August von Kotzebue

August Friedrich Ferdinand von Kotzebue , born with Weimar the May 3rd 1761 and died in Mannheim the March 23rd 1819, is a German Dramaturge .

Initially raises in Weimar, it goes to the Université of Iéna at sixteen years, before leaving to study for one year with Duisbourg. In 1780, it completes its studies and becomes lawyer. Thanks to the influence of Graf Gortz, Prussian ambassador attached to the court of Russia, he becomes secretary of the governor-general of Saint-Pétersbourg. In 1783, it is named assessor at the High Court of Appeal of Tallinn, where it Marie with the girl of the Russian lieutenant-general. It is anobli in 1785 and becomes president of the magistrature of the province of Estonia. In Tallinn, it acquires a considerable reputation by its novels, Die Leiden der Ortenbergischen Familie (1785) and Geschichte meines Vaters (1788), and even more by its parts Adelheid von Wulfingen (1789), Menschenhass und Reue (1790) and Die Indianer in England (1790). The good impression produced by these works is, however, almost erased by a cynical dramatic satire, Doktor Bahrdt put DER eisernen Stirn , which appears in 1790 with the name of Knigge on the page titrates. After the death of his first wife, Kotzebue gives up the service of Russia and lives during a time with Paris and Mainz; it is installed in 1795 on a field which it acquired close to Tallinn and devotes itself to the writing.

During a few years, it publishes six volumes of various sketches and stories ( Die jüngsten Kinder meiner Laune , 1793 - 1796) and more than twenty parts, the majority being the subject of translations in several European languages. In 1798, it accepts the function of playwright of the theater of the court with Vienna, but, because of disagreements with the actors, it is soon obliged to resign. It turns over then in its birthplace, but, as it is not in good terms with Goethe, it attacks openly the Romantisme, its position in Weimar becomes uncomfortable. He thinks of turning over to Saint-Pétersbourg, but, during its voyage, he, for unknown reasons, is stopped at the border and conduit in Siberia. Fortunately, he wrote a comedy which flatters the vanity of the emperor Paul Ier of Russia; he quickly is brought back, presented, with a field pertaining to the grounds of the Crown in directing Livonie and is named of the German theater of Saint-Pétersbourg.

He turns over to Germany to dead of Paul and settles again in Weimar, but he is unable, like always, to gain a position in the literary company and turns to Berlin, where, in partnership with Garlieb Merkel (1769-1850), he publishes Der Freimutige (1803 - 1807) and begins his Almanach dramatischer Spiele (1803 - 1820). Towards the end of 1806, it turns over to Russia and, in safety in its field of Estonia, writes several satirical articles against Napoleon Bonaparte in his newspapers Die Biene and Die Grill . Like advising State, it is attached in 1816 to the department of the foreign affairs to Saint-Pétersbourg and, in 1817, goes to Germany to play there a part of spy to the service of Russia, with wages of 15.000 roubles. In the weekly magazine Literarisches Wochenblatt , which it publishes in Weimar, it makes fun of the claims of the Germans who ask for free institutions and becomes such an object of general aversion which it must move with Mannheim. He is particularly hated by the young enthusiastic partisans of freedom, and one of them, Karl Ludwig Sand, a student in Théologie, stabs it, in Mannheim. Sand is condemned and carried out, and the government draws pretext from it to place the universities under a strict monitoring.

In addition to its parts, Kotzebue is the author of several historical work, too partial and impressed prejudices to be of great value. More interesting are its autobiographical accounts, Meine Flucht nach Paris im Winter 1790 (1791), Über meinen Aufenthalt in Wien (1799), Das merkwürdigste Jahr meines Lebens (1801), Erinnerungen aus Paris (1804), and Erinnerungen von meiner Reise aus Liefland nach Rom und Neapel (1805). As playwright, it is extraordinarily prolific: one counts of him approximately 200 parts; its popularity, in Germany as on the European scene, is without precedent. Its success, however, is less due to its literary or poetic qualities that with its extraordinary facility in the invention of effective situations; it has, like few German playwrights before or after him, a sure instinct of the theater and its influence on the technique of the modern drama of Eugene Scribe with Victorien Sardou and of Bauernfeld to Sudermann is indubitable. The best of Kotzebue is in its comedies, such as Der Wildfang , Die beiden Klingsberg and Die deutschen Kleinstädter , which contains admirable paintings of the German lifestyle. These parts dominate the scene in Germany a long time after the always famous Menschenhass und Reue , Graf Benjowsky , while the ambitious exotic tragedies like Die Sonnenjungfrau and Die Spanier in Peru were forgotten.

One of its first Traducteur S in French is the actor Bursay.

Two collections of dramas of Kotzebue were published of alive sound: Schauspiele (5 volumes, 1797); Neue Schauspiele (23 volumes, 1798 - 1820). Its Sämtliche dramatische Werke appears in 44 volumes in 1827 - 1829 and still, under the title Théâtre , in 40 volumes, 1840 - 1841. A selection of its parts in 10 volumes is appeared with Leipzig in 1867 - 1868.

References

Armin Gebhardt, August von Kotzebue. Theatergenie zur Goethezeit , Marburg, Tectum-Verl, 2003. ISBN 3-8288-8482-2
Peter Kaeding, August von Kotzebue. Auch ein deutsches Dichterleben , Stuttgart, Dt. Verl. - Anst., 1988. ISBN 3-421-06252-8
Josef Kotzur, Die Auseinandersetzung zwischen Kotzebue und der Frühromantik um die Jahrhundertwende , Gleiwitz, Oberschles. Volksstimme, 1932.
Maurer Dory, August von Kotzebue. Ursachen seines Erfolges, konstante Elemente DER unterhaltenden Dramatik , Bonn, Herdsman, 1979. ISBN 3-416-01501-0
Heinz-Joachim Simon, Kotzebue. Eine deutsche Geschichte , München, Universitas, 1998. ISBN 3-8004-1370-1
Frithjof Stock, Kotzebue im literarischen Leben der Goethezeit. Polemik, Kritik, Publikum , Düsseldorf, Bertelsmann Univ. - Verl., 1971. ISBN 3-571-09296-1

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