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When Franz Kafka died in a sanatorium near Vienna in June 1924, he was neither prominent nor unknown. Despite the paucity of publications during his lifetime, Kafka’s death attracted tremendous attention, and the burst of articles and lectures about him surpassed anything he experienced while still alive. Where and how were Kafka and his work remembered in postimperial Central Europe, and what role did Jewish difference play in public forms of mourning? And who contributed to the various ways of commemoration that constituted the foundation of his world fame since the 1940s?
This lecture by Ines Koeltzsch (CEU Vienna) offers a new perspective on the early afterlife of Kafka and examines both the significance of the media (text, voice, image) and of intellectual networks and communities of remembrance across nation-state borders in creating the author’s legend. Although the question of belonging was raised in several texts, the attributions of Kafka as a German, Jewish, Zionist, Austrian or simply a Prague writer were as controversial as they were fragile in Central Europe after 1918.
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Please email kafka@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk as soon as possible if you have mobility / access needs.
