“Fatal moments”, when history suddenly accelerates

History can flow for a long time , even for decades, like a slow, placid and reassuring river . This is what happened in Europe, especially in its western part, in the decades following the end of the Second World War. It is no coincidence that some historians have come to theorise, for the West, even the "end of history", at least in its most daring and least reassuring aspects.

Suddenly, however, there always comes a tear, a violent tug that sets the historical story back in motion. An invisible virus turns the globe upside down or tanks are once again threatening to roam the European territory : these are recent examples of those decisive junctures to which the great Austrian writer and historian Stephen Zweig dedicated one of his masterpieces, " Fatal moments ”, now available in audiobook (Emons, 2023), in the reading of Danilo Negrelli .

In the essay, published in 1927, Zweig recounts some decisive passages in the human story through fourteen written miniatures . They are those rare moments, "star hours", to use the words of the Austrian writer, in which decisions and dynamics mature that transcend contingency and which, "bright and immutable like the stars, shine above the night of human transience".

Thus, thanks to the historical precision of Zweig and his narrative talent, so skilled in recalling psychologies and environments, we relive the fall of Constantinople , amidst the screams of the victorious Turks and those of the defeated Christians, and the journey of the sealed carriage in which Lenin , in 1917, crosses Germany with destination Russia and the Bolshevik revolution. And yet the discovery of the Pacific Ocean by the Spaniards led by Ferdinand Magellan , the first words that run along a transoceanic cable in 1858 to arrive at the dream of peace formulated by US President Wilson in the aftermath of the Great War.

From the pages of Zweig history returns as living, vital matter , capable of affecting our personal story and our feelings. Each miniature that makes up the book becomes, in fact, an observation point, an open window from which to look out, to let the gaze flow from the past to the present.

History therefore loses its presumed static nature - which is for many a synonym of uselessness - to show us how every event can turn into a sort of pebble thrown into the pond . It moves the water more clearly where it falls but causes circular movements that radiate outwards, moving further and further away from the point of fall.

Here it is: Zweig has been able to grasp the value of the pebble that moved the pond in an incomparable way and show us the extent of the waves which, despite coming from afar, in space and time, still move the ship of our existence.