Rudolf Steiner’s Vienna Years

Martina Maria Sam summarizes the period in Rudolf Steiner's life that follows on from the descriptions in her first volume (Childhood and Youth) as follows, "As he takes up his work as a private tutor in 1884, Rudolf Steiner connects with the most varied circles, attending artistic-literary groups and frequenting the coffeehouses of Vienna. He gets to know poets, journalists, actors, theologians, politicians, musicians and theosophists, including Johannes Brahms, Victor Adler, Hermann Bahr, Arthur Schnitzler and Fercher von Steinwand." This time In Vienna was also one of formative encounters and friendships with women, among them Pauline Specht, the poet Marie Eugene delle Grazie, and the later feminists Marie Lang and Rosa Mayreder. What characterizes Rudolf Steiner's time in Vienna moreover is the attempt in his publications to call attention, building on Goethe, to the fact that there are no boundaries to knowledge but that the spirit or inner essence of things can be directly experienced in the cognitive process.

Martina Maria Sam points out that, from 1888 onwards, one can detect signs of an inner change as Rudolf Steiner developed new interests "in visual arts, theatre and mysticism." Outwardly this is apparent in contacts initiated by Friedrich Eckstein with the Viennese theosophists. Towards the end of his years in Vienna, new horizons open up for the young Rudolf Steiner. The volume closes with his leaving Vienna in order to take up a position as a co-worker at the Goethe Archives in Weimar in the autumn of 1890. More ...