Цвайг

In 1942, the world-famous writer Stefan Zweig committed suicide in Brazil at the age of sixty-one. The reasons for this, as is often the case with the suicides of true artists, were of a spiritual nature. The writer outlined them in his deathbed confession. Here they are: "To begin my life again at the age of sixty - this requires special strength. And mine have been exhausted during the long years of homeless wanderings. That is why I think it is best to leave life in due time and with dignity, in which the supreme good for me was personal freedom and intellectual work that gave me immense joy. I congratulate all my friends. It is possible that they will see the dawn after this long night. I, the most impatient, am leaving earlier than them. Amidst the fanfare of military victories, amidst the bristled human hatred, this death of the great writer seemed to pass unnoticed. But it echoed painfully in the hearts of many people scattered on both sides of the trenches. It reminded them of the past gentle joys of the spirit, of the enthusiastic meetings with bright human characters, of the undying beauty of the human word. In the atmosphere of mass murders, which seems to oppress and dull sensitivity, sadness according to the beloved writer, it was too personal, too intimate and tender.

Few are left of those writers who forty or fifty years ago took a direct part in the creation of a great critical-realist literature in Germany. More of the great writers are now deceased - we mourn the loss of Heinrich and Thomas Mann, Feuchtwanger, Döblin, Hesse, Leonhard Frank, and also Brecht, Becher and Wolf. Born in 1887 - the above-mentioned writers were either born shortly before him or were his contemporaries - Arnold Zweig knew them all and accompanied them in their aspirations; a ray of the radiance of this great age of art and enlightenment falls on him. He is one of its last torchbearers, a writer in whom spiritual breadth, traditionalism and a connection with the future are happily combined.