„Österreich ist nicht mehr“
“Österreich ist nicht mehr”

Walter Tschuppik and (His) Images of a Downfall (1918–1920)

Summary/Abstract: Walter Tschuppik (1889–1955) observed the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire primarily through the prism of the situation in Prague. As the editor of the daily Prager Tagblatt, he glossed in his columns and short notices, printed in this paper as well as in other Austrian or German papers, various fragments of history, thus effectively (co-)creating their image. His views were permeated by the ambivalence of the moment and also by the probably rather distant optimism and enthusiasm dominating the Czech-spoken debates – this rupture cut through Tschuppik’s personality as a reflection of the vertiginous rupture of history. Tschuppik thematised the speed with which new symbols were replacing the old ones. All the more did many of those things he had – as if slowed down in all that haste – glimpsed and recorded seem memorable to him. In the autumn of 1919, Tschuppik returned to the question of the “Czech revolution” in the Introduction to his book Die tschechische Revolution (The Czech Revolution) – a montage comprising of both his selected (and edited) articles published from May 1918 to September 1919 and of additional new materials: shorter forewords, the already mentioned (and more extensive) Introduction and paragraphs inserted between individual chapters. Even in this Introduction, Tschuppik did not deny the historical importance of the October revolution, but neither did he hesitate to point out its melancholy-nostalgic or grotesque features.

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