Zweig, Stefan--Romain Rolland

discussing his works, including Essais littéraires, Théâtre de la Révolution, Jean-Christophe, Robespierre, Les Léonides, and his study of Beethoven, mentioning Zweig's writings, including Castellio gegen Calvin, Magellan, and Ungeduld des Herzens, rejoicing in their differing views, noting that he is not lonely, feeling himself to be surrounded by the friendship of millions of men of all countries, proffering advice concerning his divorce plans, referring to his role as a historian and to current political matters in the USSR, offering a critique of Stalin, drawing parallels between the French Revolution and the period 1933-1937 in Russia, castigating a work by Henri Guilbeaux [probably La fin des soviets, 1937], complaining about the interception of his journals by the fascistic cantons romands, questioning whether his correspondence is not being similarly intercepted, describing his removal to Vézelay, advising against Zweig's move to Brazil, since it is too late for him to put down roots, observing that without roots one becomes a shadow, recommending that they carry on their good work despite everything, mentioning Lenin, Trotsky, Gide, Pushkin, Stendahl, Chekhov, Gorki, Honegger, Milhaud, Freud, Albert Dandistel, Max Reinhardt, Toscanini, Kabalevsky, Mozart, Napoleon, Mussolini, Hitler, and the Gestapo, touching on the reaction of the Jews to Hitler's pogroms and massacres, and discussing his finances, Hollywood, and many other matters

...Je ne vous parle pas des hontes de la politique et des ignominies du racisme hitlérien. Il m'arrive souvent de songer à Napoléon. Et j'imagine le dégoût furieux qu'eût soulevé en lui le spectacle de ce Führer, qui authorise et qui sanctionne les pogromes...et le massacre d'une partie de son peuple par l'autre partie! - Mais dites-moi pourquoi, du peuple juif, dans le monde entier, n'a pas jailli, depuis dix ans, une grande voix de douleur et de malédiction! Nous l'attendons, nous l'appelons!...



over 100 closely-written pages, mostly large 8vo, one letter on a postcard, one on a letter card, two autograph envelopes, six typescript copies of two 1940 letters, together with a negative facsimile of a letter of Rolland to his father, and two typescript pages of transcriptions of letters by Zweig to Rolland, Villeneuve and Vézelay, 30 December 1935 to 7 April 1940

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing, where appropriate
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A fascinating and wide-ranging series of letters by the French writer, mystic and pacifist, Romain Rolland (1866-1942), penned against the ever-darkening backdrop of the late 1930s and early stages of the war before the German invasion of France. The letters provide remarkable insight into European cultural thought during a tumultuous period in history, as well as testifying to a great personal friendship, one described in detail by Zweig in his autobiography Die Welt von Gestern, finished shortly before his suicide in 1942.