Consensus vs. Control: The Politics of Culture in Interwar Austria, a Reassessment (with special emphasis on literature and the theatre)

The non-Nazi aspects of the literary, artistic and cultural scene of interwar Austria, with an inevitable bias towards Vienna and Salzburg, have received plentiful and renewed attention in scholarship in recent years.² Amid the various facets under scrutiny, particular comment has been reserved for the “politics” of Austrian culture.³ This is broadly defined in two ways: how literary or artistic forms eitherper se, or else through their institutional framing (e.g. production and dissemination), have reflected or sought actively to promote different ideological agendas during the period. Book publishing,⁴ cabaret and so-called “Kleinkunst” forms,⁵ and the theatre have all been