Depicting European federalists in fiction: Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi in Bernhard Setzwein’s Der böhmische Samurai (2017) and Heinrich Mann in Colm Tóibín’s The Magician (2021)

Abstract

This article analyses the representation of Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi in Bernhard Setzwein’s Der böhmische Samurai (2017) and Heinrich Mann in Colm Tóibín’s The Magician (2021). This discussion is situated in a number of wider contexts, including literary European Studies within German and Irish Literary Studies; existing representations of European federalists/Europeanists; the actual European thought of Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi and Heinrich Mann; and the oeuvre of the novelists Bernhard Setzwein and Colm Tóibín. It is argued that the representation of European federalists in recent novels enables us to analyse common attitudes and understandings of Europe and Europeanness in the current environment of Euroscepticism, self-questioning, and self-doubt at the institutional as well as constituent levels. It is also argued that the European federalists Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi and Heinrich Mann are represented as European cosmopolitans: Both are depicted as existing within a wide variety of transnational links, as remaining deeply sceptical of nationalism, especially in its violent form, and as arguing for the extension of the space of the political, beyond the national. Their depiction is, thus, of intellectual figures who laid some of the ideational groundwork for the creation of later European institutions, undertaking this reflective task from the perspective of an idealistic, pacifist and deeply democratic cosmopolitanism.

Introduction

European Studies – as an Area Studies that has been partially institutionalised in the form of departments and degree programmes – while inherently interdisciplinary, has long been dominated by questions of European integration and, thus, by perspectives drawn from political science, economics and law. This is not to say that language learning and the study of national literatures have not also been central aspects of European Studies. A clear and distinct literary European Studies has indeed dealt principally with the literary discourse on Europe. In the wake of recent political events, such as Brexit, questions of identity and self-representation have become more important in European Union (EU) discourse. In this article, two recent novelistic representations of important early Europeanists, Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi and Heinrich Mann, are analysed with a view to our understanding of the development in European attitudes towards Europe as a federation. This is situated in a number of contextual frameworks, including literary European Studies in the German and Irish context; existing representations of European federalists/Europeanists; the actual European thought of the historical figures Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi and Heinrich Mann; and the oeuvre of the novelists Bernhard Setzwein and Colm Tóibín. It is also argued that the European federalists Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi and Heinrich Mann are represented as European cosmopolitans: Both are depicted as existing within a wide variety of transnational links, as remaining deeply sceptical of nationalism, especially in its violent form, and as arguing for the extension of the space of the political, beyond the national. Their depiction is, thus, of intellectual figures who laid some of the ideational groundwork for the creation of later European institutions, undertaking this reflective task from the perspective of an idealistic, pacifist and deeply democratic cosmopolitanism.

European studies and German and Irish literature

The engagement with Europe-oriented essays and speeches has undoubtedly dominated the literary strand within European Studies (Biendarra and Eigler, 2020; Király, 2019: 3–4), whether this has been viewed as the study of a distinct literary discourse (Fendler and Wittlinger, 1999; Lützeler, 1998, 2007, 2019; Reiss, 1993; Suleiman, 2006), from a more contextual cultural–historical perspective (Passerini, 1999, 2009) or as the engagement with a literary form of identity (Bemong et al., 2008; Van Puymbroeck, 2020). Király (2019: 3–4) has also highlighted a movement away from the preoccupation with Europe essays within literary European Studies and towards migrant literature, translation and travel writing; orientations that do not necessarily of course require a distinct ‘European’ coding.

‘Europe’ remains a major topic for German-language writers. According to Biendarra and Eigler (2020: 233) – in the introduction to a special issue of the journal Colloquia Germanica dedicated to Europe in contemporary German language literature – this is due to history, the role of the German-speaking world in the EU and, in Germany itself, because of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party they argue, and this is very much reflected in its artistic production. Indeed, if one simply surveys the extensive career of the Germanist Paul Micheal Lützeler (1994, 1997, 1998, 2007, 2012, 2015, 2019), one can only conclude that there exists quite a substantial literary tradition of Europa-Essayistik in the German language, from the Romantic age to contemporary times, which has generally engaged with Europe in political-conceptual terms.

What then of Europa-Essayistik and Irish writing? Hayward (2009a, 2009b) has argued that Irish engagement with Europe and the EU – undertaken principally by ‘public intellectuals’ drawn from politics, academia, and media rather than literary authors, she believes – has largely taken place within the dominant conceptual frameworks of Catholicism and nationalism; the language of Europe has simply been incorporated into the language of constitutional Irish nationalism. Well-known canonical Irish writers, such as James Joyce, Samuel Beckett and Seamus Heaney, undoubtedly owe an important creative debt to European culture and have definitely engaged with the wider context of Europe. For Joyce, it has been argued, this may be seen for example in an abstract engagement with the idea of European unity as a type of expanded Trieste (Pappalardo, 2011: 173–174); for Beckett in the trope of migrancy and his own movement between languages (Weller, 2018); and for Heaney in the consciousness of being part of a wider European tradition (Guterow and Kennedy, 2016: 4). An Irish literary political-conceptual engagement with Europe – an Irish Europa-Essayistik – is still relatively unusual, however. A notable exception here may be seen during the years of World War II and in the 1940s texts of Seán Ó Faoláin and Hubert Butler, both authors arguing in favour of a future European federation that would include Ireland (Lenehan, 2014: 82–92).

Fictional depictions of European federalists and Europeanists

When it comes to contemporary literary engagements with Europe and the EU, Robert Menasse’s (2017) EU novel Die Hauptstadt (The Capital) is paradigmatic. Scholars have already analysed Die Hauptstadt comparatively (Király, 2019; Seeba, 2018), have viewed it from the perspective of visionary narratives (McChesney, 2021; Von der Knapp, 2020) and through the lens of cultural memory studies (Jiang, 2022; Lizarazu, 2020). One of Menasse’s most noteworthy characters in Die Hauptstadt is the Austrian economist and Professor Alois Erhart, who is in Brussels to take part in a meeting of an EU think tank. Erhart becomes increasingly irritated at the lack of vision and general conservative approach of his colleagues (Lizarazu, 2020: 414; Von der Knapp, 2020: 27–28), not least as Erhart is a follower of the (fictional) economist Armand Moens, who – in the reality of the novel – had argued for a movement away from national economics and towards transnational forms. During his speech to the think tank, Erhart reiterates Moens’ ideas and shocks his audience when arguing that a new capital city of the EU should be built on the site of the Auschwitz concentration camp, making sure, thus, that it is never forgotten that Auschwitz is central to any European union (Menasse, 2017: 385–395). The representation of Erhart and Moens may thus be seen as depictions of fictional European federalists, whose ultimate goal is the establishment of some kind of post-national state structure. Maria Schrader’s (2016) film Vor der Morgenröte, known in English as Stefan Zweig: A Farewell to Europe, depicts a number of episodes from the last years of writer Stefan Zweig in exile in South America. Zweig may be seen as a democratic Europeanist (Ostrowski, 2023) – if perhaps maybe not quite a fully formed visionary European federalist. The movie is, therefore, a fictional depiction of a historically real Europeanist.

Thus, fictional representations of European federalists/Europeanists in both literature and film are evident; there does exist a wider, more focussed context for this article. Whether a more extensive engagement with this topic is to be seen in film and literature would require, however, further systematic research.

The European federalism of Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi and Heinrich Mann

This article focuses on the fictional representation of European federalists Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi and Heinrich Mann. It is thus apposite to discuss first the ideas central to the Europeanist thought of both of these figures, before progressing to their depiction in the respective novels.

The Austro-Japanese aristocrat Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi (1894–1972) – born in Japan but raised in Ronsperg at the edge of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Poběžovice in Czechia) – is best known as the instigator of the Paneuropa Movement and author of the book Paneuropa, first published in 1923. Here Coudenhove-Kalergi (1982: 119–134) calls for the unification of Europe’s democracies, and for Franco-German reconciliation to form the bedrock of a new, peaceful continent. His vision of European union excludes Great Britain, as it is pre-occupied with its empire he argues, and also Russia, as Russian Bolshevism is increasingly taking a more authoritarian form, he believes, and Russia would, if given the chance, look to dominate Europe (Coudenhove-Kalergi, 1982: 39–65). He sees national chauvinism as the main obstacle to this vision, which cannot, however, be fought by an abstract internationalism (Coudenhove-Kalergi, 1982: 135–138). Instead, via language-learning and textual translations, the national pantheon should become a European pantheon with Europeans reading each other’s literature and foundational texts and speaking each other’s languages (Coudenhove-Kalergi, 1982: 142–144). In Paneuropa Coudenhove-Kalergi calls for the creation of a European customs union, while he envisions both a directly elected European chamber and a chamber which would retain representatives from each government of each democratically elected nation-state (Coudenhove-Kalergi, 1982: 152–154).

Paneuropa, translated into a number of languages, became a political bestseller, selling almost 100,000 copies, with each book coming attached with a prepaid application card which allowed every reader to become a member of the Paneuropa Movement (Bond, 2021: 99). Bóka (2006: 317) argues that the Paneuropa idea ‘represented constitutional federalism in Europe in opposition to authoritarian nation states and to Stalinism’, while the idea is, she believes, to be situated within a long-standing ideational tradition of peaceful federalism (Bóka, 2012: 388). The Paneuropa idea and movement enjoyed relatively widespread support among the European political elite in the 1920s and early 1930s, not least in the first Czechoslovak Republic (Gonêc, 2014: 84) of which Coudenhove-Kalergi became a citizen after the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Paneuropa also enjoyed support from well-known non-politicians, including Albert Einstein and Gerhart Hauptmann, then the best-known German-language writer (Bond, 2021: 129). Which is not to say that Coudenhove-Kalergi’s Paneuropa book and movement are beyond critique. Wyrwa (2006: 117–121) discusses eight important criticisms of Coudenhove-Kalergi including his uncritical relationship with colonialism, what Wyrua calls his doubtful understanding of democracy and the elitist nature of his political vision. Yet, as Villanueva (2005: 67) also notes, Paneuropa represents ‘rare bourgeois dissent against nationalist pretensions prevalent in many other Weimar-era political treatises’, even if ‘culturally conservative, organic state language is sprinkled throughout the document’ (Villanueva, 2005: 73). Paneuropa retains, essentially, a ‘triumphalist tone’ (Villanueva, 2005: 75) in its imagining of Europe’s place in the world. Nevertheless, the widespread dispersal of an inherently anti-nationalist, European federalist set of ideas conjoined with a relatively successful – in terms of acquiring influential supporters – lobby group explicitly arguing for these ideas, should be seen as a substantial achievement on a continent marked by instability and rising extreme nationalism.

Heinrich Mann is undoubtedly a more multifaceted literary figure than the author-lobbyist Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi. Mann is known as a novelist and a poet but was also a prolific essayist and publicist. Gross (1973: 125) details how Heinrich Mann is best-known as a defender of the Weimar Republic, as someone committed to the principles of humanism and who sided with the idealists of the Munich Soviet in 1918. In the same article, however, Gross (1973: 130–136) also unearths a different, earlier Heinrich Mann of the 1890s: as editor of the völkisch-leaning Das Zwanzigste Jahrhundert journal for almost 2 years from 1895, Mann engaged in a reactionary anti-capitalism which, at times, took on an antisemitic form (even if Mann also distanced himself from organised antisemitism). According to Gross (1973: 138) his antisemitism ‘can be explained, at least in part, by the fact that for Mann the Jews epitomised the worst qualities of the ascendant bourgeoisie’. While Mann’s völkisch antisemitism did not survive the 1890s, this period in his writing should not be forgotten, not least as Heinrich Mann is regularly extolled as an exemplary humanist-democrat and symbol of early German democracy, largely without reference to the darker side of his earlier work.

By the early 1920s, Heinrich Mann was a convinced advocate of the European idea (Zyliński, 2011: 151), a cultural Europeanist and, at times, also a supporter of European federalism, even if his idea of Europe often remains abstract and contradictory. This is seen especially in two of his Europe essays from 1923. In ‘Europa, Reich über den Reichen’ (Europe, Empire over the Empires) Mann (2015a: 186) writes uncharacteristically in an appreciative manner regarding the Catholic Church which was ‘lange Inhaberin, Dach und Turm des Europa einenden Geistes’ (long proprietor, roof and tower of the spirit that unified Europe). He (Mann, 2015a: 187) calls for the creation of a new church, based upon the spirit of Europe: ‘Alles kommt für unsere Kirche darauf an, daß wir im Glauben unerschütterlich sind. Der Glaube ist Europa, die Heilslehre seine Einheit. Sie müssen fest stehen. Kritik des Glaubens kann nicht erlaubt sein’ (everything depends on our church being unshakeable in faith. The faith is Europe, the doctrine of salvation its unity. You must stand firm. Criticism of the faith cannot be allowed). As Lützeler (1989: 97) describes it: One might be excused for thinking this is taken from Novalis’ famous essay on the Church and Europe, but it is actually Heinrich Mann. Zyliński (2011: 154) describes the essay as unexpected, not least for an author known for his rationalism and support of democratic forms. Lützeler (1989: 99) explains the essay with reference to the deeply unstable context of the Weimar Republic and the proliferation of various types of sect, with Heinrich Mann here offering the Europe-Spirit-Religion sect.

Indeed, this essay seems especially curious when compared with another text from 1923 ‘Deutschland und Frankreich. Antwort an Jacques Rivière’ (Germany and France. An Answer for Jacques Rivière), which formed part of a wider Franco-German feuilleton discussion (Lützeler, 1989: 86–87). Mann (2015b: 203) calls here for Franco-German reconciliation and understanding and the ‘Wiederbelebung des Freiheitssinnes’ (revival of the sense of freedom) which is ‘der Nerv des europäischen Organismus’ (the nerve of the European organism). This, however, should not just be an understanding between two economic autocracies but between a French and a German democracy: ‘Unsere Demokratien müssen sich prüfen und erneuern’ (Our democracies need to examine and renew themselves) (Mann, 2015b: 203). The endpoint for Mann (2015b: 206) is the ‘Einigung der Länder Europas, zuerst Deutschland und Frankreichs, und ein übernationales Reich’ (the unification of the countries of Europe, first Germany and France, and a supranational Reich). While the earlier 1923 essay remains ambiguous at best in relation to democracy, Mann here sees democratic unity as being at the centre of a future united Europe – even if the term Reich is used, which in a German-language usage of the time often meant a transnational spatial form and not, necessarily, an authoritarian structure.

Indeed, in 1923 and 1924 Heinrich Mann was an enthusiastic, if partly critical, supporter of Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi and the Paneuropa movement (Mann, 2015c: 225, 2015d: 257), even if by 1926, Mann (2018a: 60–61) believed that the Paneuropa dream had become dominated by business-people and that it would not remain in the hands of pacifists but be inevitably taken over by imperialists. Mann remained convinced of the centrality of Franco-German reconciliation and integration to any future Europe, arguing in 1927 (Mann, 2018b: 170) for ‘ein geistiges Locarno’ (a spiritual-intellectual Locarno) which would ease relations between the French and German people, parallel to the geo-political Locarno Pact. Kraume (2010: 255) notes that the image of Europe in Heinrich Mann’s Europa-Essayistik is full of both rational and emotional elements that are often difficult to disentangle. Following Mann’s flight from the Nazis and exile in Los Angeles, the emotional element becomes dominant, Kraume (2010: 255) believes. Heinrich Mann’s very engaged textual endeavours with the idea of Europe lack the consistency and longevity of Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi but remain nevertheless an important aspect of his literary oeuvre, may be seen as influential in its time and context and, like Coudenhove-Kalergi’s contribution, remains part of the ideational foundations upon which a European institution was eventually constructed.

The work of Bernhard Setzwein and Colm Tóibín

Bernhard Setzwein’s Der böhmische Samurai and Colm Tóibín’s The Magician are biographical novels depicting well-known historical Europeanists, set in various locations. Der böhmische Samurai centres on Hansi Coudenhove-Kalergi, but prominently features his better-known younger brother Richard and takes place at the Coudenhove-Kalergi family estate in Ronsperg/Poběžovice in Bohemia, Vienna, Budapest, Munich and the small towns of Stockau/Pivoń in Bohemia and Waldmünchen in Bavaria. The Magician is the novelistic retelling of the life of Thomas Mann. The first half of the novel is very much dominated by the relationship between Thomas and Heinrich Mann and takes place in, among other locations, Lübeck, Munich, Palestrina, Venice, the south of France and, eventually, Los Angeles.

Setzwein, originally from Munich, has lived in the border area between Bavaria and Czechia since 1990 and has set a lot of his work here, including the earlier novels Die grüne Jungfer (The Green Damsel) (Setzwein, 2003) and Ein seltames Land (A Strange Land) (Setzwein, 2007). The Czech Germanist Jindra Dubová (2014: 60–67; 2019: 101–105) has reflected on Setzwein’s Bohemian-Czech orientation, asking why he has set so much of his work here, and has decided that it is due largely to biographical reasons: Setzwein lives near the border, he has developed close connections with Czech authors, while he also feels a strong tie to Czech and German-language Bohemian literature, especially the writing of Franz Kafka. Dubová (2019: 102) also sees it as significant that Setzwein’s grandmother was Hungarian; ‘die erste Verbindung zum östereichisch-ungarischen-böhmischen Umfeld’ (the first connection to the Austrian- Hungarian-Bohemian context), while she also emphasises that he, surprisingly she believes, does not retain any ‘Sudeten German’ roots.

Ecker (2008: 164), on the contrary, and more convincingly, sees Setzwein’s work since 1990 as dominated by the ‘Mitteleuropaidee’; the idea of a culturally entangled (historical) Central Europe largely congruent with the space of the former Habsburg Empire. Ecker (2008: 165) sees Setzwein as having dedicated himself to placing the memories and cultural traditions of Mitteleuropa within the collective memory of his German-language readers. Indeed, there are many and various understandings of what Mitteleuropa/Central Europe, as a language term and idea, might actually mean. For some Czech and Hungarian authors in the 1980s, such as Milan Kundera, György Konrad and Václav Havel, the expression evoked the creation of distance from Russia, a moving to the ‘centre’ and formed part of the search for a positive and neutral designation for the community of the former Habsburg Empire; the term conjured thus an inclusive, transnational space that could elicit a sense of belonging beyond the nation-state and something of a ‘return’ to Europe (Lenehan, 2012: 119). For some German authors in the 1980s, such as the historian and essayist Karl Schlögel, the term Mitteleuropa was used in a cultural-historical and often nostalgic fashion, with Mitteleuropa imagined as a network of historical cultural interaction, with Austro-Germany at its centre (Lenehan, 2012: 120). It is somewhere between these understandings of Mitteleuropa – a historical-nostalgic understanding and a European re-centring – that Setzwein’s engagement with the area is to be seen, not least in Der böhmische Samurai.

While Setzwein is not especially well-known at national level in Germany – indeed he is probably better-known in Austria, where many of his books have been published – Colm Tóibín is undoubtedly one of Ireland’s leading writers. While several of his novels, stories and non-fiction works deal with Ireland, Tóibín also speaks Spanish and Catalan, has lived in Barcelona and Argentina and has published Hispanic-themed short stories and essays, as well as the novels The South (1990), set partly in Catalonia in the 1950s, and The Story of the Night (1997), set in Argentina during the military dictatorship of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Tóibín has also published a personal-essayistic cultural history of the Catalonian capital called Homage to Barcelona (2002), as well as a book of essays engaging with Catholicism in various European contexts entitled The Sign of the Cross: Travels in Catholic Europe (2001), first published in 1995. The Sign of the Cross implicitly creates an – at least partial – European commonality in its discussion of religious rituals and various people’s relationship with these rituals. Rees (2021: 131) views Tóibín’s Argentinian and Catalan-themed work very favourably. He argues that Tóibín ‘operates as an agent of communication across frontiers’ as his textual ‘“seasoning” with foreign languages serves to transmit cultural knowledge’ (Rees, 2021: 136). Tóibín does not read or speak German, however, despite his engagement with the Mann family. Indeed, in an interview with a Viennese newspaper Tóibín states that it was almost an advantage to not speak German, as he then would not be compelled to try and parallel Thomas Mann’s writing style (Wiener Zeitung, 2021).

In a contribution to a collection of essays from writers from across the continent reacting to the topic of Europe from 2003, Tóibín makes his then position on European identity, Europe and the EU very clear. Indeed, this is a fascinating addition to Irish Europa-Essayistik. He believes that there is ‘no such thing as a set of European values; there is no such thing as a common European identity’, as it is almost impossible to generalise about Europe and European heritage (Tóibín, 2003: 311). He suggests that two possible identities may exist: One that is ‘bound up with memory, family, community and personal experience’ which we call ‘home’ and one that is centred on ‘a nation, a state, an imagined community larger than neighbours and friends and family’ (Tóibín, 2003: 311–312). He is certain however that ‘none of us’ are capable ‘of developing a third superidentity [ sic ] as European and feeling this with the same emotional strength’ (Tóibín, 2003: 312). He is, however, very supportive of the EU – not least in relation to its role regarding social liberalisation in his Irish homeland – but he does not think that even the most liberal people in Ireland ‘feel more European’ as a result: The EU ‘has come to serve our interests, and thus the institution is viewed with sporadic affection and loyalty’, but ‘this could easily change if it no longer serves our interests’ (Tóibín, 2003: 314). ‘Europe’ he sees as a ‘set of interests, organised into the European Union’, as ‘a word open to interpretation’ and ‘a word we should set about undermining further as time goes on’ (Tóibín, 2003: 316).

Tóibín displays here a pragmatic, almost transactional relationship to ‘Europe’ and the EU, remains sceptical of more abstract Europeanisms and is rightly wary of a more conservative ‘heritage’-oriented Europeanism. In light of the Lisbon Treaty referendum defeat in Ireland of 2008 (Marsh and Schwirz, 2013), his arguments concerning a possible rejection when it is felt that the EU does not represent one’s own interests anymore appear perceptive and prescient. This is also surely a distinctly privileged western European position, arising from a country that has known relatively stable democracy since 1922. ‘Europe’ is a word that remains open to interpretation and – institutionalised to an extent in the EU – it can also represent an aspirational form of transnational democracy and peaceful co-existence for many people with direct experience of authoritarianism, as well as symbolising a more open society and the possibility of a transnational mechanism to counteract authoritarianisms. It may, thus, most definitely be a valve for identity; an identity intertwined with other local identities, even if in substance it remains less strong, as Tóibín states.

Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi in Bernhard Setzwein’s Der böhmische Samurai (2017) and Heinrich Mann in Colm Tóibín’s The Magician (2021)

The depiction of Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi and Heinrich Mann as cosmopolitans is intertwined with their representation as European federalists and Europeanists in both novels. The term cosmopolitanism itself is a wide-ranging concept and incorporates a variety of academic traditions. The word derives from the Greek term kosmopolites, meaning citizen of the world and has been often used informally to denote a general cultural openness. Cosmopolitanism Studies has carved its own niche within scholarship. Delanty (2019: 1) describes ‘cosmopolitanism studies’ as ‘an emerging post-disciplinary studies area more or less beyond disciplinary traditions’. The same author (Delanty, 2019: 3) also stresses that cosmopolitanism is not just a synonym of transnationalism, but also ‘concerns ways of imagining the world’, is ‘more than a condition of mobility or transnational movement’ but is, he believes ‘particularly bound up with the expansion of democracy and the extension of the space of the political’. Thus, cosmopolitanism shares elements of both a spatial and political imaginary.

Concepts of cosmopolitanism drawn from philosophy see it as an inherently political idea; as an ‘expansive form of solidarity’ ‘attuned to democratic principles and human interests’ but ‘without the restriction of territorial borders’ (Cheah, 2006: 19). Warf (2012: 272) views cosmopolitanism as an ‘ethical, moral, and political philosophy that seeks to uncouple ethics from distance’, while Appiah (2007: xiii) sees it as bound to the idea that human beings have ‘obligations to others’. Nussbaum (2019: 209), on the other hand, prefers to write about the idea of a ‘materialist global political liberalism’. Central to all normative-philosophical cosmopolitanism is, however, a critique of purely national structures of solidarity.

Scholars engaging with cosmopolitanism from history and sociology have generally used the term to describe empirically wide cultural links and feelings of solidarity beyond the national. Thus, cosmopolitanism appears here not as an intellectual idea discussed by elite philosophers and theorists but ‘a practice, a cultural form’ ‘a ‘way of being in the world’’ (Sluga and Horne, 2010: 370); a series of ‘behaviours, social habits’ (Jacob, 2006: 4). Researchers have categorised various kinds of solidarity-oriented cosmopolitanisms beyond the national that still, however, retain a degree of cultural specificity. These include, for example, ‘Catholic cosmopolitanism’ (Albrecht, 2005: 354), ‘Protestant cosmopolitanism’ (Riches, 2013), ‘Coloured cosmopolitanism [sic]’ (Slate, 2012), ‘Muslim cosmopolitanism’ (Alavi, 2015) and ‘Confucian cosmopolitanism’ (Park and Han, 2014: 187). Cosmopolitanism appears here, thus, as a wider sense of generally lived solidarity, linked to a specific non-national imaginary.

Literary studies have also engaged with the idea of cosmopolitanism. For example, Berthold Schoene (2009: 6), in his study The Cosmopolitan Novel, sees cosmopolitanism as existing parallel to the idea of globalisation, as a ‘corresponding body of political ideas’ which also ‘must be definitive of ethical responsibility and firm political commitment’ (Schoene, 2009: 7). He sees, ultimately, the cosmopolitan novel as engaging in the ‘practice of world-narration’ (Schoene, 2009: 13). Evangelista (2021: 205) sees ‘literary cosmopolitanism’ in the early 20th century as linked to European writers ‘becoming more mobile and internationally connected than ever before’, while these interconnections also fostered a ‘scepticism of all national cultures, including one’s own’ (Evangelista, 2021: 206). Cosmopolitan writers did not ‘shy away from asking difficult ethical and political questions’ (Evangelista, 2021: 210). Thus, the concept of cosmopolitanism in literature is here also linked with political ideas beyond the national, with ethical engagement, wider cultural interconnections and scepticism in relation to nationalism.

Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi in Bernhard Setzwein’s Der böhmische Samurai (2017) is depicted explicitly as a cosmopolitan, who is deeply sceptical of nationalism, with a desire to extend the space of the political . His cosmopolitanism is seen here as more than just a synonym of transnationalism (Delanty, 2019: 3) or simply as transnational links – which is not to say that such links do not also play a role in his depiction. Coudenhove-Kalergi’s European federal ideas are essentially represented as the potential institutionalisation of the ideals of cosmopolitanism that, for him, also form part of a very concrete material-familial and intellectual-ethical tradition, represented especially by his father Heinrich, but also by the whole Coudenhove-Kalergi family. In the novel Richard’s brother Hansi is seen as sceptical with regard to the potential institutionalisation of these cosmopolitan ideals in a European federation, yet he also sees cosmopolitanism as reflective of his and his family’s identity and background, and his critique of Richard’s ideas is presented as unconvincing to the reader.

Richard’s intellectual-ethical cosmopolitanism is first seen in the novel in relation to the completion of his father Heinrich’s book Das Wesen des Antisemitismus (The Nature of Antisemitism), following Heinrich’s early death from a heart attack. The rabbi in Ronsperg – in the reality of the novel – subsequently gives Richard the incomplete manuscript, implying that it is his task to complete it (Setzwein, 2017: 146–152). Richard takes on this project and views it in terms of political enlightenment, as a way of potentially undermining antisemites (and thus also nationalists):

Und irgendwann würde die Beweislast so erdrückend werden, daß jedermann erkennen mußte, wie irrational, wie hysterisch, verblendet und krank alles war, was als Hetze gegen die Juden vorgebracht wurde. Und wenn es einmal heraußen wäre, als Buch, und alle es lesen können würden, dann würde bald kein Mensch mehr irgendeinem Antisemiten auch nur ein einziges Wort glauben

And at some point, the burden of proof would become so overwhelming that everyone would have to recognise how irrational, hysterical, blind and sick everything that was brought forward as incitement against the Jews really was. And once it was out as a book and everyone could read it, then soon no one would believe even a single word from any anti-Semite. (Setzwein, 2017: 157)

Richard’s cosmopolitanism is also seen – in the more limited form of transnational links – in the depiction of the Coudenhove-Kalergis’ wide familial cultural interconnections, which defy the easy categorizations of nationalism. In Stockau in 1914, Richard surveys the surrounding nationalist wave in Germany and in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and asks: ‘Wen also sollten sie, die Ronsperger, sich zum Erbfeind erwählen?’ (So, whom should they, the Ronspergers, choose as their hereditary enemy?) (Setzwein, 2017: 242). With ‘the Ronsperger’ Richard means the Coudenhove-Kalergi family, as he then proceeds to detail the various familial links to France, Russia and Britain, concluding that ‘Von dem jeweiligen Feind hatten sie zu viel in sich selber’ (They had too much of each enemy in themselves) (Setzwein, 2017: 242). Richard, in a letter to his wife Ida, attempts to analyse the ‘Explosion des Völkerhasses’ (the explosion of ethnic hatred):

Es lag zum Beispiel daran, daß die Leute keine anderen Sprachen lernten. Dann würden sie nämlich automatisch zu Kosmopoliten werden. Und dem Glauben anhängen, daß die eigene Rasse von Haus aus allen anderen überlegen sei, konnten sowieso nur ausgemachte Dummköpfe.

For example, it was because people didn’t learn other languages. Then they would automatically become cosmopolitans. In any case, only outright fools could cling to the belief that one’s own race was inherently superior to all others. (Setzwein, 2017: 243)

Thus, Richard is here depicted as deeply critical of nationalism and as desiring the establishment of mechanisms which could help counteract narrow nationalisms (even if more than language learning were undoubtedly needed for this), seeing this explicitly in terms of a generalised understanding of cosmopolitanism.

Richard’s European federal ideas are represented as the potential institutionalisation of the ideals of cosmopolitanism, as concrete ideas for the creation of political structures beyond the national, the necessity for which has become even more profound following the mass killing of World War I. His European federal ideas are represented thus as the cosmopolitan ‘extension of the space of the political’ (Delanty, 2019: 3), linked to democracy and the manifestation of a specific non-national political imaginary; the potential political institutionalisation of a pacifistic European cosmopolitanism as an antidote to violent forms of nationalism. In a conversation with his siblings in Ronsperg in 1922, Richard tells them:

(. . .) ich finde, wer, nach all dem, was in diesem letzten Krieg passiert ist, noch immer nicht verstanden hat, daß es jetzt nur mehr eine Aufgabe geben kann, nämlich die Nationalstaaten abzuschaffen und so etwas wie die vereingten Staaten von Europa zuzugründen, dem ist nicht mehr zu helfen.

I think anyone who, after all that has happened in that last war, still hasn’t understood that there can only be one task left, and that is to abolish the nation-states and create something like the united states of Europe, then he can no longer be helped. (Setzwein, 2017: 310)

Hansi, Richard’s brother, is outwardly very sceptical of the Paneuropa movement and idea. He calls Paneuropa ‘eine ziemliche Scheißidee’ (a fairly shit idea) (Setzwein, 2017: 68) ‘rein utopisch’ (purely utopian) (Setzwein, 2017: 310) and the ‘abstruse Idee der Vereinigten Europäischen Staaten’ (abstruse idea of the United States of Europe) (Setzwein, 2017: 358). Hansi calls Richard ‘ein Traumtänzer’ (a dream dancer) and a ‘Manegen-Clown’ (circus clown) (Setzwein, 2017: 358). At a meeting at the Ronsperg Estate in 1938, Richard challenges Hansi for associating with Nazis and for having no plan of escape for his wife and daughter, who are partly Jewish and thus likely to be very soon in grave danger. Richard asks Hansi: ‘Du glaubst allen Ernstes, der Krieg macht einen Bogen um Ronsperg herum?’ (You believe in all seriousness that the war will swerve around Ronsperg?) (Setzwein, 2017: 362). To this, Hansi replies:

Was für ein Krieg denn? Der Schreihals aus Braunau hat doch bekommen, was er wollte: den Sudetengau (. . .) Ach, Dicky. Mit dir ist es seltsam: Entweder du siehts deine Visionen, diesen europäischen Bundesstaat, der dir anscheinend vor den Augen herumgaukelt wie so eine Fata morgena, oder du siehst schwarz. Rabenschwarz. Nur realistisch, realistisch siehst du anscheinend rein gar nichts.

What war then? The screamer from Braunau has gotten what he wanted: the Sudetengau (. . .) Ah, Dicky. It’s strange with you: either you see your visions, this European federal state that seems to be spinning around in front of your eyes like some mirage, or you are pessimistic, darkly pessimistic. Only realistic, realistic is a way you can’t see. (Setwein, 2017: 362).

Thus, Hansi sees Richard here as unrealistic and engulfed in quasi-fake visions of a cosmopolitan European state. The contemporary reader knows, however, that war is indeed coming – a brutal and deadly war – that it is Richard here who is ‘realistic’ and that Hansi is inhabiting an alternative dreamworld, in which Hitler has no interest in invading the rest of Czechoslovakia. Indeed, Richard’s idealistic and visionary political involvement is later shown to actually be of very practical use when Hansi, as a German-speaker and possible Nazi collaborator, is imprisoned in 1945 and Richard uses the connections he acquired via the Paneuropa movement in the 1920s to try and organise his release. Richard writes a letter to Czechoslovak president Edvard Beneš, whom he had earlier known and who had been a dedicated Paneuropa supporter in the 1920s, telling him that Hansi is ‘vollkommen harmlos und absolut unfähig einem anderen auch nur das geringste Leid anzutun’ (completely harmless and utterly incapable of doing even the slightest harm to anyone else) (Setzwein, 2017: 425).

Hansi is ultimately shown to also have a cosmopolitan self-understanding and world-view, inherent indeed to his family, despite his criticisms of Richard and the Paneuropa idea of a cosmopolitan extension of European politics. When questioned by an officer in the Czechoslovak army in 1945 with regard to his identity, Hansi replies:

Ich glaube nicht, Herr Kommandant, daß man sagen kann, unsere Familie sei deutsch (. . .) Kosmopolitisch. Subranational [sic]. Über den Nationen. Meine Mutter war, wie Sie sicherlich wissen, Herr Kommandant, Japanerin. Meine Frau, wie eben erklärt, Halbjüdin, gebürtig in Budapest.

I don’t think, Herr Commandant, that one can say that our family is German (. . .) Cosmopolitan. Supranational. Above the nations. My mother, as you probably know, Commander, was Japanese. My wife, as just explained, half-Jewish, born in Budapest. (Setzwein, 2017: 251)

In Colm Tóibín’s The Magician, which centres on Thomas Mann, Heinrich Mann is also very clearly represented in terms of cosmopolitanism. This is seen in his critical attitude and scepticism in relation to nationalism, but also in terms of his ‘behaviours, social habits’ (Jacob, 2006: 4), Heinrich’s ‘way of being in the world’ (Sluga and Horne, 2010: 370). Heinrich’s cosmopolitanism is also depicted as more than just a synonym for transnationalism, however, and Heinrich is also represented as interconnected with the ‘expansion of democracy’ and the ‘extension of the space of the political’ (Delanty, 2019: 3). This is not, however, fully sketched in the novel and only appears once in terms of the language of Europe, and then – in a section of the text filtered through the thoughts of Tóibín’s fictional Thomas Mann – is viewed very sceptically by his brother.

The conflict between the brothers is at the centre of the first half of the novel and is represented in terms of a nationalism-authoritarianism/cosmopolitanism-democracy divide. The conflict between the Mann brothers has long been a quasi-subgenre within academic studies of the Mann family (Banuls, 1968; Kantorowicz, 1956; Kesting, 2003; Koopmann, 2005). As Kurzke (2002: 97) notes Heinrich Mann, in the early 20th century, ‘moves from his original more apolitical-conservative views towards politics, liberalism and democracy’, while tensions between the brothers finally ‘erupt when Thomas in the fall of 1914 takes the side of the German nationalistic enthusiasm for war’. Thomas Mann’s later ‘conversion’ to democracy and the Weimar Republic in the early 1920s is now generally viewed more sceptically by researchers, due to illiberal continuities in his thought and his inconsistent understanding of democracy and republicanism (Lörke, 2016: 72; Hacke, 2022: 22). In Tóibín’s novel Thomas Mann’s embrace of democracy is represented, rather simplistically, as Thomas finally more or less adopting Heinrich’s political positions.

In The Magician, Tóibín’s Heinrich Mann is inherently sceptical in relation to nationalism, while the Thomas Mann of the novel, before World War I, is regularly dismayed by his brother’s international outlook and anti-nationalism. Indeed, Thomas is shocked when Heinrich questions whether Germany is really a nation at all. When Heinrich and Thomas are living in Palestrina in Italy in the 1890s, Heinrich tells Thomas that ‘the unification of Germany had been a mistake’ and ‘had served only to further Prussian dominance’ (Tóibín, 2021: 50), a view that Thomas, in the novel, is unable to take seriously as it is contrary to existing reality. For him, German unity is ‘settled business’, ‘no one could dispute its value’ as Germany is ‘one nation’ and ‘Germans spoke one language’. To these statements, Tóibín’s Heinrich replies:

‘You think Bavaria and Lübeck are part of the same nation?’ Heinrich asked.

‘Yes, I do’.

‘Germany, if I can use that word, contained two elements that were direct opposites. One was all emotion, about the language, the people, the folk-tales, the forest, the primeval past. It was all ridiculous. But the other was about money and control and power. It used the language of dreams to mask pure greed and naked ambition. Prussian greed. Prussian naked ambition. It will end badly’ (Tóibín, 2021: 50–51).

Thus, Heinrich is depicted as not only sceptical of aggressive nationalism, but of Germany as a coherent nation at all.

At the outbreak of war in 1914, Thomas is dismayed at Heinrich’s continued and very public internationalist pacifism. He sees Heinrich’s cosmopolitanism here as a behavioural stance, but which has also now taken on a distinctly political form as Heinrich refuses to support German nationalism and instead looks to imagine a more peaceful world. For Thomas: ‘Heinrich’s internationalism (. . .) [was] a result of him living too long in Italy and France. Now, as German fatalities increased, Thomas presumed that his brother would become less nonchalant about the threats to Germany and discard his cosmopolitan airs’ (Tóibín, 2021: 126). This does not happen but instead, in 1915 ‘Heinrich published an essay invoking Zola as a novelist who had, during the Dreyfus case, attempted to alert his fellow countrymen to a wrong that was being committed’ (Tóibín, 2021: 127). Heinrich, in the novel, draws an analogy thus here between Emile Zola and himself, implicitly rejecting both the war and German nationalism.

Indeed, Thomas’ lack of patience with what he sees as Heinrich’s engagement with abstract ideas is especially evident in an earlier passage that takes place when Thomas, Heinrich and Katia are on holidays in Venice. Europe appears here as an abstract idea that Heinrich, inspired by spiritual art, might engage with:

He and Katia smiled as Heinrich went into a paroxysm of ecstasy in the Frari over Titian’s Virgin ascending into heaven. No novelist, Thomas thought, should like this painting. The central image, despite the sumptuous colours, was too unearthly, too unlikely. Having studied it for a while, he turned his attention to the faces of the shocked figures at the bottom of the picture rooted in ordinary life who had to witness this scene as he did. He knew as they walked back towards the Grand Canal, that Heinrich would be inspired to make some large statement about Europe or history or religion. (Tóibín, 2021: 98)

Here Tóibín – via Thomas’ thoughts, it must be emphasised – creates a clear dichotomy between Thomas and Heinrich. Heinrich is associated with the unworldly, the abstract and statements concerning large topics such as Europe, while Thomas positions himself with the people ‘rooted in ordinary life’, the worldly and the concrete. Yet, Tóibín’s narrative actually undermines this dichotomy and suggests that Heinrich’s abstract cosmopolitan idealism may also retain very real and highly positive aspects. This is seen especially during the period of the Munich Soviet in 1918, when co-operative socialist and left-wing writers, including Heinrich, have taken over the running of the city. Tóibín (2021: 136) writes: ‘It took Thomas a while to accept that there was a functioning government in Munich and that it consisted of poets and dreamers and friends of Heinrich’s’. Indeed, after the quashing of the Munich Soviet the very concrete advantages of Heinrich’s idealism are especially evident. A former soldier in the Soviet visits Thomas and tells him that he was on a list of people who were to be rounded up and arrested, but this did not occur. Thomas asks why:

‘“I can assure you your brother’s name was invoked.”

“In what way?”

“In a way that saved you.”’ (Tóibín, 2021: 139)

Thus, Thomas’ association with his brother Heinrich, the abstract idealist and cosmopolitan, is seen here as instrumental in him not being arrested as a member of the bourgeois elite, which may indeed have saved his life. Idealism is seen here as having very concrete, and positive, real-world consequences.

The idea of cosmopolitanism is also interconnected with the ‘expansion of democracy’ (Delanty, 2019: 3), as already stated. Tóibín’s Heinrich Mann is depicted as a cosmopolitan due to his lifestyle, his transnational links and his pacifist anti-nationalist politics, but also due to his belief in democracy and the expansion of democratic spaces. Thomas and Heinrich are represented, subsequent to World War I, as adopting relatively congruent positions in relation to democracy, as Thomas abandons his more authoritarian wartime stance, in what is definitely a simplistic literary representation of his more complex so-called republican conversion (Lörke, 2016: 72). Tóibín (2021: 144) describes the following encounter among Thomas Mann’s family, in Munich 1918:

‘“So you are against democracy?” Erika asked.

“I believe in humanity,” he replied.

“We all believe in that,” Klaus said. “But we also believe in democracy. I do, Erika does, our friends do, our mother does, Uncle Klaus does, Uncle Heinrich does.”

“How do you know Uncle Heinrich does?”

“Everyone knows that!” Golo interjected.

“Democracy will come,” Thomas said. “And my hope is that it comes from a German belief in humanity. And I’m sure my brother thinks that too.”’

Thus, Thomas’ ‘conversion’ to democracy is here represented as Thomas simply taking on Heinrich’s position on democracy, a position which his children have also adopted, while here Heinrich is also depicted as a well-known proponent for the realisation of democratic structures.

Conclusion

This article analysed the representation of Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi in Bernhard Setzwein’s Der böhmische Samurai (2017) and Heinrich Mann in Colm Tóibín’s (2021) The Magician. It is argued that Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi and Heinrich Mann are represented as cosmopolitans who are entangled in a wide variety of transnational links, remain sceptical of nationalism and who, most importantly, argue for the extension of the space of the political, beyond the national. Their depiction is of intellectual figures who laid some of the ideational groundwork for the creation of later European institutions, undertaking this reflective task from the perspective of an idealistic, pacifist and deeply democratic cosmopolitanism. It is also argued that fictional representations of European federalists – whether historically real or completely fictional – may also be a productive future avenue for literary European Studies. As such fictional works may contain representations of Europe and Europeanness that are widely disseminated, such an orientation may also help in the further mapping of attitudes to Europe. Indeed, this could potentially be extended further, to other forms of media and culture, such as documentary films, online postings and museum exhibitions, creating a balanced and multifaceted European Literary and Cultural Studies.