!!!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 XI%%sup th/%  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).

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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
C. Guertler, Die literarhistorische Entwicklung und 
Bedeutung des Oesterreichischen P. E. N.-Clubs ab 1945, 
research paper, Vienna 1978; K. Amann, P. E. N.-Club. 
Politik - Emigration - Nationalsozialismus, 1984; H. Zeman (ed.), 
Literaturlandschaft, 1997.


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