Seite - 16 - in Entangled Entertainers - Jews and Popular Culture in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna

16 | Entangled Entertainers part in the early days of Viennese Volkssänger scene were Jewish based on their names alone. Th is lack of clarity also applies to Juden-Pepi, a member of the troupe surrounding the amateur dramatist Fran z Deckmayer (1851–97).14 During the late nineteenth century, performing artists habitually adopted stage names, a practice that often creates confusion for scholars today working to assemble biographical data about them. When scholars happen upon newspaper reports on individual artists (or mentions of particular artists in print), it is for the most part impossible to determine whether they were Jewish or identifi ed as Jewish at the time. To be sure, a name alone is never a sure indication of the indi- vidual’s Jewishness, but it sometimes provides an important clue or starting point from which further investigations can be made. For example, in the previous chapter, I discusssed the case of Mr. Katz. He performed under the pseudonym “Kaciander,” a name that also gives no indication of his relationship to Judaism. In this particular case, however, I was able to identify him as Jewish on account of additional remarks made about him in various media. Otherwise, I could only pursue research on Katz-Kaciander’s Jewishness if I could identify his real name, and consequently fi nd it in the registers of the Viennese Jewish religious com- munity (Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Wien). Often, though not always, one can fi nd entries for specifi c names and thus attain confi rmation that the individuals bearing these names were born, married, or died as Jews.15 Th e widespread practice among Jewish arists to assume stage names occasion- ally leads researchers to use questionable methods to secure concrete subjects for their studies. An example would be the examination of lists that the National Socialists created for the purpose of defaming Jewish artists to exclude them from the cultural scene and persecute them.16 Th is does not mean that researchers looking for Jewish participants in popular culture using such a source must re- main faithful to the Nazi racist defi nition of Jewishness. In principle, they could exclude from their research those artists for whom there is no evidence of Jewish identifi cation. Nevertheless, the diffi culty in identifying Jews who performed and participated in popular culture can bear strange results. Another Jewish artist who appeared under a pseudonym was de B rye or Gas- ton de Brie, as he called himself, a so-c alled female impersonator. De Brye worked in various Viennese variety shows. His stage name does not appear to evince any connection to Judaism, nor does his name appear in Jewish community records. If de Brye had been an average artist with an inconspicuous lifestyle, then his Jewish background would probably have remained unknown to historians. But there are court proceedings pertaining to his ventures and intrigues, and a com- pilation of these proceedings allows us to identify the man behind the stage name as Eman uel Müller, also known as Eman uel Adler-Müller. We also learn that he opened a nightclub in the Viennese district Leopol dstadt in the late autumn of 1899 and invited Volkssänger to perform there.17 This open access edition has been made available under a CC BY 4.0 license thanks to the support of Knowledge Unlatched.