Disbelief at the Acropolis

From his literary estate, published for the first time: the original text of an important essay by Sigmund Freud.

In January 1936, Sigmund Freud finished an essay for a volume that was planned to commemorate Romain Rolland’s 70th birthday. The essay was published a year later in »Almanach der Psychoanalyse«. There is a second, expanded version of this text, which is published here for the first time under the title »Disbelief at the Acropolis«. It describes Freud’s memories of travelling to the Acropolis in Athens with his brother Alexander in the late summer of 1904, and the feelings of inexplicable alienation he experienced as he stood in the midst of the ruins he admired so much. Now, at the end of his journey, he couldn’t quite believe that he was actually at the Acropolis – being the child of a father, who by means of honest work, had never made it this far, unlike his sons, who had set off for Greece from Trieste.