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terrym10's review
2.0
I admit that I only read this book to fulfill a reading challenge. It’s a memoir by an Austrian artist turned WW1 soldier. He never wanted to be a soldier, but he was forced to serve at the age of 29. He was injured on the front line with a head wound that affected the nerves in his right leg & left arm and sent home to recuperate for three months. He seemed to be doing ok, but then an earthquake set his PTSD off. I can’t even imagine what he went through. All he wanted to do was paint and instead he was forced to become a soldier and kill other men who didn’t want to be there either. The book was well written, but the subject matter just didn’t interest me.
shesnorikkiducornet's review
2.0
Never delving deep into the world the author inhabited, these is the equivalent of a stone being skipped on a great lake. In many places it reads like a glorified bullet list. Occasionally there are glimmers of something richer and grander but they are brief, fading away before you awaken from the bored stupor you have floated along in. I kept hoping for some substantial scenery chewing from a landscape painters eye, but nothing more than a quick sketch ever surfaced. My understanding of the situation and culture of Hungary during this period of the war is basically exactly where it was before I read this book.
wshier's review
3.0
This was pretty good, but there are a LOT of great WWI memoirs. If you are going to read 1 or 2, this is not one to pick.
robertrivasplata's review
informative
reflective
fast-paced
4.0
Very readable memoir of the beginning of World War 1 in Austria-Hungary. The structure & pace of the narrative would lends this book to a movie adaptation. It reminded me a bit of Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket (Moldovan was a figure somewhere between the drill instructor & Joker). I can also imagine reading this book for Kagan’s Central European History class at UC Davis (so many years ago now), in which we did read Jakob Walter’s “Diary of a Napoleonic Foot Solder”. Walter’s memoir has many similarities to Moldovan’s: They are both some of the only memoirs by foot soldiers from these conflicts (in Moldovan’s case, the 1914 Galician campaign); they were both written later in their authors’ lives; & they were both only discovered and published decades after they were written. The Burning of the World is full of the author’s perspectives (implicitly & explicitly told) on the late Austro-Hungarian Empire’s class structure, ethnic politics, & cultural life, in addition to his recollections & thoughts on his army service. Moldovan’s part in the battle of Rawa Ruska seemed to be part of an attempt by the Austro-Hungarians to maintain a defensive line in an area the Russians were bombarding. Bela noted abandoned and obliterated Austro-Hungarian positions & soldiers (living & dead) as he and his troops took up their positions, which were in turn themselves obliterated &/or abandoned hours later. It was interesting how it was kind of expected for officers to have personal servants, or to treat the soldiers as personal servants, even in the middle of a battle. Bela also displays the attitudes of urbanite Hungarian polite society towards ethnic minorities, & the lower classes, including the odd collection of ideas surrounding the figure of “the peasant” (e.g. “closer to the earth”) in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The introduction by the translator/editor/grandson of the author is worth reading, providing the story of how this book came together along with historical & biographical background. The endnotes are also very worth flipping to.
doriastories's review
4.0
Beautifully written firsthand account of a Hungarian artist who finds himself on the front lines in WWI. Edited and published by his grandson, who provided a helpful introduction, which gave background on the author and his history.
papablues050164's review
This is a rare aspect of the Great War, from the viewpoint of a young soldier in the Royal Hungarian Army who fought the Russians on the Eastern front. I got the impression that this was a privileged man, but he draws you into his narrative, painting a bygone world with words. The war unfortunately is democratic in how it dispenses it's pains; on his first day of battle he loses friends and receives a head wound.
This memoir unfortunately is incomplete, but his grandson does an admirable job translating. Funny how it is when the holidaymakers who'd all been mingling before the war was announced, suddenly sorted themselves into their own nationalities; and all the socializing that'd gone on before was stopped cold.
Highly recommended.
This memoir unfortunately is incomplete, but his grandson does an admirable job translating. Funny how it is when the holidaymakers who'd all been mingling before the war was announced, suddenly sorted themselves into their own nationalities; and all the socializing that'd gone on before was stopped cold.
Highly recommended.
komet2020's review
5.0
This memoir by Béla Zombory-Moldován is both elegiac and deeply affecting. It begins in late July 1914 at an Adriatic resort, where the author is celebrating with friends. This pleasant idyll is cruelly broken on July 28th, when word is received that war has been declared on Serbia. Zombory-Moldován at 29 is at the start of a career as a successful artist and illustrator and feels no euphoria or excitement about going back into the Austro-Hungarian Army (where, 5 years earlier, he had fulfilled his obligatory year of military service). After all, he is a man "filled with plans and the urge to create... I was born to create, and I loathe destruction of any kind."
Nevertheless, after a brief spell at home and exploring many of his usual haunts, Zombory-Moldován reports to his unit (the 31st Regiment of the Royal Hungarian Army) early in August and spends the remainder of the month in training. Due to his prior military experience, he is given officer rank (Ensign) and put in charge of one of the regiment's platoons. Zombory-Moldován's descriptions of the various personalities in his unit and the surrounding villages and landscape are fascinating, shedding considerable light on the dynamics of a polyglot army (Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians, Croats, Austrians) and a society now living on borrowed time. And indeed, time is running out. Zombory-Moldován's unit is on the march by early September to Galicia, the easternmost province of the country bordering Czarist Russia to fight the Russians (who had entered the war in support of its ally, Serbia). His introduction to combat is at once jarring, chaotic, and traumatic. Men and horses are cut down indiscriminately by heavy artillery fire and the staccato chatter of rifles and machine guns. Zombory-Moldován himself is wounded in the head, which temporarily affects some of his motor skills. He is lucky to avoid capture in the general retreat that is ordered by the high command.
Home for Zombory-Moldován, while welcome, is "unspeakably strange." His affliction, as the war went on, would acquire the term "shell shock" which soldiers on other fronts under constant shell fire would also have to endure. For the rest of the country as yet untouched by war, people try either to lead as much of a normal life as possible when it becomes clear to them, after the initial excitement of late July 1914, that the war would not be a quick one. Or others among the civilian populace (e.g. Zombory-Moldován's Uncle Béla, whom he visited during his convalescent leave) wax ever patriotic, believing in ultimate victory for the Empire.
Months pass and Zombory-Moldován remains restless and aimless. Before he is expected back by the army for an evaluation to re-assess his fitness for a return to active service, Zombory-Moldován travels by train to Fiume on the Adriatic Sea, where he stays with the Mauser family. The roar of the sea and the surrounding area are a soothing balm for Zombory-Moldován. He takes up painting again with relish. He is also joined some time later by his fellow artist and close friend Ervin.
The 3 weeks spent in Fiume bring joy and a renewed sense of inner peace for Zombory-Moldován. But as it begins to become clear that Italy may soon enter the war against its ally Austria-Hungary (the date is March 1915), he has to return home and back to reality. "It was time to say goodbye - or rather to part. I thanked [the Mausers] sincerely for all they had done to lift me up from my fallen state. Mama Mauser was moved to tears. So, a little, was I.
" 'Auf Wiedersehen am nachsten Winter. Im Weihnachten ist hier auch sehr schon.'
"I promised that I would.
"I had to rise early, as my train left Fiume in the morning. But the whole family had beaten me to it. I left the drawings I had done of the girls as a memento, and I had ordered two huge bouquets of roses, one for each day I had spent with them: red roses for Elsa [the youngest daughter], white ones for Miri. They put them in their windows, from where they waved to me as long as they could still see anything of my departing cab.
"Auf Wiedersehen.
"I stood by the window all the way to Lic. From here, a thousand meters up, I caught one last glimpse of the panorama of islands lost in cobalt blue and violet, and the endless sea."
I was wholly absorbed by this memoir, which comes HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
Nevertheless, after a brief spell at home and exploring many of his usual haunts, Zombory-Moldován reports to his unit (the 31st Regiment of the Royal Hungarian Army) early in August and spends the remainder of the month in training. Due to his prior military experience, he is given officer rank (Ensign) and put in charge of one of the regiment's platoons. Zombory-Moldován's descriptions of the various personalities in his unit and the surrounding villages and landscape are fascinating, shedding considerable light on the dynamics of a polyglot army (Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians, Croats, Austrians) and a society now living on borrowed time. And indeed, time is running out. Zombory-Moldován's unit is on the march by early September to Galicia, the easternmost province of the country bordering Czarist Russia to fight the Russians (who had entered the war in support of its ally, Serbia). His introduction to combat is at once jarring, chaotic, and traumatic. Men and horses are cut down indiscriminately by heavy artillery fire and the staccato chatter of rifles and machine guns. Zombory-Moldován himself is wounded in the head, which temporarily affects some of his motor skills. He is lucky to avoid capture in the general retreat that is ordered by the high command.
Home for Zombory-Moldován, while welcome, is "unspeakably strange." His affliction, as the war went on, would acquire the term "shell shock" which soldiers on other fronts under constant shell fire would also have to endure. For the rest of the country as yet untouched by war, people try either to lead as much of a normal life as possible when it becomes clear to them, after the initial excitement of late July 1914, that the war would not be a quick one. Or others among the civilian populace (e.g. Zombory-Moldován's Uncle Béla, whom he visited during his convalescent leave) wax ever patriotic, believing in ultimate victory for the Empire.
Months pass and Zombory-Moldován remains restless and aimless. Before he is expected back by the army for an evaluation to re-assess his fitness for a return to active service, Zombory-Moldován travels by train to Fiume on the Adriatic Sea, where he stays with the Mauser family. The roar of the sea and the surrounding area are a soothing balm for Zombory-Moldován. He takes up painting again with relish. He is also joined some time later by his fellow artist and close friend Ervin.
The 3 weeks spent in Fiume bring joy and a renewed sense of inner peace for Zombory-Moldován. But as it begins to become clear that Italy may soon enter the war against its ally Austria-Hungary (the date is March 1915), he has to return home and back to reality. "It was time to say goodbye - or rather to part. I thanked [the Mausers] sincerely for all they had done to lift me up from my fallen state. Mama Mauser was moved to tears. So, a little, was I.
" 'Auf Wiedersehen am nachsten Winter. Im Weihnachten ist hier auch sehr schon.'
"I promised that I would.
"I had to rise early, as my train left Fiume in the morning. But the whole family had beaten me to it. I left the drawings I had done of the girls as a memento, and I had ordered two huge bouquets of roses, one for each day I had spent with them: red roses for Elsa [the youngest daughter], white ones for Miri. They put them in their windows, from where they waved to me as long as they could still see anything of my departing cab.
"Auf Wiedersehen.
"I stood by the window all the way to Lic. From here, a thousand meters up, I caught one last glimpse of the panorama of islands lost in cobalt blue and violet, and the endless sea."
I was wholly absorbed by this memoir, which comes HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.