Chess in Viennese coffee houses

Today and tomorrow Jews all over the world will be celebrating Rosh Hashanah or the Jewish New Year. Because of these holidays, the antique chess game from Vienna is in the spotlight this month at the Chessmen Museum. The bishop wears a yarmulke and probably represents a rabbi.

Around the last turn of the century the well-to-do middle class of Vienna, to which many Jews belonged, used to relax in coffee houses or cafes, which got their name from the French word for coffee. Here, they read the newspapers, discussed politics and played chess.

Those were the days for these citizens. The economy prospered, the middle class increased their riches and had more and more free time for art and culture, which became the status symbols of the bourgeoisie. This minority comprised of politicians, scientists, artists, businessmen and bankers determined the later image of Vienna during the fin de siècle. They wrote about their lives a lot, in letters and diaries, so we know quite a bit about their way of life.

Ignorance
The Viennese bourgeoisie had little to no contact with labourers and they had no conception of how this much larger population segment in the city lived. There was also little contact with the nobility: this was a hierarchically closed-off group that surrounded the emperor. The bourgeoisie hardly stepped outside of their own circle either. For example, psychiatrist Freud only described people from his own world in his works.

However, this was not a homogeneous group. Historians now see the connections between important writers, philosophers, artists, musicians and scientists, but not all of these Viennese residents socialised with each other. They knew each other by name rather than on a personal level. The idea that the upper middle class largely consisted of liberal Jews is also incorrect. Around 1900 there were more than 2 million people in Vienna, of which 9% were Jewish. Most of them, however, were labourers and small traders who lived in the same community and led their lives according to Jewish traditions, so they did not form a social group together with the Jews from the well-to-do bourgeoisie.

Some of the Jews that belonged to the nouveau riche were not actively engaged in their faith. Anti-Semitism also played a role when it came to not confessing, or not publicly confessing the Jewish faith. Although Jews weren´t persecuted in Austria, anti-Semitism was widespread. In a Viennese picture from 1910 about chess competitions, Jewish participants are portrayed as caricatures, with large aquiline noses. They supposedly only participated in competitions to take home the high cash prizes.

Chess palace
Chess competitions were organised by chess clubs and usually took place in coffee houses. A famous example is the Café Central where, apart from chess champions, the leaders of the labour union gathered as well. Revolutionary Trotsky played his daily game of chess here before he set off for Russia in 1914. In 1910 the grand Herberstein Palace opened its doors. In this building, the 700 members of the Viennese Chess Club had many amenities at their disposal:

‘Spacious conversation and reading rooms, dining rooms for smokers and non-smokers, a ladies salon, a billiards room, and chess lounges (with sliding walls!). Furthermore, there are sixteen spacious playrooms in addition to wardrobes, kitchens and side rooms, all of which occupy two full floors of this beautiful building: the mezzanine and the first floor. Furnishings are abundant, and they are tastefully discrete and unpretentious. Everything exudes comfort. The high ceilings of the club´s rooms are impressive. The equally vast and distinguished areas provide comfort such as naturally befits an association of our residence, prominent in character as well as composition´, says chess player Georg Marco that year in the Wiener Schachzeitung. The slightly less well-to-do chess player kept playing his daily game at the coffee house.

UNESCO
Coffee houses were the most important meeting places in the city. Groups of friends or like-minded people met every day at the same table of their ‘favourite bar’. Regular customers even had their clean laundry or mail delivered to their coffee house. These cafes were not only open to men; women were also welcome to gather there.

Coffee houses were so intertwined with the daily life of the upper middle class that the Viennese Cafe Culture is on the UNESCO list of intangible heritage since 2011. This includes the century old furnishings and the proffered cup of coffee together with a glass of water and the newspaper. Herberstein Palace still exists, although it is no longer home to the chess club. Vienna is no longer the Mecca of chess, in contrast to a hundred years ago.

By Marjolein Overmeer