Background
Franz Theodor Csokor was born on September 6, 1885 into a respectable middle-class family in Vienna. His father was Johann Csokor, a professor of veterinary medicine, and his mother was Emilie (maiden name, Myller) Csokor.
Franz Theodor Csokor was born on September 6, 1885 into a respectable middle-class family in Vienna. His father was Johann Csokor, a professor of veterinary medicine, and his mother was Emilie (maiden name, Myller) Csokor.
Franz studied art history with Max Dworak.
Franz decided early in life that he would have a career in writing. He began by working on plays as a young man as well as consulting and directing at theaters in Vienna. His early works, written around the time of World War I, were expressionist, the most successful of which was Die rote Strasse ("The Red Street") published in 1918. This play examined the sometime violent difficulties in relationships between men and women.
Csokor soon left behind expressionism and began writing in a different style. As the political climate of Austria changed and grew more tumultuous in the 1920s and 1930s, Csokor's writing became more realistic and included more contemporary social and political content. Gesellschaft der Menschenrechte ("Society for Human Rights"), published in 1929, is his best known work from the 1920s. It told the story of a writer. Georg Bychner, who, while living in Germany during difficult times, was caught between his creative life and his work as a social activist. By the end of the 1920s, Csokor had achieved success and critical acclaim throughout Austria and Germany. His most successful work of the next decade, and arguably the most successful work of his career, was the play, 3, November 1918, published in 1936. It illuminates what was happening politically in his country at the time, portraying the rise of extreme nationalism after World War I at the expense of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This play, called "one of the great dramas of modern Austrian literature" by Katherine McHugh Lichliter in the Encyclopedia of World Literature in the Twentieth Century, won the playwright two prestigious awards for productions in Austria. It later became part of a trilogy published in 1954. Csokor's Europaische Trilogie (European Trilogy) included 3, November 1918 as its first work, followed by Besetztes Gebeit ("Occupied Zone"), set in occupied France in 1923, and Der verlorene Sohn ("The Prodigal Son"), depicting resistance groups in Yugoslavia fighting against fascism. As a trio, they examine the rise of new ideologies in modern European society. In addition to dramas, Csokor wrote many short stories. His short fiction was typically dark but with a strain of optimism. Csokor was forced to flee his homeland, leading an itinerant existence for the next eight years, living in Poland, Romania, Yugoslavia, and Italy.
During his years in exile, Csokor continued to write. His 1933 play Der tausendjaehrige Traum ("The Dream of the Millennium") on the subject of the Anabaptists in Muenster, Westphalia, during the sixteenth century, inspired him to write a historical novel on the subject. The novel, Der Schlussel zum Abgrund ("The Key to the Abyss"), which he would not finish until after the war (it was published in 1955), told the story of this radical movement of Reformers during the sixteenth century that surprisingly parallels the fascist movement in Csokor's own time. The Anabaptists rejected religious and civil authority resulting in a violent climate in which they forcibly expelled anyone who did not adhere to their beliefs. The main characters in the novel were the King of Muenster, whom Csokor portrayed as a Hitler-like monarch, and the preacher Bernt Rothmann, who was compared to the Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg.
Csokor chronicled his own experiences of persecution by the Nazis during World War II in his memoirs. Als Zivilist im polnischen Krieg ("As a Civilian in the Polish War"), published in 1940, captured his wartime years in Eastern Europe. This prose work was later combined with Als Zivilist im Balkankrieg ("A Civilian in the Balkan War") to become one volume under the title, Auffremden Strassen ("On Foreign Streets"). Published in 1955, this volume recorded the horrors as well as the heroism witnessed by Csokor.
After the end of the war, Csokor was able to return to Vienna in 1946. He was dedicated to revitalizing literature in his home country and became president of the Austrian P.E.N. Club, a post that he would hold until his death in 1969. His writing style changed once again in the aftermath of the war. Less interested in political and social commentary, he began writing historical works with a more generalized focus on contemporary moral issues.
The short stories in the collection. Der zweite Hahnenschrei ("The Second Crow of the Cock"), published in 1959, served as a good example of Csokor's post-war style. Historical subjects are various kinds were collected in the book. "Die Angst des Michelangelo" ("Michelangelo's Fear") discussed tensions between republicans and the power Medici family in Florence during the Renaissance. The title story went back to Roman times when Christians had to decide whether to react peacefully or with violent outrage to the crucifixion of Christ. In another story from this collection, "Letzte Slunde" ("Last Hour"), the main character was much like the author himself. A liberal writer, he faced his death by firing squad. As Csokor's earlier short stories, death became a moment of realization when the condemned man suddenly understood the meaning of his life through the idea of "Menschendienst," meaning service to mankind.
Franz died in Vienna, and is buried in a grave of honour in the Zentralfriedhof.
Csokor opposed Hitler and his politics from the very beginning. At a P.E.N. Congress meeting in Croatia that the writer attended in 1933, he voted for a resolution that criticized book burning and other means of creative repression by the Nazi party. Because of his outspoken opinions on the subject, Csokor's plays had already been banned in Germany (where he had had much success) when Hitler invaded Austria in 1938.