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Abstract

The scholarship surrounding fin de siècle Vienna contains many cultural and intellectual cornerstones that are lauded even to this day. All participating in the Viennese coffeehouse culture of the time, artists like Gustav Klimt, musicians like Gustav Mahler, psychologists like Sigmund Freud, and authors like Arthur Schnitzler shaped their respective disciplines significantly. The social network for how these intellectuals and many others interacted is very complex. This study analyzes and maps the interactions of dozens of individuals from early 20th-century Vienna to pinpoint the social center of this culture. Intriguingly, the often-overlooked Berta Szeps-Zuckerkandl—whom leading scholar Carl Schorske only mentioned once (in the footnotes) in his work Fin de Siècle Vienna—emerged as the most connected person in Vienna. This work supports the hypothesis that certain individuals possess disproportionately more social capital than the vast majority and demonstrates this in Berta Szeps-Zuckerkandl. As an amateur musician, art critic, French translator, and writer, her transcultural and interdisciplinary connections, she combined the writer’s group Jungwien, Wienhofoper members, and Wiener Secession artists in her salon. The exposure offered by her salon fostered academic, romantic, and artistic cross-pollination. This work sheds greater light on her achievements and the qualities that made her the social center of Vienna.the fin de siècle.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.25035/irj.09.01.05

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