HERMANN BAHR. - Austrian writer and critic, born in Linz on 19 July 1863, died on 15 January 1934. A subtle novelist and lively playwright, he linked his name to all the literary movements of his time, alternately announcing them in his homeland and subjecting them to severe criticism: a fervent advocate of Naturalism, he was the first to turn his back on it (cf.
Die Überwindung des Naturalismus, 1891) to herald the new Impressionist theories and Maeterlinckian symbolism at first, and later Expressionism (cf. Expressionismus, 1916). Having declared himself outside any religious confession in 1895, at the time of his first marriage, he then arrived, through a long spiritual crisis of which he speaks in his Tagebuch (1917–25) and in Selbstbildnis (1923), at full certainty of the Catholic faith: of his conversion, which probably took place in 1912, he gave explicit notice only in 1917. While his work as a critic holds European significance and is a continual surpassing of acquired positions, his literary output, typically Austrian, offers a fairly unified character. The way he addressed the problems of Austrian civilization in his later works (Himmelfahrt, 1916; Die Rote Noah, 1920; Der inwendige Garten, 1917) was influenced by his new stance as a Catholic.