Austrian Social Democratic Women's Committee, 1904
The woman at the far right in the photograph above is Charlotte Glas, who is portrayed as the character Therese Golowski in Schnitzler’s novel (and in our play). Glas was a leader of Austria’s Social Democratic Party, wrote for the Party’s newspaper, and she and Schnitzler became friends in the 1890s. She was a skilled political organizer and public speaker who gave lectures on social democracy and also addressed political rallies. Glas believed that the Social Democratic Party had the capacity to bring together the Empire’s quite dissimilar, and often feuding, territories. Her activities were not welcomed by the ruling authorities, however. Several times she was put on trial for seditious behavior, found guilty, and briefly imprisoned.
Social Democratic activists within the women’s movement fought for reforms that would protect women and afford them more opportunities, while at the same time transforming the entire social world for the better. Their guiding principle:
While respecting ethnic, cultural, religious and gender differences, our mission as social democrats is to look through them to find the common good.
Welcomed into the women’s movement were people of all backgrounds, ranging from indigent women caring for their families in the homeless shelters of Vienna to relatively privileged women of the upper classes who believed in the cause. Charlotte Glas and her sister activists brought a spirit of reconciliation into their work with all women, and they sought also to advance collaboration and unity within the Social Democratic Party as a whole. “Every yoke is broken, every chain torn away,” said Adelheid Popp (standing behind Charlotte Glas in the photograph above), “when those who bear the yoke, who moan under the clanking of chains, stand together for shared action.”
Although the women’s movement at this time did succeed in winning some victories, the challenges they faced were formidable. At the turn of the 20th century, the Austro-Hungarian Empire faced problems that would prove impossible to solve. Its diverse lands, languages, and cultures were held together only by a monarchy residing in Vienna that was widely considered to be completely out-of-touch and ineffective.
Nearly one quarter of Vienna’s residents had moved to the city from Czech Bohemia and Moravia. Others had migrated from Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Russia, Croatia, Poland, Romania, and Italy. Social democratic activists had to deal with differences of language, education, religion, and custom that stood in the way of working-class collaboration.
Nor had the Liberal Party, wielding power decades earlier, been more successful in dealing with these differences. Liberals had placed their hopes in the forward-thinking royal family:
This reliance was not entirely unreasonable, because Emperor Franz Josef was open to some progressive ideas. For example, he emphasized the humanity of the Jewish people and tried to protect them against rising antisemitism. His wife Elisabeth was a staunch advocate of democratic ideals and religious tolerance. She regarded the poet Heinrich Heine, who had been driven out of Germany because of his radical views and his Jewish background, as her muse. (She collected his original manuscripts, and he appeared to her in dreams.)
General Assembly of the Federation of Austrian Women's Associations , May 13-17, 1911
The Emperor’s authority proved to be quite limited, however. For example, when blustering, antisemitic Karl Lueger was elected mayor of Vienna by a landslide vote in 1895, Franz Josef refused to ratify the result. Over the next two years, Lueger was elected three more times, but could not take office because of the imperial veto. When he was elected mayor for a fifth time in 1897, Pope Leo XIII intervened on Lueger’s behalf, and Franz Josef gave in and approved the appointment.
The deadlock in government and surging antisemitism in Austria at the turn of the 20th century anticipated the turn to fascism that would occur in subsequent decades. In 1907 Adolph Hitler moved to Vienna, lived for a time in a homeless shelter, and embraced the common view that Jews and gypsies and other “foreigners” were responsible for the Empire’s problems. In Mein Kampf he described Vienna as a “Babylon of races” that was “polluting” German culture.
The Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party aimed to oppose these ideas, but were themselves riven by internal rivalries and disagreement. In Schnitzler’s novel (and in our dramatic adaptation), Heinrich’s father, who is a Liberal leader in Vienna, finds himself at odds with Party policy and is cast out.
This fracturing of progressive forces in Austria and Germany proved catastrophic in the 1920s and early 1930s. The fighting of leftists against one another weakened resistance to fascism. During the German Weimar Republic (1918-1933) the far left declared that social democracy was the main enemy, standing in the way of proletarian revolution. In Austria, sectarianism proved no less destructive. Only in 1945, when the 2nd World War ended, were social democratic forces in Austria, Germany, and elsewhere in Europe able to regroup and advance progressive causes.
Communist Party poster: “Betrayed by the S.P.D. (Social Democratic Party) Vote Communist!”
Communist Party poster: “KPD Slate 3. Down with this System”
