan Zweig’s History of Tomorrow and The Mission of Intellectuals . Shortly before the National Council elections in Austria on 29 September 2024, this evening is intended to provide food for thought.
Chronicle of ongoing derailments
On 29 September 2024, Austria will elect a new National Council, and the election campaign has long since begun. Thomas Köck keeps a record of the everyday political aberrations: Knives are sharpened at election rallies and journalists are put in headlocks on camera, while Austrian activists of the New Right give lectures on mass deportations in Germany and collect donations from bourgeois circles. Köck can barely keep up with his protocol of the (linguistic) escalation. But he does not stop at bookkeeping: drawing on questions of class, origin and economics, he tries to understand how Austria could become the prototype of right-wing subject formation in Europe. The result is an angry, at times ironically biting intervention in an election year in which Herbert Kickl could become the first far-right chancellor in Austria since 1945.
Journey from the World of Yesterday to the World of Today
In cooperation with the Stefan Zweig Center in Salzburg and the Austrian Society for Literature, the European Capital of Culture Region is offering high-quality readings of his critical writings and speeches on the topic.
More about the project at salzkammergut-2024.at
