Alexander Lernet-Holenia(1897-1976)
- Writer
The author of 25 plays, 24 novels, many short stories, novellas, poetry
collections, essays, biographies, translations, radio and television
plays, Alexander Lernet-Holenia ranks among the most important of 20th century Austrian
authors. A former imperial officer and nobleman, his work focuses on
the related concepts of Austrian national identity, Central European
culture, and monarchy. Throughout his wide ranging oeuvre, he conveys
the image of an Austria haunted by the social and political elements of
the lost Austro-Hungarian Empire. Lernet-Holenia avoided active
political involvement in interwar Austria, but his novels and novellas
of that period display a longing for the Hapsburg world and warn of
Communism and Nazism. Except for his popular stage comedies and his
poetry, much of his work was banned after the 1938 Anschluss of Austria
to Nazi Germany. Having been wounded serving as an officer in the
German army during the 1939 attack on Poland, Lernet-Holenia removed
himself from service, worked briefly in the film industry in Berlin
(where his original concept for Die große Liebe (1942) was turned in to one of the
greatest successes in German cinema), and then withdrew to his home in
St. Wolfgang (Austria). There he wrote, "Mars im Widder, " (1941)
considered to be the only Austrian resistance novel published (and
immediately ordered withdrawn and distroyed by Nazi Propaganda Minister
Goebbels) in the Third Reich. Following the war, Lernet-Holenia married
Eva Vollbach and explored the Austrian role in the 1938 Anschluss in
his prose. His critical sympathy for the Old Order and provocative
mocking of postwar Austrian society and politics also reflect the
ongoing personal identity crisis of the author. Lernet-Holenia's works
continue to offer potent subject matter for international film and
television.