Habsburg culture is back in vogue

IN HIS novel “The Radetzky March”, published in 1932, Joseph Roth traces the changing fortunes of the Trotta family amid the demise of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. “People lived on memories,” Roth writes of the era before the first world war, “just as now they live by the capacity to forget quickly and completely.” To the Trottas, life seems to be accelerating; nationalism, militarism and class antagonism are rife. Rumour runs amok. Little wonder that Vienna’s Burgtheater recently staged a version of the story. “We thought it fit the times we live in,” says Johan Simons, the play’s Dutch director.

This reinterpretation of Roth’s novel is one instance of a widespread interest in the art and style of the old Habsburg empire. Last year, for example, Arthur Schnitzler’s play “La Ronde”, set in Vienna in the 1890s, was staged in London; Federico Tiezzi, an Italian director, is reinterpreting a series of Schnitzler’s works outside Florence. “Morir”, a Spanish film released last year, was also inspired by him.