Jura Soyfer | Biography

Like no other Austrian writing during the interwar period, Jura Soyfer fused passionate political engagement with literary achievement. With his first attempts, agitprop scenes for the Viennese Social Democratic party's political cabarets, he took the side of the working class in the battles between capital and labor during the depression of the early 1930s. After the triumph of fascism over the Austrian Left in 1934 Soyfer wrote for the Viennese Kleinkunst (cabaret theaters). His creative imagination overcame the restraints of censorship and raised his reactions to the political situation to a universal level. Dedicated to the concerns of ordinary people, Soyfer revived the Austrian critical Volksstück (play dealing with the lives of lower-class people) to create a unique kind of drama in which satirical cabaret and revue techniques blended with a lyricism that can be gentle as well as aggressive. Soyfer's plays are documents of the 1930s, but their themes--unemployment,...
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