Rudolf Kassner - Travels

Travels

Between 1898 and 1912 Kassner traveled extensively. In the years 1897–98, 1908, 1910 and in 1912 he was in England. His first book Die Mystik, die Künstler und das Leben is about English poets of the eighteenth century. The English writer Laurence Sterne influenced Kassnerr and he appears as a character in Kassner's Die Chimäre. Kassner translated Sterne's Tristram Shandy and Cardinal Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua into German, and wrote several essays on Sterne, Thomas de Quincey and Thomas Hardy.

In 1900 Kassner made his first trip to Paris. Here he met André Gide, whose work Philoktet he translated into German. He also met Maurice Maeterlinck. His involvement with French culture is reflected in his essays on Baudelaire, Auguste Rodin, Abbe Galiani and Diderot and in his translations of the works of Gide and St. John Perse.

While in Paris, Kassner received a visit from T. S. Eliot and during this trip, he formed his great friendship with Rilke, the poet. In many histories of German literature, Kassner finds mention at best as a friend of Rilke and Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Yet, the two poets have testified amply to Kassner's profound influence on them. Rilke dedicated his eighth Duino Elegy, the most important elegy, to Kassner. In a letter to Princess Marie von Thurn and Taxis, Rilke says of Kassner: "...is not this man, I say to myself, perhaps the most important of all those who are writing today?" On his deathbed Rilke recalled with great fondness his association with Kassner.

Kassner's association with Hofmannsthal began in 1902. He visited the poet in Rodaun. Both of them belonged to that generation of Austrians who believed they were witness to the steady decline of western culture and the inexorable erosion of its institutions. Hofmannsthal wrote about Kassner in 1904: " I believe that he is perhaps the most important literary man, the most important culture critic that we have ever had in Germany" Kassner also knew Houston Stewart Chamberlain, the notorious racial theorist and anti-Semite, to whom he had sent his first book. At Chamberlain's House in Vienna Kassner often met Count Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau, Count Hermann von Keyserling and the Indologist Leopold von Schröder.

In 1905 Kassner traveled through Spain, and from to Tangier in Morocco. His father passed away in Vienna in 1906 and Kassner spent that year in Vienna. In 1907 he traveled again to Italy, further to Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and by motorcar through the Sahara.

On 16 October 1908 Kassner's began his lengthy journey through India. From London he proceeded by sea to Bombay. On board he became acquainted with the Maharaja of Kapurthala and one Mr. Inder Choudhary, a judge at the Calcutta high court. In the first week of November 1908 Kassner traveled from Bombay to Jaipur; then to Thaneswar and arrived on 24 November 1908 in Kapurthala to take part in the birthday celebrations of the Maharaja. From there he went towards Lahore and Peshawar, also a jaunt to the Khyber Pass. He returned south through Delhi and Agra to Lucknow. In a train accident on 3 December Kassner lost his baggage. Ten days after that he reached Benaras via Allahabad. Next he proceeded to Calcutta, where, incidentally, he met Stefan Zweig. In Calcutta he stayed with his friend, whom he met on the journey to India, Inder Choudhary. On 1 January 1909 he went to Darjeeling, from where he viewed the Kanchanjunga. He went by steamer to Burma and traveled up to Bhano on the Chinese border. From Calcutta Kassner went by sea to Colombo, from there he reached South India in mid-February; setting out most likely from Tuticorin to Madras via Madurai and Thanjavur. He reached Madras on 24 February 1909. He also visited Hyderabad and Ellora and journeyed home from Bombay on 6 March 1909.

On the return journey he spent some time in Egypt; from there he proceeded to Rome and spent the rest of that year in Italy. We do not know much about Kassner's experiences in India or about the sources of his knowledge about India, apart from what he himself says in his writings. But it is evident that India deeply influenced Kassner. Kassner himself confessed later that he became a philosopher through the Indians. Besides his two major works on India, Indian themes constantly recur in Kassner's writings. Kassner's Indian journey and his experiences in India are of immense importance in understanding his life and works.

In 1911 he traveled to Russia. He started from Vienna in May 1911 and traveled to St Petersburg; then to Moscow and from there along the Volga up to Saralow. He went southwards to Yalta and then to Kieslovodsk, north of Caucasus. In an automobile he crossed the Caucasus and went along the route that leads via the Caspian to Samarkhand in Turkestan. He returned after a brief stay in St. Petersburg and Moscow to Berlin towards the end of October 1911. Soon translations from the Russian followed: Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy.