Hertzka, Theodor
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1845-1924) Austrian economist and author of the influential socialist Utopia, Freiland: Ein Sociales Zukunftsbild (1890; trans Arthur Ransom – clearly not the writer and translator Arthur Ransome – as Freeland: A Social Anticipation 1891) and its sequel, Eine Reise nach Freiland (1893; trans anon as A Visit to Freeland, or The New Paradise Regained 1894; rev vt A Trip to Freeland 1905). These offer little in the way of fictional pleasures in the portrayal of unstressed existence in a clement African setting, but most unusually manage to depict an ideal society in terms that sound genuinely livable. It may be the case that they fail satisfactorily to suggest a convincing relationship between private and public control of production (see Economics) – but then no one ever has – and the books inspired a Freeland Society in the USA; some local colonies were actually established. Entrückt in die Zukunft: Sozialpolitischer Roman ["Caught Up in the Future: a Social-Political Novel"] (1895) somewhat more congenially presents the manuscript of a man who awakens from Suspended Animation in 2093, long after a great revolution in 1918 has brought about a peaceful Utopia with Airships powered by Antigravity. [JC]
see also: Austria.
Theodor Hertzka
born Budapest, Austro-Hungary: 13 July 1845
died Wiesbaden, Germany: 22 October 1924
works
- Freiland: Ein Sociales Zukunftsbild (Leipzig, Germany: Duncker and Humblot, 1890) [hb/]
- Freeland: A Social Anticipation (London: Chatto and Windus, 1891) [trans by Arthur Ransom of the above: hb/]
- Eine Reise nach Freiland (Leipzig, Germany: Duncker and Humblot, 1893) [hb/]
- A Visit to Freeland, or The New Paradise Regained (London: William Reeves, 1894) [trans of the above: hb/]
- A Trip to Freeland (Bow, Washington: The Freeland Printing and Publishing Co, 1905) [rev vt of the above: pb/]
- A Visit to Freeland, or The New Paradise Regained (London: William Reeves, 1894) [trans of the above: hb/]
- Entrückt in die Zukunft: Sozialpolitischer Roman ["Caught Up in the Future: a Social-Political Novel"] (Berlin: Ferdinand Dümmiers, 1895) [pb/nonpictorial]
links
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