Beyond Berlin

Stories —big and small— that start in Berlin and look eastward, where Europe´s heart beats and its future unfolds. A blog, a podcast and a journey connecting past and present of our continent, as seen from Berlin and looking beyond, toward the East. Subscribe on beyondberlin.substack.com

Today's episode:

📖 Giacomo Casanova, the twilight of a man and the birth of a myth

What remains of Giacomo Casanova, three hundred years after his birth? An adventurer, a libertine, a swindler? Or the protagonist of one of the greatest autobiographies ever written?

In this episode, I take you to Duchcov, a remote Bohemian village where Casanova spent the last thirteen years of his life. Alone, ill, yet tireless, he transformed his existence into literature, leaving us over 3,600 pages of his Histoire de ma vie.

A "Central European twilight" that gave birth to a myth: controversial, ambiguous, sometimes scandalous, but impossible to erase. From the censored pages of the nineteenth century to the interpretations of Schnitzler, Zweig and Tsvetaeva, to Fellini's cinema, each era has reinvented its own Casanova.

🏰 Duchcov in Bohemia: The place of legend

📅 The tercentenary (1725-2025)

👴 The Duchcov years (1785-1798)

✍️ The birth of the literary myth

📚 The fate of the manuscript

🏺 The legacy

Casanova in Central European Literature: my selection

🎭 Arthur Schnitzler - "Casanova's Homecoming" (1918)

📖 Stefan Zweig - "Three Poets of Their Lives" (1928)

🎪 Marina Tsvetaeva - "The End of Casanova" (1922)

Memorable Quotes

"He had lived as no other; and did he not live in his own way even today?" — Arthur Schnitzler

"No man can read Casanova's memoirs without furious envy" — Stefan Zweig

"Time has passed. My hour strikes." — Casanova in Marina Tsvetaeva's version

Suggestions

📚 Books**:**

Leo Damrosch - "The Life and Times of Giacomo Casanova" (2022) - analysis of the "dark side"

Lothar Müller - "Die Feuerschrift" (2025) - Casanova as a witness of his time

🎬 Film adaptations:

Federico Fellini (1976) - "Fellini's Casanova"

French film (1992) with Alain Delon

Gabriele Salvatores (2023) with Toni Servillo

"Casanova at Dux Castle" (Casanova auf Schloss Dux) (1981), GDR TV film

📍 Places to visit:

Schloss Duchcov - his apartments in the castle

Palazzo Mocenigo, Venice - exhibition "Casanova: myth through art, history and cinema" (until 2 November 2025)

Music Credits

🎶 Intro/Outro music & theme: “Happy Klezmer” by zec53

🎶 Music segments:

Johann Sebastian Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F Major, BWV 1046 (1721)

Christoph Willibald Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice: Dance of the Blessed Spirits (1762)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Don Giovanni / Overture (1787)

🎶 SFX from Freesound Community

At beyondberlin.substack.com you will have access to the full text and illustrations.

📌 Subscribe for free at beyondberlin.substack.com by Valentina Giannella to get all upcoming episodes and explore our other content—compelling stories from past and present, stunning photographs, diverse voices, book recommendations, plus downloadable e-books.

Beyond Berlin @ Substack

++ Stories —big and small— that start in Berlin and look eastward, where Europe´s heart beats and its future unfolds. ++

Stories —big and small— that start in Berlin and look eastward, where Europe´s heart beats and its future unfolds. A blog, a podcast and a journey connecting past and present of our continent, as seen from Berlin and looking beyond, toward the East. Subscribe on beyondberlin.substack.com

Today's episode:

Jew Süss: The Many Lives and Deaths of Joseph Süßkind Oppenheimer

This episode dives into the tangled legacy of Jud Süß—a story that has been told, distorted, and weaponised for centuries.

We follow Joseph Süß Oppenheimer’s journey from an 18th-century court Jew in Württemberg to the literary redemption in Lion Feuchtwanger’s 1925 novel, and finally to his grotesque reinvention in Goebbels’ 1940 propaganda masterpiece.

Through historical research, archival discoveries, and cinematic analysis, we uncover how the Nazi regime used the power of film to spread antisemitic hatred—on screen, in the streets, and even in concentration camps.

The poison of that propaganda still circulates today. The truth still waits to be heard.

You’ll hear about:

The real trial and execution of Joseph Süß Oppenheimer

How Feuchtwanger reclaimed the story in his novel

Goebbels’ direct involvement in creating the 1940 propaganda film

The film’s distribution, reception, and role in Nazi ideology

Postwar trials, black market circulation, and its enduring toxic legacy

📖 Book references. At beyondberlin.substack.com you will have access to the full text and illustrations. Paid subscribers can download the post as an e-book, complete with a guide to book and digital references.

📌 Subscribe for free at beyondberlin.substack.com by Valentina Giannella to get all upcoming episodes and explore our other content—compelling stories from past and present, stunning photographs, plus diverse voices and book recommendations.

Music Credits

🎶 Intro/Outro: “Happy Klezmer” by zec53

🎶 Segmenti musicali:

Music background by 🇺🇦 Serge Pavkin Music

Georg Friedrich Handel, Wassermusik (Water Music) 248 III. IV.

Beyond Berlin

Stories —big and small— that start in Berlin and look eastward, where Europe´s heart beats and its future unfolds. A blog, a podcast and a journey connecting past and present of our continent, as seen from Berlin and looking beyond, toward the East. Subscribe on beyondberlin.substack.com

Today's episode:

Sofi Oksanen's "Same River, Twice" and Victoria Amelina's "Looking at Women Looking at War." Two books, one message, three words: woman, war, justice.

What does justice look like in the middle of a war? And what does it mean to be a woman facing that war—documenting it, resisting it, surviving it?

In this episode, we follow the voices of two writers—Finnish writer and activist Sofi Oksanen and Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina, killed by Russians in 2023—who were also PEN friends, and whose books speak to one another across borders.

From Soviet-occupied Estonia to Putin's Ukraine, from raped ancestors to defiant librarians, from family trauma to battlefield diaries—this is a journey through a war that doesn't only happen on the frontline, but inside homes, language, and memory.

We talk about sexual violence, imperial lies, and the myth of the Great Patriotic War. We talk about the silence of one woman, and the thousands who found their voices and took action. And we talk about justice—not only as a deserved verdict in international courtrooms, which we might wait a long time to see, but as an act of storytelling. Which is happening now.

Women. War. Justice.

📖 Books references

Same River, Twice: Putin's War on Women by Sofi Oksanen. Published in Finland in 2023. Translated into several languages between 2024 and 2025.

Looking at Women Looking at War: A War and Justice Diary by Victoria Amelina, published worldwide in 2025.

🎧 This episode and others are available on Substack at beyondberlin.substack.com, where Valentina Giannella shares stories in English, German, and Italian about Europe's past and present. Writing from Berlin, she turns her gaze eastward to where Europe's heart beats and its future takes shape.

📌 Subscribe for free at beyondberlin.substack.com to get all upcoming episodes and explore our other content—compelling stories from past and present, stunning photographs, plus diverse voices and book recommendations.

Music Credits

🎶 Intro/Outro music & podcast theme: “Happy Klezmer” by zec53

🎶 Musical Theme: 230 Days of Winter by Ukrainian musician Serge Pavkin (buy me a coffee)