Last Days in Old Europe
Trieste '79, Vienna '85, Prague '89
Published on 31. January 2019
Book
Hardback
224 pages
978-0-241-01486-8 (ISBN)
Description
'With these vivid, wistful memoirs, he joins the great chroniclers of Europe - the Prousts, Zweigs, Lampedusas, Leigh-Fermors and Bassanis - and shows how some of the things those writers loved persisted as late as 1989.' (Economist)
Selected as a Book of the Year in the TLS and Spectator
In 1979 Richard Bassett set out on a series of adventures and encounters in central Europe which allowed him to savour the last embers of the cosmopolitan old Hapsburg lands and gave him a ringside seat at the fall of another ancien regime, that of communist rule. From Trieste to Prague and Vienna to Warsaw, fading aristocrats, charming gangsters, fractious diplomats and glamorous informants provided him with an unexpected counterpoint to the austerities of life along the Iron Curtain, first as a professional musician and then as a foreign correspondent.
The book shows us familiar events and places from unusual vantage points: dilapidated mansions and boarding-houses, train carriages and cafes, where the game of espionage between east and west is often set. There are unexpected encounters with Shirley Temple, Fitzroy Maclean, Lech Walesa and the last Empress of Austria. Bassett finds himself at the funeral of King Nicola of Montenegro in Cetinje, plays bridge with the last man alive to have been decorated by the Austrian Emperor Franz-Josef and watches the KGB representative in Prague bestowing the last rites on the Soviet empire in Europe.
Music and painting, architecture and landscape, food and wine, friendship and history run through the book. The author is lucky, observant and leans romantically towards the values of an older age. He brilliantly conjures the time, the people he meets, and Mitteleuropa in one of the pivotal decades of its history.
Selected as a Book of the Year in the TLS and Spectator
In 1979 Richard Bassett set out on a series of adventures and encounters in central Europe which allowed him to savour the last embers of the cosmopolitan old Hapsburg lands and gave him a ringside seat at the fall of another ancien regime, that of communist rule. From Trieste to Prague and Vienna to Warsaw, fading aristocrats, charming gangsters, fractious diplomats and glamorous informants provided him with an unexpected counterpoint to the austerities of life along the Iron Curtain, first as a professional musician and then as a foreign correspondent.
The book shows us familiar events and places from unusual vantage points: dilapidated mansions and boarding-houses, train carriages and cafes, where the game of espionage between east and west is often set. There are unexpected encounters with Shirley Temple, Fitzroy Maclean, Lech Walesa and the last Empress of Austria. Bassett finds himself at the funeral of King Nicola of Montenegro in Cetinje, plays bridge with the last man alive to have been decorated by the Austrian Emperor Franz-Josef and watches the KGB representative in Prague bestowing the last rites on the Soviet empire in Europe.
Music and painting, architecture and landscape, food and wine, friendship and history run through the book. The author is lucky, observant and leans romantically towards the values of an older age. He brilliantly conjures the time, the people he meets, and Mitteleuropa in one of the pivotal decades of its history.
Reviews / Votes
If Oscar Wilde was correct that "history is gossip," then Bassett serves up a delicious cocktail of the very best kind-polite, learned, and insightful, merely leavened with touches of history and geopolitics, making one thirsty for more. ... A memoir can breathe life into history, and this is indeed Bassett's achievement as he breathes new life into shattered kingdoms, their now-moldering cast of characters, and all of the fascinating stories that would otherwise vanish with them. -- Kevin J. McNamara * Kirk Centre * Richard Bassett's spirited memoir of ten crucial years in recent European history is full of insights into the last days of two empires: the Habsburg, whose embers he savours beautifully, and the Communist, which he vividly shows us collapsing in front of him. The book is charming and funny, but it has a serious purpose, lightly worn, and a flavour all of its own. -- Anne Applebaum With these vivid, wistful memoirs, he joins the great chroniclers of Europe - the Prousts, Zweigs, Lampedusas, Leigh-Fermors and Bassanis - and shows how some of the things those writers loved persisted as late as 1989. * Economist * Most memoirs by former journalists fail lamentably ... A vastly enjoyable exception to the rule is Richard Bassett's charming, imaginative and elegantly written memoir of his adventures in central Europe, for many years as a correspondent for The Times -- Victor Sebestyen * Evening Standard * As Soviet rule in central Europe collapsed in the late 1980s, newsworthy events, thrilling and poignant, abounded. Many were enriched by the diffident, elegant presence of Richard Bassett. -- Edward Lucas * Financial Times * In the 1980s Richard Bassett was "our man" in central Europe, and a high old time he appears to have had. This memoir of that period and those places is nicely crafted and would happily accompany a bottle or two of Holzpur 2004 spread over a couple of winter evenings. -- David Aaronovitch * The Times * This is a gem of a book ... a charming and engaging memoir of a world now gone. -- Clovis Meath Baker * Standpoint * Eyewitness anecdotes bring to life the complex criss-crossing history of Mitteleuropa ... a very well-furnished English mind, travelling through Europe at a transformative moment in its history with more than a bit of local knowledge -- Annette Kobak * Times Literary Supplement *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Penguin Books Ltd
Dimensions
Height: 222 mm
Width: 138 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-241-01486-8 (9780241014868)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
01/2019
1st Edition
Penguin Books Ltd
€9.49
Available for download
Person
After reading Law and the History of Art at Cambridge, Richard Bassett set out for Central Europe and in 1983 became principal horn of the National Slovene Opera House in Ljubljana. In 1985 he was appointed Central European and then Eastern European correspondent for The Times. His previous books include A Guide to Central Europe (1987), Hitler's Spy Chief: The Wilhelm Canaris Mystery (2005) and For God and Kaiser: The Imperial Austrian Army, 1619-1918 (2015). He is a Bye-Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge, and Visiting Professor at the Central Europe University of Budapest. He is currently working on a biography of the Empress Maria Theresa.