Young Vienna (Jung-Wien) was a society of fin de siècle writers who met in Vienna's Café Griensteidl and other nearby coffeehouses from 1890 until 1897. Their work is often broadly categorized as "Viennese coffeehouse literature" or as part of a larger Wiener Moderne movement that affected many disciplines.
The group turned away from the prevailing Naturalism of the time and experimented with various facets of Modernism, including Symbolism and Impressionism. Members were known for their indolence and decadence, traits satirized by Karl Kraus in his 1897 essay Die Demolierte Literatur (Demolished Literature).
Hermann Bahr was considered the group's spokesman. Other members included Arthur Schnitzler, Felix Dörmann, Peter Altenberg, Richard Beer-Hofmann, Felix Salten, Raoul Auernheimer, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, and, though he would later distance himself from the group, Karl Kraus.
Though little work was accomplished at the café, the writers exchanged manuscripts, criticism, and often mistresses.
The group dissolved on 20 January 1897, a day before Café Griensteidl was to be demolished. According to Schnitzler's diary, Felix Salten, angry with a negative review Kraus had given him, attacked the young journalist in the café. Many of the members continued to meet at the nearby Café Central.
Famous quotes containing the words young and/or vienna:
“When a nation’s young men are conservative, its funeral bell is already rung.”
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–1887)
“All the terrors of the French Republic, which held Austria in awe, were unable to command her diplomacy. But Napoleon sent to Vienna M. de Narbonne, one of the old noblesse, with the morals, manners, and name of that interest, saying, that it was indispensable to send to the old aristocracy of Europe men of the same connection, which, in fact, constitutes a sort of free- masonry. M. de Narbonne, in less than a fortnight, penetrated all the secrets of the imperial cabinet.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)