Gertrud von den Brincken

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Gertrud von den Brincken (born April 18, 1892 on the Brinck- Pedwahlen family estate (today: Briņķpedvāles muiža ) near Zabeln ( Sabile ), Kurland Governorate in the Russian Empire ; † November 17, 1982 in Regensburg ) was a German-Baltic writer.

Life

As the daughter of Baron Maximilian von den Brincken and his wife Louise, née Baronesse von Bistram, Gertrud von den Brincken comes from a long-established Baltic German, Lutheran, academically and musically educated family of landowners from Kurland who owned their family estate in Brinck-Pedwahlen. Gertrud von den Brincken spent the first ten years of her life there and on her father's Neuwacken estate ( Jaunpagasts ). Her later novels March (1937) and Immortal Forests (1941) reflect the life and mood of those early years. In 1902, a dueling injury to the father forced the family to move to the royal seat of Mitau , where Gertrud and her two years older, lifelong sick sister Margarethe (married von Transehe-Roseneck, 1890–1970) attended a German private school group. After the early death of her father in 1904, the depressed mother and her two daughters lived completely withdrawn from social life in Mitau.

As a child, Gertrud von den Brincken began to write down her thoughts and experiences. At the age of 19 she published her volume of poetry Who does not know the dark (1911), with which she laid the foundation for her career as a poet and writer. In the years up to 1924, three more volumes of poetry followed: songs and ballads (1917), from day and dream (1920) and steps (1924). Writing was her innermost concern throughout her life, even under the most adverse personal and political circumstances.

During the First World War the family became impoverished because the Russian state had confiscated the bank assets of the German families in 1914 to finance the war. In 1915 the family moved to the small town of Tuckum , where they took on officers as subtenants during the first years of the German occupation of Kurland. During these years Gertrud von den Brincken met the young Catholic field priest Hans Carls . A hot love flared up from both sides, which was also reflected in many longing love songs that Gertrud von den Brincken later summarized in the poetry volume That we had to separate (1975). After the withdrawal of the German troops, changeful turmoil of war broke out over Kurland between “ whites ” and “ reds ”, which Gertrud von den Brincken in her drama of flight and return, cruel executions and wonderful rescues both in her great novels Nobody (1943) and Nights (1981) as well as in her autobiographical notes Land under (1976).

In the first years after the war, Gertrud von den Brincken worked to earn a living for mother, widowed sister and niece (Alix von Transehe-Roseneck, 1917–1982), initially as a children's nurse for the American Red Cross, later as an English teacher. Until the year of her death, her great concern was with the family in the Baltic States, which she, until 1982, her niece, supported her financially and with packages at great sacrifice on a monthly basis.

In 1925 Gertrud von den Brincken married the Austrian-born philosophy professor Walther Schmied-Kowarzik , who taught at the Estonian State University of Dorpat , and worked with him on the publication of the Estonian-German calendar , until 1927 her husband offered a call to the Pedagogical Academy in Frankfurt on the Main made a move to Germany necessary. Far away from her family in Kurland, Gertrud von den Brincken was forced to deal with the pain of separation from her beloved homeland, which runs like a red thread through many of her works: Homesickness Books I and II (1926 and 1950).

In Germany, the eldest son Wieland was born in Frankfurt am Main in 1929 , the daughter Ilse-Roswith in Bad Nauheim in 1934 and the youngest son Wolfdietrich in Friedberg in 1939 .

After the pedagogical academies closed in 1933, the family moved via Gießen to Friedberg , where Walther Schmied-Kowarzik was offered a teaching position at the college for teacher training in 1934. But from this he was released a few months later, after a lecture on Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler . In this emergency, Walther Schmied-Kowarzik passed teaching examinations in history and geography - partly with his former university colleagues - and then got a job as a study assessor at the Friedberger Aufbaugymnasium. In 1939 the family moved to Mödling near Vienna, Walther Schmied-Kowarzik's hometown.

The years of upheaval and great distress were also years of success for Gertrud von den Brincken as a writer. Her volumes of poetry and novels saw several editions. Her novel Herbst auf Herrenhöfen (1939) came out in the year the Baltic Germans were resettled in the Warthegau and sparked controversial discussions about the fate of Baltic German families. There was even an offer to make a film for the novel Nobody (1943).

Gertrud von den Brincken and her children had to flee Mödling in 1944/45 from the invading Soviet army; her apartment in Mödling was looted and her entire library was destroyed. She found shelter in Unterbruck Castle with her cousin Lia von Bistram. Five years of deprivation as a refugee followed, especially since Walther Schmied-Kowarzik had been interned by the Americans in Moosburg. Again, jobs as an English teacher helped Gertrud von den Brincken to earn a living for herself and her children. She had also prepared an English textbook 2222 English Words , which was used for teaching in schools in the American occupation zone.

After moving to Regensburg in 1950, Gertrud von den Brincken was able to devote herself to her real concern again, literary writing. The youth book Helmut sucht ein Freund was published , three volumes of poetry and two plays, including the human drama The Flood Rises (1951/1975). Her fate was personally overshadowed by the sudden death of her husband in 1958 during a visit to Mödling - her selection volume Abschied (1961) testifies to this .

Towards the end of her life, Gertrud von den Brincken entered another distinct creative period, the short stories Ismael appeared in 1971 , followed by the lyrical cycle Judas Ischarioth (1974), the autobiographical recordings Land unter (1976), the extensive volume of poems Wellenbrecher - Zweistimmige Lyric (1977 ) and finally her last great Baltic novel, Nights, in 1981 . Despite great honors, however, she was no longer able to build on the previous successes.

Gertrud von den Brincken died at the age of 91 in her Regensburg apartment and was buried next to her husband in the Mödling cemetery.

For the celebration of her 100th birth and 10th year of death in Regensburg in 1992, a double volume of posthumous poems Gezeiten und Ausklang was published . A four-volume selection from Gertrud von den Brincken's lyrical oeuvre was published by Iris von Gottberg in 2011.

Awards

subjects

People in fateful borderline situations are the protagonists of her novels, especially before, during and after the turmoil of the First World War in the Baltic States, people who have remained loyal to their homeland despite great hardship and distress. In terms of content, her poems wrestle with the pain of love, a longing for home, wrestle with and with God, her ballads tell painful and tragic stories. The motif of the dark in the world, which only humans can illuminate through their actions, runs through their work like a red thread. See her self-presentation.

If you take a look at her 70 years of work, you can clearly see three large sections intertwined with her eventful life story:

The earliest poems still reflect a paradisiacal world in a home environment, over the years they are overlaid by an intimately tender and yearning love poetry. Shaken by the upheavals of fate during the First World War and the post-war years, Gertrud von den Brincken was made aware of the need and misery of people, especially of the helpless suffering and dying of children. Parallel to these early poems, ballads and lyrical cycles are created, here one's own experience takes a back seat, the themes of love and suffering, loyalty and death are condensed into general from legends or historical events. It is noticeable that she often focuses on women in her dramatic poetry. Around the mid-20s the ballads were replaced by lyrical cycles, with the boundaries flowing. Judas Ischarioth is one of the most poignant song cycles .

The later poems reflect the difficult years of wandering through many stations against the background of political and professional slumps. In the first two decades of this second epoch, the great novels by Gertrud von den Brincken emerged, all of which live from memories of the last decades of German-Baltic history. After fleeing from the advancing Russians and the post-war years full of privation, further volumes of poetry full of longing homesick poetry were published, which made Gertrud von den Brincken known far beyond the Baltic Germans.

After the death of her husband, the third creative period begins, which ends with her own death in Regensburg in 1982. Her late, partly two-part - rhymed and non-rhymed - thought poetry, drawn by the maturity of an aging woman who looks back on an eventful life, leads to probing questions about the meaning of life and about a hidden counsel of God. The conviction runs like a red thread through her late work that God cannot accomplish his work of love on earth without the help of people. In this service Gertrud von den Brincken recognizes her assignment as a poet and writer.

Works

  • 1911: Who does not know the darkness . Poems. Riga
  • 1917: songs and ballads . Berlin
  • 1920: From day and dream . Poems. Riga
  • 1924: steps . Poems. Berlin u. Leipzig
  • 1926: The homesick book . Poems. Berlin u. Leipzig
  • 1937: March . Novel. Vienna
  • 1939: Autumn on manor houses . Novel. Bielefeld and Leipzig
  • 1941: Immortal Forests . Novel. Stuttgart
  • 1942: On the way . Poetry book. Stuttgart
  • 1942: The pulpit stone . Novella. Bielefeld u. Leipzig
  • 1943: Nobody . Novel. Stuttgart
  • 1949: Voice in the Dark . Poems. Munich
  • 1950: Heimwehbuch (II). Poems. Bovenden
  • 1950: Helmut is looking for a friend . Youth book. Luneburg
  • 1951: The flood rises . play
  • 1958: Aina . Novella. Honnef
  • 1959: The children's ring (water of the desert). radio play
  • 1961: Farewell . Selection tape. Hanover
  • 1971: Ismael - Five Fragments . With six colored etchings by Erich Brauer. Nuremberg
  • 1974: Judas Iscarioth . Lyric cycle. Darmstadt
  • 1975: That we had to part . Poems. Darmstadt
  • 1976: Land under. Experiences from two world wars, the Bolshevik era and the post-war years . Darmstadt
  • 1976: Wellenbrecher - two-part poetry . Darmstadt
  • 1977: The flood rises . Play. Darmstadt
  • 1977: Waters of the desert . Play. Darmstadt
  • 1980: A handful of everyday occurrences . Stories. St. Michael, Austria
  • 1981: nights . Novel. Kassel, ISBN 3-87013-012-1 .
  • 1992: tide and end . Collections of poetry from the estate, edited by Winno von Löwenstern. Cologne, ISBN 3-929081-05-9 .
  • 2011: Complete selection of poetry from seven decades in four volumes , edited by Iris von Gottberg. kassel
  1. Hold your hand protectively over me. Early poems (1911–1927). ISBN 978-3-934377-12-7 . (nbn-resolving.de)
  2. A great murmur goes through the country. Ballads and lyric cycles (1917–1942). ISBN 978-3-934377-13-4 . (nbn-resolving.de)
  3. But even a word can mean a lot. Poems from the wanderings (1928–1958). ISBN 978-3-934377-14-1 . (nbn-resolving.de)
  4. What I wanted to say. Late poems and two-part poetry (1959–1982). ISBN 978-3-934377-15-8 . (nbn-resolving.de)
  • 2012: Kad mājās nāc ... When you come home , (poems in Latvian and German). Tukuma muzejs, Latvia.
  • 2015: Nogrimusī zeme (Latvian translation from country under ). Tukuma muzejs, Latvia ISBN 978-9934-8463-4-2 .
  • 2019: All Ismaele. A philosophical novel . Kassel, ISBN 978-3-95978-071-1 .

Secondary literature

  • Michael Garleff : Lost World and Spiritual Legacy. Interpretation of history by German Baltic writers. Siegfried von Vegesack and Gertrud von den Brincken . In: Carola L. Gottzmann (Ed.): Unrecognized and (un) known. German literature in Central and Eastern Europe . Francke, Tübingen 1991, ISBN 3-7720-1905-6 , pp. 299-322.
  • Wilhelm Bortenschlager : German literary history. Volume 2 From 1945–1983. 5th, exp. Edition. Vienna 1998, pp. 517-521.
  • Petra Hörner (Hrsg.): Forgotten Literature - Unnamed Topics by German Women Writers. 2001.
  • Gero von Wilpert : German Baltic literary history. Munich 2005, pp. 216-217 and pages 265-266.
  • Caroline von Gottberg: Gertrud von den Brincken. Nights and nobody. Master thesis. Institute for German Studies at the University of Leipzig 2006.
  • Carola L. Gottzmann , Petra Hörner: Lexicon of the German-language literature of the Baltic States and St. Petersburg. From the Middle Ages to the present. 3 volumes. Berlin / New York 2007, ISBN 978-3-11-019338-1 . Volume 1, pp. 287-296.
  • Iris von Gottberg: light and shadow in the relay race of the generations. Family stories about Gertrud von den Brincken. Private print Kassel 2010.
  • Iris von Gottberg: Afterwords in all four volumes: Gertrud von den Brincken, complete selection of poetry in four volumes, Kassel 2011: Volume I: Hold your hand protectively over me. Early Poems (1911-1927), pp. 193-198; Volume II: A great murmur goes through the country. Ballads and Lyric Cycles (1917-1942), pp. 187-202; Volume III: But even one word can mean a lot. Poems from the Wandering (1928–1958), pp. 191–199; Volume IV: What else I wanted to say. Late poems and two-part poetry (1959–1982), pp. 175–180.
  • Iris von Gottberg (text), Gulweig Kröger, b. von Gottberg (illustration), The childhood of the poet Gertrud von den Brincken in the lost world of Kurland , Kassel 2020, ISBN 978-3-95978-079-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Between 19 and 90 - A review , self-presentation; Note: The page on December 28, 2018 can no longer be found.
personal data
SURNAME Brincken, Gertrud von den
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer
DATE OF BIRTH April 18, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Gut Brinck-Pedwahlen, today: Briņķpedvāles muiža near Zabeln (Sabile)
DATE OF DEATH 17th November 1982
Place of death regensburg