Seite - 132 - in Entangled Entertainers - Jews and Popular Culture in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna

132 | Entangled Entertainers and the lack of prospects that so often defi ne life in these locales abet alcoholism, often accompanied by violence, in most cases perpetrated by husbands against their wives.47 For some women who married hastily before suffi ciently getting to know their husbands, the early death of a spouse is more of a relief than an occasion for mourning.48 Löwy paints a complex portrait of historic Vienna. On the one hand, nostalgic and romanticized qualities characterize life in the past or in Vienna’s village-like outskirts. On the other, he sheds light on their shortcomings. In this respect, the modernization of the city is not necessarily a reason for lament. Emphasizing the tranquility of these locales also means downplaying their disadvantages. Old Vi- enna and the periphery therefore seem particularly ambivalent in Löwy’s stories. Furthermore, his portrayal suggests that a longing for the past is misplaced. From the Periphery to the Prater Th e replacement of the past with the present was tied to the development of new concepts of space. With regard to artistic and literary representations of the pe- riphery, the Prater often makes an appearance. Tina Blau’s paintings that feature this Viennese leisure area as a motif are among the most signifi cant documents within her oeuvre. Th ey are therefore even more signifi cant than her images of the periphery.49 While Felix Salten turned away from the outskirts due to increasing antisem- itism in Vienna’s outlying districts, he projected his ideas of a refuge onto the Prater, which he denoted as “the eternal periphery.”50 He described the Wurstel- prater, the amusement park within the extensive recreational area, as a domain that was largely cut off from the rest of the city. Specifi cally, antisemitism and nationalism were absent from this space, and it therefore did not provoke hostil- ity. Th ese circumstances made it possible for visitors to assume hybrid identifi ca- tions.51 People who would not normally associate with one another in everyday life could come into contact with one another and experience a sense of cama- raderie and belonging. To Salten’s mind, the Prater was not a nostalgic site of longing anchored primarily in the past, but rather a real locale that was accessible at any time, even if he exaggerated its positive qualities. Stefan Zweig, another Jewish author from the circle of Jung Wien, was also interested in the Prater. He too saw it as a typically Viennese place that was nevertheless distinct and shielded from the rest of the city. It therefore enabled social interactions that seemed impossible in other locations. Hillary Hope Her- zog argues that, in a sense, Zweig thought of the Prater as a space similar to the Wild West, in that prevailing norms were suspended there. In a description of the horse races that took place at the Prater, Zweig describes how the onlookers turned into a frantic, wild mass during the competition, deteriorating into a frenzy together. Th rough this collective experience, the diff erences between the This open access edition has been made available under a CC BY 4.0 license thanks to the support of Knowledge Unlatched.