Naslov
Theodor Herzl and Hugo Spitzer: comparative biographies

Autori
Ostajmer, Branko

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, neobjavljeni rad, znanstveni

Skup
Multiple Jewries? New Perspectives on the History of Jews in the Habsburg Empire

Mjesto i datum
Beč, Austrija, 05.11.2014. - 06.11.2014

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
Theodor Herzl; Hugo Spitzer; Zionism; Croatian Jews

Sažetak
The lives of Theodor Herzl (Budapest, 1860 – Vienna, 1904) and Hugo Spitzer (Osijek, 1859 – Zagreb, 1934) offer an exceptionally large number of similarities and common points, and it is almost surprising that historians, especially in Croatia, have not tried to study links and influences by comparing the two biographies. One year younger Spitzer was the founder of political Zionism in Croatia. He was born in Osijek, the largest city in Slavonia, a city which was distinguished for its loyalty to the monarchy, the house of Habsburg, and a large strong Jewish community (the strongest in Croatia). Herzl and Spitzer studied law in Vienna at the same time (both graduated in 1884), they shared similar liberal views, and both were in their later careers engaged in journalism (Herzl was a correspondent for Neue Freie Presse, and Spitzer was associate of Osijek’s newspaper Die Drau which, without an exaggeration, could be called the Croatian version of Neue Freie Presse ; later Spitzer started his own newspaper – Osječki tjednik – whose basic program was maintaining Croatian-Hungarian state community, as well as the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy). Spitzer had early accepted Herzl’s Zionist ideas and was a participant at the Second Zionist Congress (Basel, August 1898). He worked hard on spreading Zionism among Croatian Jews but his biography, unlike Herzl’s, remains to this day very little known. A comparison of their lives is extremely important for a more comprehensive overview of Spitzer’s life and work, for a better understanding of the emergence of political Zionism in Croatia, as well as for an understanding of the history of Croatian Jews in general. The comparison of two life paths clearly shows that it was not unusual that Osijek became the center of Zionism in Croatia, and later, from 1918, the center of Zionism in the Kingdom of the Croats, Serbs and Slovenes (Kingdom of Yugoslavia from 1929). One month after Herzl’s death, in August 1904, Osijek hosted the first Congress of Croatian Zionists. Two years later in 1906 the Zionist society “Theodor Herzl” was founded in the same city. On the occasion of the foundation Rabbi Mordechai Marcus Ehrenpreis, Herzl’s contributor and participant at the First Zionist Congress, held a lecture entitled “A Decade of Zionism”, and could with pleasure conclude that the Zionist idea finally penetrated among the Croatian Jews.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

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