Ph.D., University Professor Emeritus
On April 27, 2019, the realm of liberal arts and humanities, and in particular, the field of Austrian literature, lost an eminent scholar of international repute, Dr. Donald G. Daviau of Morena Valley, California and Kirchberg am Wechsel, Austria. He died at the age of 91, his wife Dr. Gertraud Steiner Daviau, a well-known Austrian film expert, by his side. Among the many honors this celebrated professor received are the Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art in 1979 and a 1993 Festschrift, Turn-of-the-Century Vienna and its Legacy: Essays in Honor of Donald G. Daviau, edited by Jeffrey B. Berlin, Jorun Johns, and Richard Lawson.
Professor Daviau was born on September 30, 1927, in Medway, Massachusetts. His education included a B.A. at Clark University, a year in Vienna as a Fulbright student, and an M.A. and Ph.D. from University of California at Berkeley. There he was awarded his Ph.D. in 1955 with a dissertation on Hermann Bahr. Shortly thereafter, he joined the faculty of the University of California at Riverside, where he taught for several decades, served as Department Chair, and eventually retired as Professor Emeritus. In retirement he continued his literary research and publishing. Without a doubt his influence in the field of Austrian studies has been enormous and will continue long into the future.
In 1955 Daviau founded the International Arthur Schnitzler Research Association. He served as its President and Editor of the associated journal Modern Austrian Literature from 1971-1999. He was also a founder and long-term President of the Austrian Council for the Study of Austrian Literature. He and Professor Jorun Johns founded Ariadne Press, for which Daviau served as Editor from 1971-1999. Daviau and Johns planned and organized an annual Symposium on Austrian Literature, held on the Riverside campus from 1971-1999, and based on a different theme each year. Participants from around the United States and abroad presented papers, and enjoyed evening readings by contemporary Austrian authors, current Austrian films, and talks by prominent Austrians and representatives of the Austrian government. Many of the papers presented were published in Modern Austrian Literature. The Schnitzler association was renamed the Modern Austrian Literature and Culture Association (MALCA) in 2000. In 2012 it became the Austrian Studies Association and the affiliated journal is currently named the Journal of Austrian Studies. The annual symposium continues, but it is now hosted by various universities and officer positions rotated.
The field of Austrian has been enhanced not only by more than twenty books Daviau wrote, translated or edited, and the nearly 200 articles he published, but also by the influence he has had on others. He contributed greatly to the establishment of a still thriving community of scholars in Austrian studies and served as a mentor and leader to researchers at all phases of their careers.
In 1992 Daviau collaborated with Herbert Arlt, President of the Jura Soyfer Society and Scientific Director of INST, and the Riverside symposium became a joint effort. The theme for that meeting was “Jura Soyfer and His Times.” The occasion, enhanced by lectures by Arlt, served to commemorate Soyfer as a writer of note and brave opponent of Nazi rule in Austria, and to raise awareness of Soyfer in the United States. Results of the Soyfer initiative included a 1995 Ariadne Press book of essays, Jura Soyfer and his Time, edited by Daviau and Arlt, as well as Soyfer exhibits at several American universities. Daviau participated in various roles in the Jora Soyfer Society, INST, and the associated journal TRANS. For several conferences in Vienna, he organized and presided over panels and wrote and presented section reports on the findings. He served as English editor for TRANS and contributed articles to the journal on Friedrich Torberg, Charles Sealsfield, Hermann Bahr, Austrian modernity and turns of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In collaboration with Herbert Arlt, Daviau published two books in the Österreichische und Internationale Literaturprozesse series: Geschichte der Österreichische Literatur in 1996 and Understanding Hermann Bahr in 2002.
One of Prof. Daviau’s last book-length publications was an edited anthology of stories in English translation he compiled and arranged according to their significance to neighborhoods in and around Vienna, Vienna: A Traveler’s Literary Companion (Berkeley: Whereabouts Press, 2008). This volume belongs to yet another branch of Daviau’s achievements: his efforts at promoting Austrian literature to the American reading public outside of the academic world. He did so by translating texts into English, writing entries in reference books and overview volumes and in venues such as the “World Literature in Review.” Over the years, Donald Daviau was a teacher, writer, editor, researcher, event planner, and builder of bridges between two nations and two continents. Perhaps this “traveler’s companion” of his twilight years captures the enthusiasm and love of learning kindled during his time as a Fulbright student in Vienna and never extinguished during his long life.
Univ.Prof.in Dr.in Pamela S. Saur (Lamar University)