"Ich bin eine feine Monarchiemischung" : Identitätskonstruktionen in Friedrich Torbergs nicht-fiktionalen Texten

Abstract

This thesis examines the different identities the Austrian Jewish author Friedrich Torberg constructed for himself.  He created his public image in different contexts and used it to support his striving for publicity and influence on cultural-political issues.  The thesis is written in German.

I explore Torberg’s non-fictional texts, such as essays, newspaper articles and letters, both published and unpublished, and analyse the self-image he created in them.  Furthermore, letters and articles by contemporaries about Torberg will also be considered.  The categories of identity construction that are identified in the course of this study are his Jewish identity, his identity as a politically active journalist and that as an author.  The interplay of these identities is particularly useful in determining how identity conflicts or even how contradictions emerge, and how they relate to constants and moments of change in Friedrich Torberg’s biography.

My theoretical approach, which is outlined in the first chapter, is guided by contemporary cultural theory.  I base my analysis on post-modern theories of identity construction by critics such as Laurence Silberstein, Stuart Hall and Jonathan Webber.  They claim that the essentialist notion of cultural identity has been superseded by a non-essentialist one that involves movement and change.

I also refer to Judith Butler’s approach to performance, which is based on Bourdieu’s concept of Habitus.  I will consider the role of the author and the narrator, and how Torberg uses a narrative position in his non-fictional texts to establish values and norms related to particular discourses.  Finally, I will regard register theory to identify varieties in Torberg’s use of language in particular situations.

In the second chapter I analyse Torberg’s Jewish identity.  Torberg aimed at being publicly recognised as an Austrian Jewish writer, mainly in the tradition of the coffeehouse literati of the Habsburg monarchy, and as a cultural-political journalist and literary critic.  Being one of the few Jews who returned to Austria from exile after the end of World War II, Torberg turned himself into what he called "der Jud vom Dienst", the representative Jew.  However, his attitude set him apart from other Jews and provided him with an individual Jewish identity.

 After his return to Austria Torberg established a "political identity" for himself, in order to participate in the discourses of Austrian cultural politics.  He worked for the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) as founder, editor and journalist of the cultural magazine FORVM.  His political identity matched post-war anticommunist tendencies, and in this context he was able to contribute to the "Brecht Boykott".  Chapter three discusses Torberg’s political identity and his specific role in the cultural and political context of post-war Austria.

In chapter four I examine the constituent elements of his identity construction as a writer.  His career as a writer had started quite successfully in 1930 and had been interrupted by the "Anschluss".  By examining letters, essays and his "Arbeitsjournal zum Süßkind-Roman" (Working Diary on the Süßkind Novel) I explain Torberg’s strategies for establishing his identity as a writer in post-war Austria and his vision of an ideal writer’s identity.

In the final chapter I consider to what the extent Torberg succeeded in creating an authentic, coherent identity, and how he used his self images to gain influence and exercise control in Austrian cultural politics.

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