FRANZ BAERMANN STEINER Methodology and History in Anthropology Series Editors: David Parkin, Fellow of All Souls College, University of Oxford David Gellner, Fellow of All Souls College, University of Oxford Nayanika Mathur, Fellow of Wolfson College, University of Oxford Recent volumes: Volume 42 Volume 37 Franz Baermann Steiner: A Stranger in Crossing Histories and Ethnographies: the World Following Colonial Historicities in Jeremy Adler and Richard Fardon Timor-Leste Edited by Ricardo Roque and Volume 41 Elizabeth G. Traube Anthropology and Ethnography Are NOT Equivalent: Reorienting Anthropology Volume 36 for the Future Engaging Evil: A Moral Anthropology Edited by Irfan Ahmad Edited by William C. Olsen and Thomas J. Csordas Volume 40 Search After Method: Sensing, Moving, and Volume 35 Imagining in Anthropological Fieldwork Medicinal Rule: A Historical Anthropology Edited by Julie Laplante, Ari Gandsman of Kingship in East and Central Africa and Willow Scobie Koen Stroeken Volume 39 Volume 34 After Society: Anthropological Trajectories Who Are ‘We’? Reimagining Alterity out of Oxford and Affinity in Anthropology Edited by João Pina-Cabral and Glenn Edited by Liana Chua and Nayanika Mathur Bowman Volume 33 Volume 38 Expeditionary Anthropology: Teamwork, Total Atheism: Secular Activism and Travel and the ‘Science of Man’ the Politics of Difference in South India Edited by Martin Thomas and Stefan Binder Amanda Harris For a full volume listing, please see the series page on our website: https://www.berghahnbooks.com/series/methodology-and-history-in-anthropology FRANZ BAERMANN STEINER A Stranger in the World Jeremy Adler and Richard Fardon berghahn N E W Y O R K • O X F O R D www.berghahnbooks.com First published in 2022 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com © 2022 Jeremy Adler and Richard Fardon All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Adler, Jeremy D., author. | Fardon, Richard, author. Title: Franz Baermann Steiner : a stranger in the world / Jeremy Adler and Richard Fardon. Description: New York : Berghahn Books, 2022. | Series: Methodology and history in anthropology ; Volume 42 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021028824 (print) | LCCN 2021028825 (ebook) | ISBN 9781800732704 (hardback) | ISBN 9781800732711 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Steiner, Franz Baermann, 1909-1952. | Steiner, Franz Baermann, 1909-1952--Influence. | Anthropology--Europe--History-- 20th century. | Anthropologists--England--Biography. | Poets--England--Biography. | Jewish authors--Biography. Classification: LCC GN21.S775 A74 2022 (print) | LCC GN21.S775 (ebook) | DDC 301.092 [B]--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021028824 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021028825 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-80073-270-4 hardback ISBN 978-1-80073-271-1 ebook CONTENTS List of Figures vii Acknowledgements ix Introduction. A Brief Life 1 Part I. An Oriental in the West Chapter 1. Beginnings: The Prague German-Jewish Community 9 Chapter 2. Student Days in Prague and Jerusalem 29 Chapter 3. First Ethnological Studies in Vienna and London, and Fieldwork in Sub-Carpathian Ruthenia 42 Chapter 4. The Impact of the Early English Years 61 Chapter 5. The Exile 78 Chapter 6. The Oxford Anthropologist 99 Part II. Orientpolitik, Value and Civilization: The Social Thought Chapter 7. Beyond ‘Culture Circles’: The Field Trip Revisited 121 Chapter 8. Zionism, Political and Cultural Critique 134 Chapter 9. On Slavery 148 Chapter 10. Radcliffe-Brown and Evans-Pritchard 162 Chapter 11. Labour and Value 172 Chapter 12. Civilization and Taboo 179 Chapter 13. Simmel and Aristotle 191 vi Contents Part III. The Poet Anthropologist Chapter 14. Conquests 201 Chapter 15. Kafka in England 216 Chapter 16. The Chief Sociological Principle 226 Chapter 17. Suffering and Value 239 Chapter 18. In Search of the Universal Mathesis 247 References 252 Manuscript Sources 253 F.B.S.’s Unpublished Writings in the Schiller-Nationalmuseum, Deutsches Literaturarchiv, Marbach am Neckar 253 Unpublished Letters to and about F.B.S. and Memoirs Concerning Him at the Schiller-Nationalmuseum, Deutsches Literaturarchiv, Marbach am Neckar 255 F.B.S.’s Unpublished Writings and Other Sources in the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford 256 F.B.S.’s Letters to Veza and Elias Canetti, Private Collection, Zürich 256 Letters and Other Written Communications to the Authors 256 Published Sources 257 Selection of F.B.S.’s Published Writings 257 Published Sources Cited 258 Index of Names 275 Index of Subjects 281 FIGURES Figure 1.1 Suse Steiner and Franz Steiner. Circa 1925. © Estate of Franz Baermann Steiner. 11 Figure 2.1 Suse Steiner, 1932, photographer František Drtikol. © Estate of Franz Baermann Steiner. 40 Figure 2.2 Franz Steiner after his return from Palestine, 1932, photographer probably František Drtikol. © Estate of Franz Baermann Steiner. 41 Figure 3.1 Ruthenian farmsteads, summer 1937, photographer Franz Steiner. © Estate of Franz Baermann Steiner. 55 Figure 3.2 Ruthenian market, summer 1937, photographer Franz Steiner. © Estate of Franz Baermann Steiner. 56 Figure 3.3 Gypsy homes in Ruthenia, summer 1937, photographer Franz Steiner. © Estate of Franz Baermann Steiner. 58 Figure 3.4 Gypsy school, summer 1937, photographer Franz Steiner. © Estate of Franz Baermann Steiner. 59 Figure 5.1 Marie-Louise von Motesiczky in her living room-cum-studio in Amersham with Veza Canetti, 1940 or shortly after. © Marie-Louise von Motesiczky Charitable Trust 2021. 84 Figure 5.2 Elias Canetti, Grinzing, Vienna, 1936. © Johanna Canetti. 87 Figure 5.3 H.G. Adler after his return from the camps, 1945. © The Estate of H.G. Adler. 96 viii Figures Figure 6.1 Franz Steiner and Iris Murdoch, Trafalgar Square, autumn 1952, unknown photographer. © Estate of Franz Baermann Steiner. 113 Figure 6.2 Iris Murdoch, photographer Franz Steiner. © Estate of Franz Baermann Steiner. 116 Figure 7.1 Ruthenian shepherd, summer 1937, photographer Franz Steiner. © Estate of Franz Baermann Steiner. 125 Figure 7.2 Ruthenian pipe player, summer 1937, photographer Franz Steiner. © Estate of Franz Baermann Steiner. 127 Figure 7.3 Uniate religious procession in Ruthenia, summer 1937, photographer Franz Steiner. © Estate of Franz Baermann Steiner. 128 Figure 7.4 Gypsy girl in Ruthenia, summer 1937, photographer Franz Steiner. © Estate of Franz Baermann Steiner. 129 Figure 7.5 Ruthenian girl, summer 1937, photographer Franz Steiner. © Estate of Franz Baermann Steiner. 130 Figure 7.6 Orthodox Jewish youth, summer 1937, photographer Franz Steiner. © Estate of Franz Baermann Steiner. 131 Figure 7.7 Ruthenian women at market, summer 1937, photographer Franz Steiner. © Estate of Franz Baermann Steiner. 132 Figure 17.1 Heinrich and Marta Steiner, Prague, 1938. © Estate of Franz Baermann Steiner. 242 Figure 18.1 Franz Steiner, circa 1952, photographer H.G. Adler. © Estate of Franz Baermann Steiner. 248 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is possible to appreciate Aristotle’s sociological thought much better now than during the last few centuries; and this is very significant, not only for the stage reached in the development of sociological reasoning but generally for our cultural situation. —Franz Steiner on Aristotle’s sociology Two and a half decades have passed since we embarked on a project to edit and introduce Franz Steiner’s more important anthropological works to English-language readers in two volumes and to contex- tualize them with a selection of his political, aphoristic and poetic writings. We did so, as we put it then, ‘In the conviction that today’s intellectual climate … is a more auspicious moment for their appreci- ation’ than that of their composition (1999a/b: x). The reviews wel- coming the collections proved our hopes were not misplaced;1 and, as we explain in our Introduction, numerous hands in subsequent years have steadily built an impressive scholarly edifice on the modest new foundations we laid. The two Introductions we wrote for those volumes had been conceived as a single biographical work, and they were published as such in the definitive German-language edition of Steiner’s work.2 So, we were delighted that Marion Berghahn, who took the risk of bringing our original publication into public view, reacted supportively to our intention to reunite the two halves of our English biography, in a revised, corrected and wholly updated form. Although we cannot be sure to have sourced all the latest literature, we are confident that this new version is up-to-date as regards re- search on Steiner and his circle and marks a decisive step beyond our original thoughts. Our feeling more than two decades ago now feels even more appropriate: Steiner would have recognized with approval the origins of many of the changes in our sociological reasoning and cultural situation that have occurred in the fifty [now seventy] years since he settled in Great Britain and set about transforming himself into an English-speaking