Robert Pyrah - The Burgtheater and Austrian Identity

THE BURGTHEATER AND AUSTRIAN IDENTITY
THEATRE AND CULTURAL POLITICS IN VIENNA, 1918-38

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Theatre and Cultural Politics in Vienna, 191838

Robert Pyrah

First published 2007

Published by the
Modern Humanities Research Association and Routledge
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LEGENDA is an imprint of the
Modern Humanities Research Association and Routledge

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Modern Humanities Research Association and Taylor & Francis 2007

ISBN 978-1-904350-67-5 (hbk )

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I am grateful to a substantial number of institutions and individuals for their help and advice in writing this book, which began life as a D.Phil. thesis at the University of Oxford. The Arts and Humanities Research Board funded this project for three years, and provided an additional grant towards extended fieldwork in Vienna. Particular gratitude is reserved for my supervisor, Professor Ritchie Robertson, and for the President and Fellows of Magdalen College, my home of some years at Oxford. While there, I received much valuable advice from Professor Richard Sheppard, whose early promptings helped spark an interest in serious academic research. Publication subsidies were generously provided by the Conference of University Teachers of German in Great Britain and Ireland, and by the Austrian Cultural Forum in London. I would like to thank both these institutions, and the Forums director Dr Johannes Wimmer. In Vienna, I was shown kindness and supported by many. I would particularly like to mention Dr Edda Fuhrich of the Institut fr Theater-wissenschaft at the University of Vienna, who gave freely of her time and advice stimulated a number of inspiring discussions, and granted me access to her extensive library of research materials on Austrian theatre between 1918 and 1938. Several archival references and numerous important newspaper articles were derived from this source; by arrangement, I have marked the former in the text, but not the letter, on account of their volume. I would also like to thank Dr Hilde Haider-Pregler of the same Institute; Dr Girid Lot-Schlgl, former curator of the Vienna Volkstheater archive; and Dr Julia Danielczyk of the Wienbibliothek im Rathaus, for their kind gifts and loans of useful books, theses, and CD-Roms. I am also grateful to the archivists and curators of various other institutions: Rita Czapka of the Burgtheater archive, who allowed me to consult a large number of stage manuscripts; the sterreichisches Staatsarchiv; Othmar Barnert, Jarmila Weissenbck, and Dr Christiane Mhlegger of the sterreichisches Theatermuseum; Werner Walkner of the Theater in der Josefstadt archive; Dr Bernhard Fetz and Werner Rotter of the sterreichisches Literaturarchiv; Dr Eberhard Sauermann of the Brenner-Archiv, Innsbruck.

Several supervisory meetings were held in the projects earlier stages with Dr Judith Beniston, of University College London. Judith has also provided comments along the way, which I have tried to acknowledge individually where possible. John Warren has read drafts of some material, given generously of his books, his time, and shared his encyclopaedic knowledge of the cultural scene of interwar Vienna. Jill Hughes and Helen Buchanan of the Taylor Institution in Oxford helped on various occasions with specialist book orders and loans from Vienna.