Is this the summer of the century?
The European Landscape of 1913: A Look at Intellectual and Cultural History

This book is about 1913, the year when imperialism reached its peak, nationalism spread, territorial disputes, including the Balkan Wars, continued unabated, technological advancements accelerated, cities teemed with people suffering from self-alienation and neurosis, and modernism overturned traditional concepts of the arts, including music, painting, and literature.

This book depicts the landscape of European society in 1913, 100 years ago, divided into months from January to December.
There are over 300 characters that appear.
Franz Kafka, Rainer Maria Rilke, Marcel Proust, James Joyce, Thomas Mann, Arthur Schnitzler, Sigmund Freud, Carl Gustav Jung, Pablo Picasso, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Franz Marc, Marcel Duchamp, Kazimir Malevich, Arnold Schönberg, Adolf Loos, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Coco Chanel, etc., all left unforgettable marks on the intellectual and cultural history of modern Europe.


Author Florian Illis meticulously and precisely reconstructs the actions of these figures in 1913, taking into account the historical context.
Over the course of three years, he collected, organized, and reconstructed a vast amount of relevant data from numerous figures, including biographies, autobiographies, letters, diaries, photographs, and newspaper articles, to dramatically recreate the landscape of Europe in 1913.

It was the month when Hitler and Stalin met by chance while strolling in Schönbrunn Palace Park, when Thomas Mann almost came out, and when Franz Kafka almost went mad with love.
A cat crawls onto Sigmund Freud's sofa.
The weather is cold, and the snow crunches underfoot.
Else Laskerschuler, now penniless, falls in love with Gottfried Benn, receives a horse postcard from Franz Marc, and calls Gabriele Münter nothing.
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner paints pictures of high-class prostitutes in Potsdamer Platz.
Russian pilot Pyotr Nikolayevich Nesterov performs the first somersault in human history.
But it's all useless.
Oswald Spengler is already writing The Decline of the West. --- "January"

Okay, now it's time for the real start.
In New York, the Armory Show sparks a big bang in modern art, and Marcel Duchamp presents Nude Descending a Staircase.
After that, Duchamp rose to prominence.
Besides that, nudity is rampant everywhere.
In Vienna in particular, there are nudes of Alma Mahler by Oskar Kokoschka and nudes of Viennese women by Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele.
Other women gave Freud 100 kroner to strip their souls bare for an hour.
Meanwhile, Adolf Hitler paints moving watercolors of St. Stephen's Cathedral in his men's shelter room.
Heinrich Mann, who is writing "The Servant" in Munich, celebrates his forty-second birthday at his brother Thomas Mann's house.
There is still a lot of snow piled up.
The next day, Thomas Mann buys land and builds a house.
Rilke continues to suffer, and Kafka continues to hesitate.
But Coco Chanel's small hat shop is thriving and growing by the day.
Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian throne, speeds through Vienna in a gold-spoked car, plays with model railroads, and frets over assassinations in Serbia.
Stalin meets Trotsky for the first time.
And in that same month, a boy was born in Barcelona who would later assassinate Trotsky on Stalin's orders.
Was 1913 really a bad year?--- "February"

In March, Kafka actually goes to Berlin to meet Felice Bauer, and the two take a walk together, but it doesn't go well.
Robert Musil is treated by a neurologist and released safely, but Camille Claudel ends up in a neurologist's hospital and is imprisoned for 30 years.
And in Vienna, there will be a great 'Cheek Slap Concert' on March 31st.
Arnold Schoenberg was publicly slapped for composing music with too sharp a tone.
Albert Schweitzer and Ernst Jünger dream of Africa.
In Cambridge, Ludwig Wittgenstein begins a new lecture on logic with Outing, Virginia Woolf finishes her first book, and Rilke catches a cold.
The overall important question is, "Where are we going?"--- March

Hitler celebrates his twenty-fourth birthday on April 20th at a men's shelter in Vienna.
Thomas Mann is agonizing over The Magic Mountain, and his wife is already leaving for recuperation again.
Lionel Feininger discovers a tiny village church in Gelmeroda and transforms it into an expressionist cathedral.
To cure his 'burnout', Franz Kafka volunteered to work for a vegetable farmer, pulling weeds every afternoon.
Bernhard Kellermann writes this year's bestseller, The Tunnel.
It is a science fiction novel about a story that connects America and Europe underground.
Frank Wedekind's 'Lulu' becomes a banned book.
Oskar Kokoschka buys a canvas the same size as his lover Alma Mahler's bed and begins to paint her portrait on it.
Alma says she will marry him if the work becomes a masterpiece.
I'll definitely get married if I do that.--- "April"

A warm spring night in Vienna.
Schnitzler, after a bitter quarrel with his wife, dreams of shooting himself on May 25, but does not realize it.
However, on the same night in Vienna, Colonel Redl, whose spy activities were exposed, commits suicide with a pistol.
That same night in Vienna, Adolf Hitler packs his bags and boards the first train to Munich.
And the painter group 'Daripa' is disbanded.
In Paris, Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring premieres, and it is at the theater that Stravinsky first meets Coco Chanel, who would later become his lover.
Brecht is bored at school and suffers from palpitations.
So he starts writing poetry.
Alma Mahler runs away from Oskar Kokoschka for the first time.
Rilke has not been able to write since his fight with Rodin. --- "May"

This is the month when it becomes clear that war will never happen.
Georg Trakl searches for his sister and seeks salvation from the fires of hell.
Thomas Mann just wants peace.
Franz Kafka makes a sort of proposal, but it doesn't go well.
He confused the oath of office with the proposal.
DH
Lawrence publishes Sons and Lovers and flees to Upper Bavaria with Frieda von Richthofen, the mother of his three children.
She becomes the model for Lady Chatterley.
Elsewhere, people's nerves are on edge.
In the cinema, Asta Nielsen ruins an unknown masterpiece in Sins of the Fathers.
German forces continue to strengthen.
Henkel Trocken welcomes the German-French friendship. --- "June"

It's vacation time! Egon Schiele and Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria are playing with a model railway.
Prussian officers swim naked in Lake Jacques.
Frank Wedekind leaves for Rome, while Robis Corinth and Käthe Kollwitz leave for Tyrol (but in different hotels).
Alma Mahler flees to Franzensbad.
Because Oskar Kokoschka had requested a marriage certificate.
Kokoschka consoles himself by drinking with Georg Trakl.
It keeps raining.
Everyone is half crazy in their hotel rooms.
Still, Matisse brings Picasso a bouquet of flowers. --- "July"

Is this the summer of the century?
Anyway, it's a month where Freud faints and Kirchner becomes happy.
Emperor Franz Joseph goes hunting, while Ernst Jünger sits for hours in a hot greenhouse wearing his winter coat.
The novel "The Man Without Qualities" begins with misinformation.
Georg Trakl is planning to spend his vacation in Venice.
The same goes for Schnitzler.
Rilke is in Heiligendamm, where he is visited by a woman.
Picasso and Matisse go horseback riding together.
Franz Marc receives a tamed deer as a gift.
No one is working.--- "August"

A death in Venice shakes Berlin.
Virginia Woolf and Carl Schmitt attempt suicide.
September 9th is not a good day.
The Duel in Munich.
Freud and Jung point their swords at each other.
Rilke goes to the dentist to have his cavity filled with amalgam, and Karl Kraus falls head over heels in love with Sidonie.
Kafka, who went on a trip to Venice, falls in love with Riva without dying.
The 'First German Autumn Salon' opens, and Rudolf Steiner lays the cornerstone in Dornach.
Louis Armstrong appears on a public stage for the first time.
Charlie Chaplin signs his first film contract.
The rest is silence.--- "September"

It's Thomas Mann's month to make up for the past.
Avant-garde artists meet at a religious play performed in Hellerau, near Dresden.
German teenagers go on a walking tour in Meissner.
This mountain has since been called “Hore Meisner”.
Emil Nolde leaves Berlin with his expedition to the South Pacific.
August Macke discovers paradise on Switzerland's sunny Lake Thunersee.
One important issue.
Can we feel disgust in Franz Werfel's face? And another thing.
How much can Berlin tolerate avant-garde art? Ludwig Meitner, striking from the blue, paints a battlefield scene and titles it "Apocalyptic Landscape."
Emperor Wilhelm II attends the inauguration of the Victory Monument in Leipzig.
Freud takes off his hat and throws it at the mushrooms. --- "October"

Adolf Loos said that ornamentation was a crime, and he built houses and tailor shops full of clarity.
The relationship between Else Laskershüler and Gottfried Benn is over.
Else Laskershüler falls into despair.
Alfred Döblin, who happened to be Kirchner's model, administered morphine to her.
When Proust's "In Search of Lost Time," the first volume, "The Way to Swann's House," was published, Rilke read it immediately.
Kafka goes to the cinema and cries.
Prada opens its first boutique in Milan.
Eighteen-year-old Ernst Jünger packs his bags and joins the African Foreign Legion.
The weather in Germany is bad.
But Bertolt Brecht believes that anyone can catch a cold.--- "November"

Everything is open.
The future, and the lips of beautiful women.
Kazimir Malevich paints a black square.
Robert Musil thinks Germany is too dark.
The Mona Lisa was rediscovered in Florence and became one of the most important paintings in the world.
Rilke wants to be a hedgehog.
Thomas Mann clearly states, “I am writing The Magic Mountain, not The Magic Apprentice!”
Emil Nolde finds only confused humans in the South Pacific paradise, while Karl Kraus finds happiness in Janowitz.
Ernst Jünger is discovered in Africa and returns home to celebrate Christmas in Bad Reburg.
How do the stars stand?

--- "december"