CULTURAL DIVERSITY VS. NATIONAL–SOCIALIST POSITIONS. PAULA VON PRERADOVIĆ: AN ISTRIAN AND THE AUTHOR OF THE AUSTRIAN NATIONAL ANTHEM

Paula von Preradović (1887–1951) constantly remained bound to Istria, and it is not only her first poems that deal with her homeland, which she did not really leave until she was 26. To the end, she dedicated herself in her works to Croatian topics. The article offers a detailed look at this fascinating author's relations to the fascist systems in Austria, relations which become all the more weighty when we consider that Preradović would go on to compose the Austrian national anthem, which is still in use today. Like other intellectuals – for example Karl Kraus, Franz Werfel, and Joseph Roth – she was close to the ideas of the authoritarian state of "Austrofascism." However, in contrast to many others, this closeness is not only due to a common opposition to National Socialism. In many respects, she was close to its ideology, and this proximity is, for instance, reflected in her poetry collection Lob Gottes im Gebirge (1936). On the other hand, Preradović criticized National Socialism in her novel Pave and Pero (1940), albeit very discreetly, by presenting a multicultural society, praising unifying factors, and showing herself to be critical of nationalism. On the basis of the novel, we can see, too, that it was possible in the German Reich also to publish literature that did not conform to the reigning ideology.