“Erzherzog Friedrich rief Bumsti!”: Karl Kraus e la tragedia della responsabilità

Abstract

This study aims to reconstruct the literary rendering of Friedrich von Österreich-Toskana, Archduke of Teschen, in Karl Kraus’ writing dated between 1900 and 1930. The Archduke, Supreme Commander of the Austro-Hungarian army, is one of the many historical figures that Kraus transforms into tragicomic characters for Die Letzten Tage der Menschheit. Every mention of the Archduke in the drama and in the Fackel paints the portrait of a simpleminded man, who is, above all, guilty of lacking any interest in the human cost of his decisions as Supreme Commander: in both works, Kraus obsessively refers to an anecdote dating back to the beginning of the war, when the Archduke reacted to a war film showing a mortar in action with an infantile “Bumsti!”. Kraus frames the Archduke’s detachment from this spectacle of death as a symptom of the corrupted sense of solidarity among men brought on by the war. Speaking of the Archduke allows Kraus to express his dissent against the choices made by the Habsburgs during World War I and publicly ask for accountability when it comes to those in power during the conflict.