Anima Rising

In 1911, Vienna was the crown jewel of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a constitutional monarchy that comprised both Austria and Hungary and lasted from 1867-1918. The city’s many contrasts during this time are one of the reasons Moore chooses it as his setting for Anima Rising. The Austrian Leopold Museum notes the many ways Vienna was a collection of contradictions: “It was simultaneously the capital of the aristocracy and the liberal intellectuals, home of the magnificent Ringstrasse and endless slums, a place of anti-Semitism and Zionism, rigid conservatism and the onset of modernity” (“Vienna 1900.” Collection, Leopold Museum).

An important element of setting is the physical proximity of many important figures of turn-of-the-century Europe, which simultaneously housed leading thinkers, key politicians, and the cultural elite. Emperor Franz Joseph lived in Hofburg Palace in Vienna (Walker, Andy. “1913: When Hitler, Trotsky, Tito, Freud and Stalin All Lived in the Same Place.” BBC News, 17 Apr. 2013). Within a two-mile radius from the Hofburg were a number of significant other locations, including Sigmund Freud’s house and his favorite coffee shop, Café Landtmann, which, in the novel, is the place where Freud’s character is introduced.

Early 20th-century Vienna also faced great social unrest. While the upper classes lived in opulence, the lower classes struggled to survive, creating a strong juxtaposition between those with resources and those without them. In 1909 and 1910, poor harvests led to increased food prices for an already impoverished urban population struggling with rising rent costs (Bettel, Florian. “Policing the Crisis: A History of Riot Control Technology.” ResearchGate, Nov. 2021). As a result, on September 17, 1911, the Teuerungsrevolte, or “high cost of living revolt,” broke out, during which working class people protesting inflation and high cost of living faced violent suppression by the police and military. Four protestors died and many more were injured at the hands of government armed forces. This class division is present within the Vienna that Moore constructs: Klimt lives in affluence, while his models struggle to pay their rent; Klimt paints formal portraits of the wealthy, while also completing erotic sketches that push the moral boundaries of the time.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire spanned over 15 modern nations and contained 50 million citizens that spoke a dozen languages. Judith, who is a polyglot capable of speaking all languages, thus mirrors the societal landscape of Vienna in the early 20th century. The coffee houses that feature in Anima Rising also illustrate the diversity of Viennese society. In the real version of these places, artists Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele mixed with scientists like Sigmund Freud and revolutionaries like Leon Trotsky; important thinkers overlapped, sharing ideas across disciplines and interests. Similarly, in Anima Rising, Klimt visits Freud’s favored Café Landtmann, and Wally takes Judith to Trotsky’s favored Café Central.

In his Afterword, Moore discusses wanting a setting rife with historical relevance. He chose Vienna in 1911 “because that is the year that Mahler died and Klimt introduced Wally Neuzil […] to Egon Schiele. Also, Freud and Jung, who had been friends and colleagues since 1907, would have a breakup over their views of the human psyche late that year” (370). Wally, Klimt, and Egon are important characters in the narrative, as are Freud and Jung; Anima Rising times its temporal and geographic setting to introduce the key intersections between these figures, presenting the opportunity for a realistic grounding for more fantastical elements of Anima Rising.