1913 was the twentieth century’s heyday: a year when everything seemed possible. And yet for our forefathers, there was already the glimmer of the beginning of decline. In 1913, literature, art and music were already aware that humanity had lost its innocence.
Franz Kafka writes letters of infinite length and beauty to Felice Bauer, talking himself into the idea of marriage to her; Stravinsky and Schönberg create outrageous scandals; the prototype of the first Aldi supermarket is opened in Essen, and the first Prada store is opened in Milan. Duchamp mounts a wheel on a kitchen stool; Sigmund Freud and Rainer Maria Rilke go for a drink in Munich;a fifteen-year-old named Bertolt Brecht becomes editor of a student magazine in Augsburg, and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner paints Berlin’s PotsdamerPlatz, over and over again.
In this book, Florian Illies has succeeded in painting a breath-taking portrait of a unique year, in which the long 19th century collides with the wars and extremes of the short 20th century. 1913, the absolute heyday of the young century, and at the same time a high mass toits downfall, is brought to life in a grand panorama.
