…Austria-Hungary.
"Joseph Roth's magnum opus, The Radetzky March, is perhaps one of the greatest novels that emerged out of the carnage of the First World War describing the dying days of Habsburg rule in Central Europe. It is also one of the most melancholy tales ever written in the German language. Roth vividly portrays the decline and death of an empire that has outlived its time by telling the story of the ill-omened Trotta family, whose sad end—like in a Greek tragedy—is preordained.
The fragility of life in general and political institutions in particular is naturally, most acutely felt during times of profound social upheaval. Times of upheaval, however, also offer a unique vantage point for authors to observe change; "The owl of Minerva only takes flight at dusk," as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel famously stated. Consequently, Roth's The Radetzky March provides a rare perspective on the old Europe prior and during "the great seminal catastrophe" of the twentieth century.
Joseph Roth was born in 1894 in Brody, modern-day Western Ukraine, which was then part of the easternmost province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria. He studied in Vienna, served in the Habsburg army, witnessed the dissolution of the empire, became a writer, moved from Berlin to Paris, and finally succumbed to alcoholism in 1939. Talking about his life, Roth notes: "My strongest experience was the War and the destruction of my fatherland, the only one I ever had, the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary."…"
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