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Encounters and Destinies: A Farewell to Europe
by Stefan Zweig (Author),
Will Stone (Translator) Format: Kindle Edition
4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars (34)
A new collection of essays by Stefan Zweig: tributes to the great artists and thinkers of the Europe of his day
Stefan Zweig was a born eulogist. In this collection of powerful elegies, homages and personal memories, Zweig forms a richly interconnected portrait of key creative figures in the European cultural diaspora up to 1939. Many of those mourned or celebrated here cast a long spiritual shadow over Zweig's own writing life: Verhaeren, Rolland, Nietzsche, Roth, Mahler, Rilke and Freud.
Zweig's farewells, souvenirs and declarations of gratitude demonstrate his ardent pan-Europeanism and rich friendships across borders. Elegant and haunting, these tributes are a monument to his reverence for the arts and his belief in the sacredness of individualism.
Print length
257 pages
4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars (34)
A new collection of essays by Stefan Zweig: tributes to the great artists and thinkers of the Europe of his day
Stefan Zweig was a born eulogist. In this collection of powerful elegies, homages and personal memories, Zweig forms a richly interconnected portrait of key creative figures in the European cultural diaspora up to 1939. Many of those mourned or celebrated here cast a long spiritual shadow over Zweig's own writing life: Verhaeren, Rolland, Nietzsche, Roth, Mahler, Rilke and Freud.
Zweig's farewells, souvenirs and declarations of gratitude demonstrate his ardent pan-Europeanism and rich friendships across borders. Elegant and haunting, these tributes are a monument to his reverence for the arts and his belief in the sacredness of individualism.
Print length
257 pages
===
Review
'Encounters and Destinies... capture(s) a special moment in modern European culture, caught for posterity on the eve of catastrophe.' -- The Jewish Chronicle
'Zweig's accumulated historical and cultural studies [are] almost too impressive to take in.' -- Clive James
About the Author
Stefan Zweig was one of the most popular and widely translated writers of the early twentieth century. Born into an Austrian-Jewish family in 1881, he became a leading figure in Vienna's cosmopolitan cultural world and was famed for his gripping novellas and vivid psychological biographies.
In 1934, following the Nazis' rise to power, Zweig fled Austria, first for England, where he wrote his famous novel Beware of Pity, then the United States and finally Brazil. It was here that he completed his acclaimed autobiography The World of Yesterday, a lament for the golden age of a Europe destroyed by two world wars. The articles and speeches in Messages from a Lost World were written as Zweig, a pacifist and internationalist, witnessed this destruction and warned of the threat to his beloved Europe. On 23 February 1942, Zweig and his second wife Lotte were found dead, following an apparent double suicide.
Publication date : 27 August 2020
Print length : 257 pages
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From other countries
Richard Pearson
5.0 out of 5 stars A splendid addition to my library of Stefan Zweig books.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 November 2020
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Thoroughly enjoyable.
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K.S.
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful thoughtful book
Reviewed in the United States on 22 April 2025
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Wonderful book. Enjoy it.
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Yogendra Kumar
4.0 out of 5 stars .
Reviewed in India on 27 July 2023
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Good.
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everyman
5.0 out of 5 stars A writer without peer
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 November 2020
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8stitches 9lives
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October 24, 2020
A new collection of essays by Stefan Zweig: tributes to the great artists and thinkers of the Europe of his day. Stefan Zweig was one of the twentieth century's greatest authors and a tireless champion of freedom, tolerance and friendship across borders. Encounters and Destinies collects his most impassioned and moving tributes to his many illustrious friends and peers: literary, philosophical and artistic luminaries from across the Old Europe that Zweig loved so much, and which he grieved to see so cruelly destroyed by two world wars.
Including pieces on Rainer Maria Rilke, Marcel Proust, Sigmund Freud, Maxim Gorky and Arturo Toscanini, this essential collection is also Zweig's tribute to the ideal of friendship: an ideal he clung to as the world he knew was torn apart. This is a compelling and emotionally resonant anthology of eminently readable essays. In his most personal collection to date, Zweig writes straight from the heart. There's both vulnerability and strength here. It is a paean or love letter to the Europe Zweig adored and the people who inhabited it. Many thanks to Pushkin for an ARC.
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Theediscerning
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August 25, 2020
Pushkin, the publishers, seem to have taken it on themselves to produce in English every single word penned by Stefan Zweig. As a result, they will now and again come up with books that the general browser on the average bus would probably leave behind on the seat next to them – and this is one; a selection of obituaries, tribute essays and other pieces for the creative people Zweig held dear. Truly half the people thus honoured by a place on these pages they will not have heard of (Emile Verhaeren, most notably, in the second and the longest-by-far section of this book, and point out a commuter with working knowledge of von Hofmannsthal and Toscanini to me and it'll be an Oxbridge don walking back up to her garret).
But for the erudite people who leave the likes of me way behind, this will be a welcome edition to their shelves. And these essays do have a power and a connection with the much-loved. The opener, concerning Mahler, nicely conveys how the power of the man is left in the concert halls he once premiered his pieces in, and how everyone is left wanting now he's gone; the tribute to Gorky is most forceful – if you're not particularly anti-Bolshevik, that is. We cover so many inter-War years we get to see the urge to stand as a creative bulwark against the tide of Nazism and the darkness gearing up to the Second World War. I think though, my reference to the "much-loved" is key here, for generally the people most eager to have read a bit of these pages are the people it pays tribute to, who of course remained ignorant of its contents – and those six or so people in the world likewise intent on getting the full Zweig oeuvre in English. The rest of us will be a little non-plussed by much of this – especially as so much is opinion and not the objective, biographical, obituary detail one might wish for.
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Radwa
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November 22, 2022
This is basically a book of eulogies of famous European people Setfan Zweif was friends or acquainted with, and to be honest I thought after the first one that I won't rreally care for it, but it grew on me, mainly and chiefly because of his writing style.
I won't deny that I was more interested in the essays about figures I knew a little something about or heard of before like Rilke or Nitsche, but most of the figures here I didn't know, and yet I enjoyed his love for them. because that's the whole appeal of the book, he writes about them with such love and respect, that it's hard not to feel the same for them. Also, he really can write so very well.
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Ashley
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January 4, 2021
A book of essays is not the type of reading I generally gravitate towards first, but Stefan Zweig has the power to captivate you and make virtually anything he writes fascinating and beautiful. Take his biography of Mary Queen of Scots for instance - absolutely first rate! Really enjoyed this and it also exposed me to a lot of other works of his contemporaries that I want to check out
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Muaz Jalil
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July 15, 2025
With everything bleak around the world, Zweig's pathos and genuine melancholia about the state of the world resonate most with my current state of mind. In the piece on Varhaeren, he captures the utter futility and cost of war and how it turns us into monsters.
This is a collection of his short write-ups about key literary intellectuals circa 1914-1940s. They are like eulogies.
In the piece on Proust, Zweig discusses how the author's ill health from childhood was instrumental in making him hyper-observant and focused on social details. Zweig already bemoans the distraction-obsessed world (my god, how scathing he would have been of our modern world).
BTW, I did not know Gorky means bitter, and his original name is Peshkov.
The book also has pieces on Freud, Rilke, and Joyce.
The book also introduced me to Arthur Schnitzler, whose diaries I must read. His book was turned into Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut.
Also, I was introduced to Drinkwater, the Dymock Poets
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Telemachus
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July 17, 2022
The point isn’t the objective facts about the people of whom Zweig has written. The point is Zweig’s exuberantly expressed love for them. The best part is his piece about Verhaeren.
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Carlton
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February 21, 2021
Disclaimer: I bought this as I wanted to read Zweig, but more importantly I wanted to read his address to the funeral service of Joseph Roth.
It is strange to read these eulogies to those whose fame lives on, such as Mahler (where Zweig only knew him as a contemporary), or not, such as Verhaeren (unknown to me, but a very famous poet before the First World War and a personal friend of Zweig who translated his poems into German). These aren’t obituaries or biographies, which I had mistakenly assumed would be the case. The language used is that of the panegyric, which reads as very over the top to this modern sensibility.
However there are insights into the times from Zweig’s descriptions of both the mundanities of contemporary life, and also of larger events, such as reference to Zeppelins and the rush back from holidaying in Belgium to Germany before the outbreak of the First World War in the long essay about Verhaeren.
The funeral oration for Joseph Roth is more biographical than the other pieces (albeit brief), and considers Roth a threefold personality, combining Russian, Jewish and Austrian sensibilities.: The Jewish sensibility created his novel Job, his Austrian sensibility creating The Radetzky March (which I consider a masterpiece) and The Emperor’s Tomb, but then the triumph of Nazism in Germany and Austria driving Roth to an alcoholic despair (characterised as Russian), and an early death. The cry for a cultural “forward defence position” made at the end of the oration is tragic, given our knowledge of Zweig’s subsequent suicide.
This is a book for the completist, but is rewarding if appreciated on its own limited terms.
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Elisa
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August 25, 2020
Who says that time travel is impossible? Reading this book transported me to Europe in the years before WWI and what Google tells me is called the Interwar Period. Our guide is Stefan Zweig, whom I knew by name and reputation, but had never read before. This is the perfect introduction to the author, as it’s a series of essays and obituaries about his friends. You may have heard of said friends? Mahler, Rilke, Toscanini, Freud, Gorky and Proust. Others, I honestly had never heard of, but the pieces are beautiful. Even if they were unknown to me, I was invested in their lives. The longest piece, about a poet named Emile Verhaeren, is such a lovely snapshot of life in France right before and at the beginning of WWI that the inevitable ending is all the more devastating. Another favorite was A Farewell to John Drinkwater, a poet and actor that I’d never heard of, but had to learn more about after reading Zweig’s text. Last but not least, the piece about Proust made me learn a little more about him. These are hugely famous and influential people who turn into normal human beings seen through Zweig’s eyes. The translation by Will Stone is easy to follow. For history buffs and lovers of poetry.
I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, NetGalley/Pushkin Press!
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January 23, 2023
"And the memories, how can they ever hold back those sacred floods which in warm waves overflow the heart? The present might destroy our senseless world, perhaps the future might even darken and cast a shadow, but the past remains inviolable to all and her loveliest days shine forth like candlelight into the darkness of our own days..."
Zweig has very quickly climbed up the ladder and become one of my favorite authors. Through this collection of elegies, letters and personal memories, we got to see another facet of Zweig's life and personality. Admittedly, I didn't know most of the artists he was dedicating these writing to, but I still very much enjoyed being swept away by Zweig's elegant and beautifully constructed prose. Compared to his fictional work, his writing here felt more emotional and authentic, more heartfelt and intense. Also, reading about all these poets, musicians, sculptors relentlessly pursued the art they believe in despite tough circumstances, like deteriorating health and difficult political climate made me have so much respect for them. :")
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Annarella
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November 3, 2020
Stefan Zweig was a great author and this memories of his contemporaries is poignant and fascinating.
I was moved by his words about Rilke, one of my favorite poets, and loved all his portraits.
An excellent read, strongly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine
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Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe film
| Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe | |
|---|---|
 Film poster | |
| Directed by | Maria Schrader |
| Written by | Maria Schrader Jan Schomburg |
| Starring | Josef Hader Barbara Sukowa |
Release date |
|
Running time | 106 minutes |
| Countries | Austria Germany France |
| Language | German |
| Box office | $640,893[1] |
Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe (German: Vor der Morgenröte) is a 2016 internationally co-produced drama film directed and co-written by Maria Schrader.[2] It was listed as one of eight films that could be the German submission for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 89th Academy Awards, but it was not selected.[3] However, it was later chosen as the Austrian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 89th Academy Awards, but it was not nominated.[4][5]
Cast
- Josef Hader as Stefan Zweig
- Aenne Schwarz as Lotte Zweig
- Barbara Sukowa as Friderike Zweig
- Tómas Lemarquis as Lefèvre
- Lenn Kudrjawizki as Samuel Malamud
- Charly Hübner as Emil Ludwig
- Nahuel Pérez Biscayart as Vitor D'Almeida
- Harvey Friedman as Friedman
- Valerie Pachner as Alix Störk
- Matthias Brandt as Ernst Feder
- Ivan Shvedoff as Halpern Leivick
- Daniel Puente Encina as Sadler
Reception
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 93% based on 29 reviews, with an average rating of 7/10.[6] On Metacritic, it has a weighted average rating of 75 out of 100, based on 8 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[7]
See also
- List of submissions to the 89th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film
- List of Austrian submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
References
- "Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe". Box Office Mojo. IMDb. Retrieved 9 September 2016.
- Hopewell, John (3 August 2016). "Films Distribution Rolls Out Pre-Sales on 'Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe'". Variety. Penske Business Media. Retrieved 5 August 2016.
- Roxborough, Scott (3 August 2016). "'Toni Erdmann,' 'Fritz Bauer' Among German Oscar Hopefuls". The Hollywood Reporter. Prometheus Global Media. Retrieved 4 August 2016.
- "Österreich schickt "Vor der Morgenröte" ins Rennen um Auslandsoscar". Der Standard. STANDARD Verlagsgesellschaft. 6 September 2016. Retrieved 6 September 2016.
- Roxborough, Scott (6 September 2016). "Oscars: Austria Selects 'Stefan Zweig' for Foreign-Language Category". The Hollywood Reporter. Prometheus Global Media. Retrieved 6 September 2016.
- "Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe (2017)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved 13 July 2018.
- "Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
External links
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