Exile and Tradition: Zweig, Momigliano and Berlin

Abstract

This article examines the relation between exile and Jewish and European tradition through the different experiences of Stefan Zweig, Arnaldo Momigliano and Isaiah Berlin. Zweig illustrates a productive rebellion against tradition that was entirely incapacitated by the loss of tradition in exile. Like many of the exiled academics of the 1930s, it is only on the margins of Momigliano's work that his profound dislocation and loss becomes apparent. Though always marked by his exile, Berlin suggests that an exile can thrive in a multiplicity of co-existing traditions. In exile, tradition becomes a kind of dispossession: it is always at once behind and in front of the exile.