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The Coffeehouses of Vienna
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13243 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
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10 / 1987 |
4,970 Words |
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Agnes Huszar Vardy
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To become a coffeehouse addict, one need merely enter one's first. The addiction may last for the rest of one's life. Students, weary of serious study at the seminars and Vorlesungen (speeches), represent the earliest addicts, or habitués. Renowned Viennese critic, moralist, essayist, and playwright Karl Kraus, himself an habitué of Café Greinsteidl and the Café Central, distinguishes between the habitué and the passant: The former drops into a coffeehouse several times a day, and the latter goes at most only once. With the exception of an increasing number of tourists, most people in Vienna belong to the first category.
A Viennese coffeehouse is by no means just a place to get a cup of coffee. Alfred Polgar, wit, critic, and short-story writer of a bygone age, describes the Kaffeehaus as a state of mind, a weltanschauung, a way of looking at the world. Recently this unique Viennese institution has become the subject of serious research. Recognized as a significant aspect of the social cultural, and intellectual life of the city, the Wiener Kaffeehaus was honored in 1959 with an exhibit in the Stadthalle of the Vienna city hall. In 1974, manuscripts and publications of Viennese coffeehouse literati were displayed in Marburg, Germany, as part of the German literary exhibit. And in 1980, Vienna's Historisches Museum organized a four-month long exhibit on its coffeehouses. The exhibit featured hundreds of documents, lithographs, paintings, photographs, and artifacts tracing the history of the city's coffeehouses from their beginning through the interwar years. The exhibit's elaborate and well-illustrated catalog is itself a storehouse of information.
Coffeehouse literature has been rich and varied ever since the middle of the nineteenth century, when coffeehouse literati began writing lovingly and wittily about their coffeehouse years; these special memoirs were later published in collections of reminiscences. Starting with the 1970s, however, a different kind of coffeehouse literature began to appear. Based on more serious investigations, these publications try to separate historical fact from legend. They intend to present a more realistic picture of Viennese coffeehouses by treating them as important cultural and social establishments.
Foreign journalists from the United States and Europe have also shown an interest in Viennese coffeehouses. Articles have appeared in such papers as the Washington Post, the Times of London, the New Zurcher Zeitung, and Gourmet magazine. These articles, however, are sometimes the results of short visits and fleeting impressions. Accordingly, they tend to treat the coffeehouses simply as curiosities, tourist attractions, and anachronistic examples of another era.
Only the Stammgast can be an expert
"To truly comprehend the spirit of the coffeehouse, one must be born, brought up and educated there."
Although this saying is not completely true, it is no simple task to capture the spirit of the Wiener Kaffeehaus, past or present. It presents difficulties even for those researchers who are familiar with the atmosphere of these Old World establishments. The best research method is to imitate the native Burger (citizen) who spends a few hours each day at his neighborhood café, reading the daily newspapers, socializing with friends and neighbors, and playing billiards, chess, or bridge in
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