the burning of the world: a memoir of 1914 (bela zombory-moldovan)

I imagine there were two reasons which lead me to this book. Firstly, rightly or hopefully wrongly, the northern hemisphere summer, dusky, full of reports of blissful weather and the shadow of war, has had a very 1914 feel to it. Secondly, because of my own obscure roots in the Austro-Hungarian empire, an empire on the verge of dissolution when this book was written. Zombory-Moldovan’s account of the early months of the war on the Eastern front is almost banally harrowing. There is one chapter full of great violence on the newly opened Eastern front, bookended by preparation and recuperation. The violence is fleeting but its mark is irreparable. (The translator’s introductory notes are worth reading for context of the brutality of this Eastern front.) The writer was an artist and one of the most beguiling aspects of the book is his capacity to capture the colours of war, peace and landscape. The author’s description of Budapest and the Hungarian countryside contain a quintessentially European air. The beauty and consciousness of European civilisation permeates the author’s prose. Retreating from the front, he finds himself in Horyniec castle, with its art treasures, ancestral portraits. staircases, and galleries. A few hours after being forced to flee again, he looks back and sees the castle on fire. Civilisation is no insurance against the perils of war, and the notion of European ‘civilisation’ has always been more fragile than we like to believe in peacetime.