Although little known to Australian audiences, Thomas Bernhard is
widely considered to be the author of one of the most significant
bodies of writing produced in Austria during the 20th century.
Revered since his death in 1989 as a national treasure, his
relationship with his country and fellow countrymen during his
lifetime was fraught, perhaps stemming from his difficult
childhood.
The product of a liaison between two young Austrians, Herta
Bernhard and Alois Zuckerstatter, he was born in 1931 in Heelen, a
city in Netherlands to which his mother fled to escape the shame of
her child's illegitimacy. His father rejected Bernhard from the
start, refusing to care for or even acknowledge him, and
Zuckerstatter moved to Berlin where he committed suicide in 1940.
His mother was hardly more willing to care for her son, and she
struggled with the temptation to offer him for adoption, instead
placing him in a series of foster homes and state institutions for
illegitimate children before finally leaving him with her parents
in her hometown of Seekirchen, just north of Salzburg. His
grandfather Johannes Freumbichler, an outspoken and mildly
successful author, was a powerful influence on Bernhard,
encouraging him to pursue an artistic education from a young age
and introducing him to the work of many great writers.
In 1936, when Bernhard was five years old, his mother remarried
Emil Fabjan, gave birth to two more children, a boy and a girl, and
moved to Traunstein in Bavaria, German, where her oldest son joined
them in 1937. He never really connected with his step-family and
proceeded to have a difficult, fragmented youth, moving between
schools and institutions, and suffering from frequent physical and
emotional illnesses.
Despite his intelligent, Bernhard struggled to fit in at school,
and left at the age of 16 to take up an apprenticeship with a
grocer. Independent for the first time in his life, Bernhard
flourished, and used his wages to pay for singing lessons until he
was struck by serious illness in 1949, first pleurisy and then
tuberculosis. He was hospitalised, and was admitted to the same
hospital that was treating his beloved grandfather, who died
shortly afterwards. This was a bitter blow for 18-year-old Bernhard
and a turning point in his life. While in hospital, inspired by his
grandfather, Bernhard began to write poetry, and was further
encouraged in this pursuit when he met Hedwig Stavianicek the
following year in a sanitarium in Grafenhof, near Salzburg.
Stavianicek was 37 years Bernhard's senior, and a sophisticated and
intelligent woman who recognised the young man's potential as a
writer.
The transition in Bernhard's life was accelerated when his mother
died later that year of cancer, effectively leaving him without any
significant blood relations, and allowing him to forge his own path
and identity for the first time. Stavianicek remained his close
friend and life companion until her death in 1984, a relationship
that was ambiguous but apparently platonic, despite the fact that
Bernhard never married and was consistently asexual in the public
eye. With the support of Stavianicek, Bernhard recovered his health
and moved towards seriously pursuing a creative career.
He studied acting and directing at the performing arts university
in Salzburg, the Mozarteum, before turning briefly to journalism
and finally to poetry, prose and playwriting. In the early 1960s he
bought a home in the Austrian village of Obernathal, which was to
be his base and escape for the rest of his life, and he wrote
Frost, the first of his 13 novels, in 1963 and produced his first
play in 1974.
Despite winning numerous awards, including Österreichische
Staatspreis für Literatur (1967), the Anton-Wildgans-Preis der
Österreichischen Indistrie (1967), the Georg-Büchner-Preis (1970),
the Franz-Theodor-Csokor-Preis (1972), Bernhard's work was often
not well received, due to his undisguised and often brutal
criticism of his homeland. Largely reviled by his countrymen during
his lifetime, Bernhard was embroiled in numerous controversies
including a messy accusation of defamation related to his novel
Holzfällen.
In addition to social and political critiques, Bernhard also wrote
from his own experience, taking the opportunity to reinvent and
explore his life story in various autobiographical pieces of
writing. Often featuring themes of abandonment and impending death,
undoubtedly inspired by his difficult childhood, Bernhard's work
combines vicious denouncements of his country, with its Nazi past,
with a dark and bitter humour.
Bernhard died on February 12, 1989 in his home in Obernathal, in
the presence of his half-brother Dr. Peter Fabjan, who was to act
as the executor of his will. This was not an easy role as Bernhard,
controversial even after death, left a directive that no new
performances of his plays or editions of his books could be
produced within Austria. Despite this, Bernhard has posthumously
become a literary icon in Austria and landmarks related to his life
have become tourist destinations.
Alex Lalak
This is an excerpt from the program for The Histrionic (Der
Theatremacher), which is on sale for $10 in the Wharf
Theatre foyer.
The Histrionic, Wharf 1 Theatre, 15 June - 28 July,
2012.
Feature: Thomas Bernhard
Date posted: 24 Jun 2012Author: STC