P. E. N.-Club, Österreichischer#

P. E. N. Club, Austrian (acronym of the International Association of Poets and Playwrights, Essayists and Editors, and Novelists), Austrian branch of the most significant international association of writers, established in London in 1921. The Austrian branch of the P. E. N. Club was established in June 1923; A. Schnitzler was its first honorary president and G. von Urbanitzky its first general secretary. Originally meant to be apolitical, it committed itself to the idea of international understanding, the right of free speech and humanistic ideals. However, after 1930 the Austrian branch of the P. E. N. Club became involved in the process of political radicalisation. In May 1933, during the XIth congress of the international P. E. N. Club in Ragusa (Dubrovnik) the Austrian representatives G. von Urbanitzky and F. Salten refused to join in the protests against the burning of books in the German Reich; this caused a major conflict and as a result Nazi sympathisers among the members, e.g. M. Jelusich, Bruno Brehm and R. Hohlbaum resigned their membership of the club. In practice, this meant that Austrian writers ( literature) were divided, writers of the democratic and conservative camps were ostracised and most of them went into exile before the Anschluss. In 1938, under the Nazi regime, the Austrian P. E. N. Club was dissolved and in 1939 the Austrian P. E. N. Club in Exile was founded; its general secretary R. Neumann initiated the re-establishment of the P. E. N. Club in 1947, with F. T. Csokor as its first president after World War II. From the 1970s onwards the P. E. N. Club was increasingly criticised on fundamental grounds; one of the main critics was the " Grazer Autorenversammlung" (Graz Writers' Association).

Presidents of the Austrian P.E.N. Club: Raoul Auernheimer (1923-1927), Felix Salten (1927-1933), Raoul Auernheimer (1933-1935, interim president), Hans Hammerstein-Equord (1935-1938), Franz Theodor Csokor (1947-1969), Alexander Lernet-Holenia (1969-1972, Ernst Schoenwiese (1972-1978), Fritz Habeck (1978-1980), Erik Wickenburg (1980-1988), Gyoergy Sebestyen (1988-1990), Alexander Giese (1990-1997), Wolfgang Georg Fischer (since1998).

Literature#