Adalbert Dessau

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Adalbert Gustav Adolf Karl Dessau (born March 15, 1928 in Heintrop , † October 20, 1984 in Rostock ) was a German Latin American scholar , Romance scholar and literary scholar . He was the founder and long-time director of the former Rostock Latin American Studies section and the first German Romance philologist to submit a habilitation thesis on Latin American literature.

Adalbert Dessau (1966)

life and work

Adalbert Dessau was the eldest of two sons of the accountant Adolf Dessau and the housewife Martha Dessau, née Tischer, born in Heintrop in the Soest district in Westphalia . In 1933 he moved with his parents to Coswig near Dresden , where he attended elementary school from 1934 to 1938. From 1938 to 1940 he attended the higher section of the school. In 1940 he switched to the Fürstenschule Meißen , a humanistic grammar school , which at the end of 1942 was converted into a "German home school". From 1938 to 1942 Dessau was with the " German Young People ", then with the Hitler Youth . For health reasons he was not drafted into the Wehrmacht .

Since the school in Meissen was initially discontinued after the Second World War , Dessau graduated from high school in Radebeul in 1946 . From 1946 to 1950 he worked as a teacher at the Second Elementary School in Coswig. In 1948 and 1949 he passed the first and second teacher exams. In 1948 he became a member of the FDJ and in 1949 a member of the SED .

1950 ended Dessau his work as a teacher and began graduate studies Romance studies at the Humboldt University of Berlin with a major in French and minored in Spanish and Portuguese . In June 1954 Dessau passed the diploma examination with the grade "very good". His most important academic teachers were Rita Schober , Kurt Baldinger , Traugott Böhme , Victor Klemperer and Werner Krauss .

After completing his studies, Dessau began an academic traineeship at the Humboldt University in Berlin and, in addition to working on his dissertation, held lectures and exercises in the field of Spanish literary history . During his time as a doctoral student , he traveled several times as an interpreter to other European and Latin American countries. In May 1958 he was awarded the title "summa cum laude" for Dr. phil. PhD. His dissertation is entitled Raoul de Cambrai - Investigations into the problem of the material and spiritual-structural historicity of the French heroic epic.

In February 1959, Dessau became a lecturer in Romance philology at the University of Rostock and took over as acting director of the Romance Institute as the successor to Rudolf Brummer , who had fled to West Germany. He was commissioned by the State Secretariat for Higher Education to lay the foundations for a Latin American institute in Rostock.

At the end of May 1963 Dessau completed his habilitation with a thesis on the Mexican Revolutionary novel. His habilitation thesis has the following title: The Mexican Revolutionary Novel. Research into the development of a Latin American national literature under the conditions of the anti-imperialist, anti-feudal, national and democratic revolution. Dessau did pioneering work with this literary publication, as he was the first German Romance philologist to submit a post-doctoral thesis on Latin American literature. A slightly abridged version of this work was published by Rütten & Loening in 1967 , and a Spanish translation was published by Fondo de Cultura Económica in 1972. According to Hans-Otto Dill, it is "the most frequently quoted and most recognized work of German Latin American literary studies internationally".

In 1964, the Romance Institute at the University of Rostock was officially converted into a Latin America Institute, which Dessau took over. In 1969 he was appointed full professor of Latin American literature and philosophy. When in 1968 the Latin America Institute as part of the III. University reform of the GDR was converted into the Latin American Studies section, he held the office of section director. In 1981 he was replaced by Max Zeuske as director of the Latin American Studies section.

Adalbert Dessau died on October 20, 1984 after a long illness. His grave is in the honor grove of the New Cemetery in Rostock.

Adalbert Dessau's grave in the grove of honor at the New Cemetery in Rostock

Awards and honors

Fonts

  • Myth and Reality in Miguel Angel Asturias' Banana Trilogy , Latin America: Semester Report of the Latin America Institute of the University of Rostock, Rostock 1966
  • The Mexican Revolutionary Novel, Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1967
  • La novela de la Revolución Mexicana , Fondo de Cultura Económica, México 1972
  • Latin America in the Anti-Imperialist Struggle: Problems of a Continent , collective of authors under the direction of Adalbert Dessau, Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1978
  • Alejo Carpentier's concept of the real-wonderful: origin and essence of a literary program , together with Hermann Herlinghaus, Passagen-Verlag, Vienna 1983 (special edition)
  • Political-ideological currents in Latin America: historical traditions and current importance , collective of authors under the direction of Adalbert Dessau, Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1987

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. Klaus-Dieter Ertler (Ed.) (2007): Romance Studies as Passion: Great moments in recent specialist history. Vienna: LIT, p. 219.
  2. ↑ cf. Dill, Hans-Otto (2009): Latin American literature in Germany: building blocks for the history of its reception. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, p. 63.
personal data
SURNAME Dessau, Adalbert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dessau, Adalbert Gustav Adolf Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Latin American, Romance studies and literary scholar
DATE OF BIRTH March 15, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Heintrop
DATE OF DEATH 20th October 1984
Place of death Rostock , GDR