Through the story of the Slovenian peasant family Trotta, which ascends to nobility, Joseph Roth (1894-1939) depicts in the novel

(1932) the last half-century of the Habsburg Monarchy. Written from a post-Habsburg perspective and considered to be Roth’s most significant novel,

also marks a very important boundary in Roth’s œuvre – between works written before and after the Nazis’ rise to power in Germany. The slightly ironic perspective towards the Habsburg Monarchy present in

disappears from Roth’s works written after 1933, on account of his hopes that only the restoration of the supranational empire could prevent the victorious march of nationalism throughout Europe.

Although The Radetzky March evokes the most typical

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Citation: Foteva, Ana. "Radetzkymarsch". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 10 March 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16142, accessed 21 November 2024.]