Great people of the German-speaking countries.

GREAT GERMAN WRITERS AND POETS

Christian Johann Heinrich Heine(German Christian Johann Heinrich Heine, pronounced Christian Johan Heinrich Heine; December 13, 1797, Düsseldorf - February 17, 1856, Paris) - German poet, publicist and critic. Heine is considered the last poet of the "romantic era" and at the same time its head. He made the spoken language capable of lyricism, elevated the feuilleton and travelogue to an artistic form, and gave the German language a previously unfamiliar elegant lightness. Composers Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, Richard Wagner, Johann Brahms, P. I. Tchaikovsky and many others wrote songs on his poems.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe(German Johann Wolfgang von Goethe German pronunciation of the name (inf.); August 28, 1749, Frankfurt am Main - March 22, 1832, Weimar) - German poet, statesman, thinker and naturalist.

Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller(German Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller; November 10, 1759, Marbach an der Neckar - May 9, 1805, Weimar) - German poet, philosopher, art theorist and playwright, professor of history and military doctor, representative of Sturm und Drang and Romanticism in literature, the author of "Ode to Joy", a modified version of which became the text of the anthem of the European Union. He entered the history of world literature as a fiery defender of the human personality. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788-1805) he was friends with Johann Goethe, whom he inspired to complete his works, which remained in draft form. This period of friendship between the two poets and their literary controversy entered German literature under the name "Weimar classicism".

Brothers Grimm (German Brüder Grimm or Die Gebrüder Grimm; Jacob, January 4, 1785 - September 20, 1863 and Wilhelm, February 24, 1786 - December 16, 1859) - German linguists and researchers of German folk culture. Collected folklore and published several collections under the name "Tales of the Brothers Grimm", which became very popular. Together with Karl Lachmann and Georg Friedrich Beneke, they are considered the founding fathers of Germanic philology and Germanistics. At the end of their lives, they took up the creation of the first dictionary of the German language: Wilhelm died in December 1859, having completed work on the letter D; Jakob outlived his brother by nearly four years, completing the letters A, B, C, and E. He died at his desk while working on the German word. Frucht (fruit). The brothers Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm were born in the city of Hanau. For a long time they lived in the city of Kassel.

Wilhelm Hauff (German Wilhelm Hauff, November 29, 1802, Stuttgart - November 18, 1827, ibid.) - German writer and short story writer, representative of the Biedermeier direction in literature.

Paul Thomas Mann(German: Paul Thomas Mann, June 6, 1875, Lübeck - August 12, 1955, Zurich) - German writer, essayist, master of the epic novel, Nobel Prize in Literature (1929), brother of Heinrich Mann, father of Klaus Mann, Golo Mann and Erica Mann.

Erich Maria Remarque(German Erich Maria Remarque, nee Erich Paul Remarque, Erich Paul Remark; June 22, 1898, Osnabrück - September 25, 1970, Locarno) - a prominent German writer of the XX century, a representative of the lost generation. His novel All Quiet on the Western Front is one of the big three Lost Generation novels published in 1929, along with A Farewell to Arms! Ernest Hemingway and "Death of a Hero" by Richard Aldington.

Heinrich Mann (German Heinrich Mann, March 27, 1871, Lübeck, Germany - March 11, 1950, Santa Monica, USA) - German prose writer and public figure, older brother of Thomas Mann.

Bertolt Brecht (German Bertolt Brecht; full name - Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht, Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (inf.); February 10, 1898, Augsburg - August 14, 1956, Berlin) - German playwright, poet, prose writer, theater figure, art theorist, founder Theater "Berliner Ensemble". The work of Brecht - a poet and playwright - has always caused controversy, as well as his theory of "epic theater" and his political views. Nevertheless, already in the 1950s, Brecht's plays were firmly established in the European theatrical repertoire; his ideas in one form or another were adopted by many contemporary playwrights, including Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Arthur Adamov, Max Frisch, Heiner Müller.

Heinrich von Kleist(German Bernd Heinrich Wilhelm von Kleist; October 18, 1777, Frankfurt an der Oder - November 21, 1811, Wannsee, near Potsdam) - German playwright, poet and prose writer. One of the pioneers of the short story genre (“Marquise d'O” 1808, “Earthquake in Chile”, “Betrothal in San Domingo”). In 1912, in the year of the centenary of the writer's death, the prestigious German literary prize Heinrich Kleist was founded.

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing(German Gotthold Ephraim Lessing; January 22, 1729, Kamenz, Saxony - February 15, 1781, Braunschweig) - German poet, playwright, art theorist and literary critic-educator. Founder of German classical literature.

Lyon Feuchtwanger(German Lion Feuchtwanger, July 7, 1884, Munich - December 21, 1958, Los Angeles) - German writer of Jewish origin. One of the most widely read German-speaking authors in the world. Worked in the genre of historical novel.

Stefan Zweig (German Stefan Zweig - Stefan Zweig; November 28, 1881 - February 23, 1942) - Austrian critic, author of many short stories and fictionalized biographies. He was friends with such famous people as Emile Verhaarn, Romain Rolland, Frans Maserel, Auguste Rodin, Thomas Mann, Sigmund Freud, James Joyce, Hermann Hesse, Herbert Wells, Paul Valery, Maxim Gorky, Richard Strauss, Bertolt Brecht.

Herta Müller (Herta Muller) - the author of novels and other works, as well as a representative of the social movement of German origin, was born in 1953 in the family of "Banat Swabians" - a German-speaking minority in Romania. She completed her studies at the university in Timisoara (Romania), after which she worked in production as a translator, however, refusing to cooperate with the police, she soon became unemployed.

In 1982 Muller published her debut book, Lowlands” in their native language in Romania. The work was subjected to strict censorship and was literally redrawn up and down. In 1984, the book was published in its entirety in Germany. The book "Lowlands" subsequently received a number of prestigious literary awards.

Muller He is the author of not only major novels, but also poems and essays. She is also known as a photographer and artist. The main emphasis in her works, Herta Müller has always placed on her own experience of restriction of freedom, violence, displacement of important events from memory. She also writes about the unwillingness of people to know about important, but difficult moments in life.

Müller is a member of the German Academy of Language and Poetry. The works of the writer are translated into a number of European languages, as well as into the languages ​​of Japan and China. In 2008, a collection of works by Herta Müller with the title "The King Bows and Kills" was included by the Swedish Writers' Union in the top ten best books of our time written by the fair sex. A year later, Müller was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature with the rationale: "With concentration in poetry and sincerity in prose, he describes the life of the underprivileged."

Annette Pent works in the genre of deep lyrical prose. According to many, it does not leave anyone indifferent. The writer was born in Cologne in 1967. In 2001, her first novel was published, titled "Ich muß los" ("I have to go"). He brought the writer Mare Cassens Award.

A year later, Pent won the Jury Prize at the Literature Competition in Klagenfurt. At the competition, she presented an excerpt from the novel "Island 34" . In 2008, the writer was awarded prize to them. Thaddeus Troll. Now one of the author's most read novels is “You can get used to each other without words, it doesn’t take long at all.”

Arnold Stadler - writer, translator of German origin, also known for his essays. During the period of his work, the writer was awarded a number of prestigious awards, among which Prize of Georg Büchner, Hermann Hesse and Kleist. Stadler's work has been repeatedly noted by the most famous German critics and intellectuals, his talent was noted, among other things, by Martin Walser.

Stadler is one of the most successful and famous writers of this century. He is the author of such famous novels as “Once upon a time I was”, “Death and I, we two” and others. His romance "One day, and maybe one night" rightfully recognized as one of the most beautiful, sad and sublime works in the world. The work tells the story of a photographer who made attempts to stop the moment and how he himself lost himself in these attempts.

Daniel Kelman is one of the most famous German and Austrian writers of the so-called "new wave". The writer's prose is built on subtle irony, in which he comprehends new horizons of literature, beats all the clichés existing in literature. In his writings, Kelman played”at the same time with a rich plot and discussions about deep philosophical problems. The formation of the writer was influenced by Latin American works with a share of "magical realism" and the fantasy of Prague writers such as Kubin and Perutz.

Kelman's first novel was published in 1997, when he was still studying at the University of Vienna. At the same time, Kelmann began to collaborate with major German media such as Frankfurter Rundschau and Süddeutsche Zeitung.

Now Kelman is a member of the Mainz Academy of Sciences and Literature and the German Academy of Language and Literature. Also, the writer teaches students of German universities poetics. He is the recipient of a number of prestigious literary awards: Candide”, prizes of the society of Konrad Adenauer, Kleist, Haimito Doderer and many others.

- another representative of German modern literature, began his journey during practice at the university, where he studied as a lawyer. In 1983 he released his first novel "Bed" , in which he describes the life of a Jewish child who had to flee Frankfurt. The novel was warmly received by critics, who noted the original, but at the same time strict and elegant style of narration.

Mosebach writes his works in almost any genre. In his "arsenal" and novels, and poems, and scripts, and articles about art. The general public fell in love with the author at the turn of the century, when he released The Long Night novel . Mosebach writes all his novels while in "exile" - he does not have any contact with the outside world for several months.

In 2007 Mosebach was awarded Georg Buechner Prize, A novel "The Moon and the Girl" nominated for the German Book Prize.

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Germany is the birthplace of many famous composers, writers, poets, playwrights, philosophers and artists. German (Germanic) culture has been known since the 5th century. BC e. The culture of Germany also includes the culture of Austria and Switzerland, which are politically independent from Germany, but inhabited by Germans and belong to the same culture.

GREAT GERMAN WRITERS AND POETS

Christian Johann Heinrich Heine (German Christian Johann Heinrich Heine, pronounced Christian Johan Heinrich Heine; December 13, 1797, Düsseldorf - February 17, 1856, Paris) - German poet, publicist and critic. Heine is considered the last poet of the "romantic era" and at the same time its head. He made the spoken language capable of lyricism, elevated the feuilleton and travelogue to an artistic form, and gave the German language a previously unfamiliar elegant lightness. Composers Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, Richard Wagner, Johann Brahms, P. I. Tchaikovsky and many others wrote songs on his poems.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Johann Wolfgang von Goethe German pronunciation of the name (inf.); August 28, 1749, Frankfurt am Main - March 22, 1832, Weimar) - German poet, statesman, thinker and naturalist.

Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (German Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller; November 10, 1759, Marbach an der Neckar - May 9, 1805, Weimar) - German poet, philosopher, art theorist and playwright, professor of history and military doctor, representative of Sturm und Drang and Romanticism in literature, the author of "Ode to Joy", a modified version of which became the text of the anthem of the European Union. He entered the history of world literature as a fiery defender of the human personality. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788-1805) he was friends with Johann Goethe, whom he inspired to complete his works, which remained in draft form. This period of friendship between the two poets and their literary controversy entered German literature under the name "Weimar classicism".

Brothers Grimm (German Brüder Grimm or Die Gebrüder Grimm; Jacob, January 4, 1785 - September 20, 1863 and Wilhelm, February 24, 1786 - December 16, 1859) - German linguists and researchers of German folk culture. Collected folklore and published several collections under the name "Tales of the Brothers Grimm", which became very popular. Together with Karl Lachmann and Georg Friedrich Beneke, they are considered the founding fathers of Germanic philology and Germanistics. At the end of their lives, they took up the creation of the first dictionary of the German language: Wilhelm died in December 1859, having completed work on the letter D; Jakob outlived his brother by nearly four years, completing the letters A, B, C, and E. He died at his desk while working on the German word. Frucht (fruit). The brothers Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm were born in the city of Hanau. For a long time they lived in the city of Kassel.

Wilhelm Hauff (German Wilhelm Hauff, November 29, 1802, Stuttgart - November 18, 1827, ibid.) - German writer and short story writer, representative of the Biedermeier direction in literature.

Paul Thomas Mann (German: Paul Thomas Mann, June 6, 1875, Lübeck - August 12, 1955, Zurich) - German writer, essayist, master of the epic novel, Nobel Prize in Literature (1929), brother of Heinrich Mann, father of Klaus Mann, Golo Mann and Erica Mann.

Erich Maria Remarque (German Erich Maria Remarque, nee Erich Paul Remarque, Erich Paul Remark; June 22, 1898, Osnabrück - September 25, 1970, Locarno) - a prominent German writer of the XX century, a representative of the lost generation. His novel All Quiet on the Western Front is one of the big three Lost Generation novels published in 1929, along with A Farewell to Arms! Ernest Hemingway and "Death of a Hero" by Richard Aldington.

Heinrich Mann (German Heinrich Mann, March 27, 1871, Lübeck, Germany - March 11, 1950, Santa Monica, USA) - German prose writer and public figure, older brother of Thomas Mann.

Bertolt Brecht (German Bertolt Brecht; full name - Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht, Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (inf.); February 10, 1898, Augsburg - August 14, 1956, Berlin) - German playwright, poet, prose writer, theater figure, art theorist, founder Theater "Berliner Ensemble". The work of Brecht - a poet and playwright - has always caused controversy, as well as his theory of "epic theater" and his political views. Nevertheless, already in the 1950s, Brecht's plays were firmly established in the European theatrical repertoire; his ideas in one form or another were adopted by many contemporary playwrights, including Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Arthur Adamov, Max Frisch, Heiner Müller.

Heinrich von Kleist (German Bernd Heinrich Wilhelm von Kleist; October 18, 1777, Frankfurt an der Oder - November 21, 1811, Wannsee, near Potsdam) - German playwright, poet and prose writer. One of the pioneers of the short story genre (“Marquise d'O” 1808, “Earthquake in Chile”, “Betrothal in San Domingo”). In 1912, in the year of the centenary of the writer's death, the prestigious German literary prize Heinrich Kleist was founded.

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (German Gotthold Ephraim Lessing; January 22, 1729, Kamenz, Saxony - February 15, 1781, Braunschweig) - German poet, playwright, art theorist and literary critic-educator. Founder of German classical literature.

Lyon Feuchtwanger (German Lion Feuchtwanger, July 7, 1884, Munich - December 21, 1958, Los Angeles) - German writer of Jewish origin. One of the most widely read German-speaking authors in the world. Worked in the genre of historical novel.

Stefan Zweig (German Stefan Zweig - Stefan Zweig; November 28, 1881 - February 23, 1942) - Austrian critic, author of many short stories and fictionalized biographies. He was friends with such famous people as Emile Verhaarn, Romain Rolland, Frans Maserel, Auguste Rodin, Thomas Mann, Sigmund Freud, James Joyce, Hermann Hesse, Herbert Wells, Paul Valery, Maxim Gorky, Richard Strauss, Bertolt Brecht.

GREAT GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN SCIENTISTS

Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (German Johann Carl Friedrich Gauß; April 30, 1777, Braunschweig - February 23, 1855, Göttingen) - German mathematician, mechanic, physicist, astronomer and surveyor. Considered one of the greatest mathematicians of all time, "the king of mathematicians". Laureate of the Copley medal (1838), foreign member of the Swedish (1821) and Russian (1824) Academies of Sciences, the English Royal Society.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (German Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz or German Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, MFA (German): June 21 (July 1), 1646 - November 14, 1716) - German philosopher, logician, mathematician, mechanic, physicist, lawyer, historian, diplomat, inventor and linguist. Founder and first president of the Berlin Academy of Sciences, foreign member of the French Academy of Sciences.

Leonard Euler (German Leonhard Euler; April 15, 1707, Basel, Switzerland - September 7 (18), 1783, St. Petersburg, Russian Empire) - Swiss, German and Russian mathematician and mechanic who made a fundamental contribution to the development of these sciences (as well as physics, astronomy and a number of applied sciences). Euler is the author of more than 850 papers (including two dozen fundamental monographs) on mathematical analysis, differential geometry, number theory, approximate calculations, celestial mechanics, mathematical physics, optics, ballistics, shipbuilding, music theory and other areas. He deeply studied medicine, chemistry, botany, aeronautics, music theory, many European and ancient languages. Academician of the St. Petersburg, Berlin, Turin, Lisbon and Basel Academies of Sciences, foreign member of the Paris Academy of Sciences.

Ludwig Boltzmann (German Ludwig Eduard Boltzmann, February 20, 1844, Vienna, Austrian Empire - September 5, 1906, Duino, Italy) - Austrian theoretical physicist, founder of statistical mechanics and molecular kinetic theory. Member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (1895), corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1899) and a number of others.

Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck (German Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck; April 23, 1858, Kiel - October 4, 1947, Göttingen) - German theoretical physicist, founder of quantum physics. Winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics (1918) and other awards, member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences (1894), a number of foreign scientific societies and academies of sciences. For many years one of the leaders of German science.

Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen (German pron. Röntgen) (German Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen; March 27, 1845 - February 10, 1923) - an outstanding German physicist who worked at the University of Würzburg. Since 1875, he has been a professor at Hohenheim, since 1876 - a professor of physics in Strasbourg, since 1879 - in Giessen, since 1885 - in Würzburg, since 1899 - in Munich. The first Nobel Prize winner in the history of physics (1901).

Albert Einstein (German Albert Einstein, MPA; March 14, 1879, Ulm, Württemberg, Germany - April 18, 1955, Princeton, New Jersey, USA) - theoretical physicist, one of the founders of modern theoretical physics, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921, social activist and humanist. Lived in Germany (1879-1893, 1914-1933), Switzerland (1893-1914) and the USA (1933-1955). Honorary doctor of about 20 leading universities in the world, a member of many Academies of Sciences, including a foreign honorary member of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1926). Einstein is the author of more than 300 scientific papers in physics, as well as about 150 books and articles in the field of the history and philosophy of science, journalism, etc.

LIST OF GREAT GERMAN COMPOSERS

German literature has given the world many wonderful writers. The names of many of them remained in the history of literature. The works of these authors are studied at school and at universities. These are famous German writers whose names everyone knows, even if they are not familiar with their works. However, most of the titles of their works are also well known to readers.

German writers and poets of the 18th century

Goethe is one of the most famous writers in the whole world. His full name sounds like Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. He was not only a poet, but also a naturalist, a great thinker and statesman. He was born in 1749 and lived for 82 years. Goethe wrote poems and comedies. He is known to the whole world as the author of the book "The Suffering of Young Werther". The story of how this work greatly influenced the minds of young people - Goethe's contemporaries is widely known. And a wave of suicides swept across Germany. Young men imitated the protagonist of the work - Werther - and committed suicide because of unhappy love. In the pockets of many of the young suicides, a volume of The Sorrows of Young Werther was found.

Wilhelm Heinze is a no less talented writer, however, for the most part, he is familiar only to literary critics and philologists. In Russia, he is known for the novel Ardingello and the Blessed Isles, translated by Petrovsky. Born in 1746, died in 1803. And only in 1838 was Heinze's collected works published.

Children's German writers of the 18th century

Everyone read or listened to the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm as children. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm are German writers known to everyone since childhood. In addition to writing fairy tales, they were also linguists and researchers of their national culture. In addition, the brothers are considered the founders of scientific Germanic studies and Germanic philology. They were born with a difference of one year: Jacob - in 1785, and Wilhelm - in 1786. Jacob outlived his brother by four years. The fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm are loved by children of all nations. Many, as they say, grew up on their "Bremen Town Musicians", "Snow White" and "Little Red Riding Hood".

19th century writers

Nietzsche is one of the first whose name comes to mind when German writers of the 19th century are remembered. Few read his works, but many have heard of him and his philosophy. The full name of the author is Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche. He was born in 1844 and lived for 56 years. He was not only a writer, but also a philosopher, as well as a philologist. Unfortunately, his creative activity ended in 1889 due to illness, and he gained popularity as a writer only after his death. The key work of Nietzsche's work is the book Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

Theodore Storm is another 19th century writer. This is both a poet and a prose writer. Storm was born in 1817 and lived for 70 years. The most famous works of Storm are the short stories "Angelica" and "The Rider on the White Horse".

20th century in German literature

Heinrich Böll is the recipient of the Nobel Prize in 1972. He was born in 1917 and has been writing stories and poems since early childhood. However, he began to print his works only in 1947. In Bell's adult prose, there is a lot about the war and post-war issues. Since he himself survived the war and was even a prisoner. More famous are Bell's collections of short stories Not Just for Christmas, When the War Started and When the War Ended, as well as the novel Where Have You Been, Adam? In 1992, Bell's novel "The Angel Was Silent" was published, it was translated into Russian in 2001. Previously, the author himself disassembled it into a series of stories for the sake of a fee, since he and his family needed money.

Remarque is also one of the most famous writers. Erich Maria Remarque took a middle name for a pseudonym in honor of his mother. He was born in 1898, in 1916 he was sent to fight on the Western Front, was seriously wounded, spent a lot of time in the hospital. All his main novels are anti-war, for this reason the Nazis even banned his books. The most famous novels are All Quiet on the Western Front, Three Comrades, Borrowed Life, Arc de Triomphe, and Love Thy Neighbor.

Franz Kafka is an Austrian but is considered one of the main German-language authors. His books are unique in their absurdism. Most of them were published posthumously. He was born in 1883 and died of tuberculosis in 1924. His collections are famous: "Punishment", "Contemplation" and "Hunger". As well as the novels The Castle and The Trial.

German writers have made a great contribution to world literature. The list of names can be continued for a long time. There are two more names to add.

Mann Brothers

Heinrich Mann and Thomas Mann are brothers, both famous German writers. Heinrich Mann - prose writer, born in 1871, worked in the book trade and publishing house. In 1953, the Berlin Academy of Arts established the annual Heinrich Mann Prize. His most famous works are: “Teacher Gnus”, “Promised Land”, “Young Years of King Henry IV” and “Mature Years of King Henry IV”.

Paul Thomas Mann was 4 years younger than his brother. He is a Nobel laureate. His literary activity began with the creation of the magazine "Spring Thunderstorm". Then he wrote articles for the magazine "XX Century", which was published by his brother. Fame came to Thomas with the novel "Buddenbrooks". He wrote it based on the history of his own family. His other famous novels are Doctor Faustus and The Magic Mountain.