Dispositions and Dispossessions: Interwar Left-Wing Literary Writing in Vienna and Zagreb

The article examines how political fiction in Vienna and Zagreb during the interwar period reflected competing narratives of emancipation and liberation. The arguement is that while both cities engaged with left-wing political thought, their literary scenes diverged significantly due to differing socio-political contexts. The article juxtaposes the Austro-Marxist cultural project of Red Vienna, which sought to reconcile class divisions through socialist cultural policies, with the more fragmented leftist movements in Zagreb, where political fiction often expressed disillusionment with the failure of revolutionary change. Through a comparative reading of novels by Hugo Bettauer, Hermynia zur Mühlen, Jura Soyfer, Miroslav Krleža, and August Cesarec, Perica demonstrates that while Viennese writers engaged with optimistic visions of a new socialist subject, their Zagreb counterparts tended to depict the inescapability of class structures and the impossibility of true political liberation. The article challenges contemporary political theory by questioning whether “liberation” can truly transcend the limitations of “emancipation,” highlighting how literature exposes the institutional and social conditions that shape political subjectivation.