«Im Kommenden ist das Vergangene». Über ‹Die weißen Städte› von Joseph Roth

Joseph Roth’s book about Provence, Die weißen Städte (1925), occupies among his travel writings a special position. At the intersection between travel reportage, essay, fiction and literary self-portrait, it is a brilliant attempt to reflect and overcome the traumas of the First World War. It is not only a reflection upon the relationship between the nations (in particular between Germany and France) and a plea for a future cosmopolitanism. Above all it is a reflection upon temporality: in the “white cities” of Provence the traveler recognizes the possibility of an individual and cultural development with no traumatic rupture between past, present and future. The paper focuses on this aspect, showing Roth’s attempt to restore a continuity in both individual and European history.