Egon Kisch | |
|---|---|
 Egon Kisch in Melbourne in 1934 | |
| Born | (1885-04-29)April 29, 1885 |
| Died | March 31, 1948(1948-03-31) (aged 62) |
| Resting place | Vinohrady Cemetery,Prague |
| Political party | Communist Party of Austria |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance | Austria-Hungary |
| Branch/service | Austro-Hungarian Army |
| Years of service | 1914–1918 |
| Unit | 11th Infantry Regiment |
| Battles/wars | |
Egon Erwin Kisch (29 April 1885 – 31 March 1948) was anAustro-Hungarian andCzechoslovak writer and journalist, who wrote in German. He styled himselfDer Rasende Reporter (The Racing Reporter) for his countless travels to the far corners of the globe and his equally numerous articles produced in a relatively short time (Hetzjagd durch die Zeit, 1925), Kisch was noted for his development of literaryreportage, his opposition toAdolf Hitler'sNazi regime, and hisCommunism.
Kisch was born into a wealthy German-speakingSephardi Jewish family inPrague, at that time part of theAustro-Hungarian Empire, and began his journalistic career as a reporter forBohemia, a PragueGerman-language newspaper, in 1906. In 1910,Bohemia began publishing a weekly column of Kisch's essays. “Prague Forays” ran for more than a year and, along with several books containing reprinted and original material, made Kisch a local celebrity. These feuilletons, which consisted of he called "little novels" about the city, were characterised by an interest in prisons, work houses, and the lives of the poor of Prague. His style was inspired byJan Neruda,Émile Zola andCharles Dickens'sSketches by Boz. Before World War I, he uncovered the spy scandal involvingAlfred Redl, which he published anonymously at the time.[1]
At the outbreak of World War I, Kisch was called up for military service and became a corporal in the Austrian army. He fought on the front line inSerbia and theCarpathians and his wartime experiences were later recorded inSchreib das auf, Kisch! (Write That Down, Kisch!) (1929). He was briefly imprisoned in 1916 for publishing reports from the front that criticised the Austrian military's conduct of the war, but nonetheless later served in the army's press quarters along with fellow writersFranz Werfel andRobert Musil.[citation needed]
The war radicalised Kisch. He deserted in October 1918 as the war came to an end and played a leading role in the abortiveleft-wing revolution inVienna in November of that year.Werfel's novelBarbara oder die Frömmigkeit (1929) portrays the events of this period and Kisch was the inspiration for one of the novel's characters. Although the revolution failed, in 1919 Kisch became a member of theAustrian Communist Party and remained a Communist for the rest of his life.[2]
Between 1921 and 1930 Kisch, though a citizen ofCzechoslovakia, lived primarily in Berlin, where his work found a new and appreciative audience. In books of collected journalism such asDer rasende Reporter (The Whirling Reporter) (1924), he cultivated the image of a witty, gritty, daring reporter always on the move, a cigarette clamped doggedly between his lips. His work and his public persona found an echo in the artistic movement ofNeue Sachlichkeit, a major strand in the culture of theWeimar Republic.[citation needed]
From 1925 onwards Kisch was a speaker and operative of the communist international and a senior figure in the publishing empire of the West European branch of theComintern run by communist propagandistWilli Münzenberg. In 1928 Kisch was one of the founders of theAssociation of Proletarian-Revolutionary Authors.[citation needed]
Through the late twenties and early thirties, Kisch wrote a series of books chronicling his journeys to theRussian SFSR, the U.S.A.,Soviet Central Asia and China. These later works are more strongly informed by Kisch'scommunist politics. Whereas in his earlier collections of reportage he had explicitly stated that a reporter should remain impartial, Kisch came to feel that it was necessary for a writer to engage politically with what he was reporting on.[citation needed]
On 28 February 1933, the day after theReichstag fire, Kisch was one of many prominent opponents ofNazism to be arrested. He was briefly imprisoned inSpandau Prison, but as aCzechoslovak citizen, was expelled from Germany. His works were banned andburnt in Germany, but he continued to write for theCzech andémigré German press, bearing witness to the horrors of the Nazi takeover.[citation needed]
In the years between theMachtergreifung and the outbreak of World War II, Kisch continued to travel widely to report and to speak publicly in theanti-fascist cause.[citation needed]
Following the Reichstag Fire Trial organised by the Nazi government to lay the blame for the fire on Communist opponents, a counter-trial was organized in 1933 in London by a group of lawyers, democrats and other anti-Nazi groups under the aegis of German Communist émigrés. Kisch was to be a witness at the counter trial but was refused leave to land in the United Kingdom because of his "known subversive activities".[citation needed]
Kisch's visit to Australia as a delegate to the All-Australian Congress Against War and Fascism[3] in 1934 was later chronicled in his bookLandung in Australien (Australian Landfall) (1937).[4][5]
The right-wing Australian government refused Kisch entry from the shipStrathaird at Fremantle and Melbourne because of his previous exclusion from the UK. Kisch then took matters into his own hands. He jumped five metres from the deck of his ship onto the quayside atMelbourne, breaking his leg in the process. He was bundled back on board but this dramatic action mobilised the Australian left in support of Kisch. When theStrathaird docked in Sydney, proceedings were taken against the Captain on the grounds that he was illegally detaining Kisch. JusticeH. V. Evatt ordered that Kisch be released.[6] Under theImmigration Restriction Act 1901, visitors could be refused entry if they failed a dictation test in any European language. As soon as Kisch was released, he was re-arrested and was one of the very few Europeans to be given the test; he was tested inScottish Gaelic because it was thought he might pass if tested in other European languages. The officer who tested him had grown up in northern Scotland but did not have a particularly good grasp of Scottish Gaelic himself. In theHigh Court case ofR v Wilson; ex parte Kisch, the court found that Scottish Gaelic was not within the fair meaning of the Act, and overturned Kisch's convictions for being an illegal immigrant.[7]
On 17 February 1935, Kisch addressed a crowd of 18,000 in the Sydney Domain warning of the dangers of Hitler's Nazi regime, of another war and ofconcentration camps.[citation needed]
In 1937 and 1938, Kisch was in Spain, where left-wingers from across the world had been drawn by theSpanish Civil War. He travelled across the country, speaking in theRepublican cause, and his reports from the front line were widely published.[citation needed]
Following theMunich Agreement of 1938 and the subsequent Nazi occupation ofBohemia six months later, Kisch was unable to return to the country of his birth. Once war broke out, Paris, which he had made his main home since 1933, also became too dangerous for an outspoken Jewish communist whose native land no longer existed. In late 1939, Kisch and his wife Gisela sailed for New York where, once again, he was initially denied entry. He eventually landed atEllis Island on 28 December, but as he only had a transit visa moved on to Mexico in October 1940.[citation needed]
He remained in Mexico for the next five years, one of a circle of European communist refugees, notable among themAnna Seghers andLudwig Renn and the German-Czech writerLenka Reinerová. He continued to write, producing a book on Mexico and a memoir,Marktplatz der Sensationen (Sensation Fair) (1941). In this period of exile, Kisch's work regularly returned to the themes of his Prague home and his Jewish roots and in March 1946 (after troubles in securing a Czechoslovak visa) he was able to return to his birthplace. Immediately after the return he started to travel around the country and work as a journalist again.[citation needed]
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Kisch died of a stroke[2] two years after his return to Prague, shortly after theCommunist party seized complete power. Kisch is buried in theVinohrady Cemetery, Prague, Czech Republic.[citation needed]
After his death, Kisch's life and work were held up as exemplary in theGDR. The attitude to both in West Germany was more complicated due to his communism. Nonetheless, whenStern magazine founded a prestigious award for Germanjournalism in 1977, it was named theEgon Erwin Kisch Prize in his honour.[8]
Kisch's work as a writer and communist journalist inspired Australian left wing intellectuals and writers such asKatharine Susannah Prichard,E. J. Brady,Vance andNettie Palmer andLouis Esson. This group formed the nucleus of what later became the Writers League, drawing on the example of Egon Kisch’s own journalistic dedication to reportage.[citation needed]
Kisch has appeared as a character in novels by Australian authors. Without naming him, his visit to Australia, the leap from the ship and the court case challenging the validity of the language test are mentioned inKylie Tennant'sRide on Stranger (novel) (1943). He is a minor character inFrank Hardy'sPower Without Glory (1950), which was filmed for television in (1976), and plays a central, if fictionalised, role inNicholas Hasluck'sOur Man K (1999). He appears inSulari Gentill's detective novelPaving the New Road (2012) along with other real persons such asNancy Wake andUnity Mitford.
English titles are given where the work has been translated into English. All dates refer to earliest publication.
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