Alfred Meissner

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Alfred Meißner, 1867. Graphic by Adolf Neumann.

Alfred von Meißner (born October 15, 1821 in Teplitz , Austrian Empire , † May 29, 1885 in Bregenz , Austria-Hungary ) was a German-Bohemian writer.

Life

Meißner's parents were the Teplitz and later Carlsbad bath doctor Eduard Meißner (1785–1868) and Karolina, née. May from Invermay in Scotland. His grandfather was the writer August Gottlieb Meißner .

Alfred Meißner spent his childhood in Teplitz and from 1835 attended the grammar school in the Goltz-Kinsky Palace in Prague's old town . From 1840 he studied medicine at the Charles University in Prague , where he made contact with literary circles. On July 2, 1846 he was promoted to Dr. med. PhD.

As a student, he made friends with the liberal authors Max Schlesinger , Leopold Kompert , Isidor Heller , Moritz Hartmann and Siegfried Kapper , who opposed the restorative policies of Austrian State Chancellor Metternich , and who went down in literary history as Young Bohemia , analogous to the name Young Germany . After studying medicine, Meißner worked briefly as a Prague hospital doctor, but then decided to live as a freelance writer. In 1846 he went to Leipzig , where a few other Austrian emigrants also settled due to the less strict censorship.

From Leipzig, Alfred Meißner visited Dresden several times , where he met Robert Schumann , Richard Wagner and Karl Gutzkow . He was a lifelong friend with the latter. In 1847 he traveled to Paris for ten months . Here he was in contact with Heinrich Heine . In the revolutionary year of 1848, Meißner lived in Frankfurt am Main , attended the meetings of the Frankfurt Paulskirche and was in contact with members of the parliament, especially from the left-wing liberal camp. In 1849 he traveled again to Paris and in 1850 to London , after which he lived again in Prague.

After the death of his wealthy father in 1868, Meißner bought a house in Bregenz in 1869 , where he lived until his death in 1885. In 1869 he married Marie Begg († 1878), a daughter of Major Franz Begg (Beck) von Abansberg and Fanny Kayser . In 1884 he received the Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art from the Bavarian King Ludwig II ; in the same year he was raised to the Bavarian nobility.

Since the 1850s, the writer Franz Hedrich, sponsored by Meißner, has been a secret co-author of many of his larger novels . Hedrich blackmailed Meißner in 1884/85 with the threat of making his co-authorship public. When Hedrich kept asking for money, Alfred von Meißner took his own life. He was critically injured with a knife and died of sepsis a few days later . The brother-in-law Robert von Bayer was appointed administrator of the estate.

Works (selection)

  • Poems . Leipzig: Reclam 1845.
  • Zizka. Epos. Leipzig: Herbig 1846.
  • The Freiherr von Hostiwin , 1855, later The Sansara , 1855
  • Revolutionary studies from Paris. 2 vols. Frankfurt a. M .: literary institute 1849.
  • The pastor of Grafenried. A German life story. Hamburg: Hoffmann u. Campe 1855.
  • Heinrich Heine. Memories. Hamburg: Hoffmann u. Campe 1858.
  • Dramatic works. 3 vols. Leipzig: Herbig 1857-1859.
  • The sansara. Novel in four volumes. Leipzig: Herbig 1858.
  • Through Sardinia. Pictures of the mainland and island , Leipzig: Herbig 1859.
  • To the glory of God . 1860
  • New nobility , 1861
  • Black yellow. A novel from Austria's last twelve years. 4 departments, 8 vols. Berlin: Janke 1862–1864.
  • Collected Writings. 18 vols. Leipzig: Grunow 1871–1875.
  • Norbert Norson , 1883
  • Story of my life. 2 vols. Teschen u. Vienna: Prochaska 1884.
  • Mosaic , 2 vols. 1886
  • Memories and Letters , 1892
  • The miller from the farm . In: German Novellenschatz . Edited by Paul Heyse and Hermann Kurz. Vol. 6. 2nd edition Berlin, [1910], pp. 177-274. In: Weitin, Thomas (Ed.): Fully digitized corpus. The German Novellenschatz . Darmstadt / Konstanz, 2016. ( digitized and full text in the German text archive )
  • I also met Heine in Paris. Among artists and Revolutionaries in the metropolises of Europe. Edited by Rolf Weber. Berlin: Der Morgen 1973. (2nd edition 1982. - Abridged version of the story of my life .)

literature

On the controversy between Alfred von Meißner and Franz Hedrích

  • Robert Byr : Alfred Meißner's answer. Munich: Commissions-Verl. 1889.
  • Franz Hedrich: Alfred Meissner - Franz Hedrich. Replica. Leipzig: Danz 1889.
  • Franz Hedrich: Alfred Meißner - Franz Hedrich. History of their literary relationship based on the letters that Alfred Meißner wrote to Franz Hedrich from 1854 until his death in 1885. Berlin: Janke 1890.
  • Karl Emil Franzos : Alfred Meißner - Franz Hedrich. I.–V. In: German poetry. Dresden. Vol. 7, 1889/90, pp. 141-147, 196-203, 221-228, 271-276, 290-300.

Web links

Wikisource: Alfred Meißner  - Sources and full texts
Commons : Alfred Meißner  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ see literature KH Burmeister: Meissner, Alfred von (1822-1885), writer in the ÖBL
personal data
SURNAME Meissner, Alfred
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Meissner, Alfred; Meißner, Alfred von; Meissner, Alfred von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Bohemian writer
DATE OF BIRTH October 15, 1822
PLACE OF BIRTH Teplitz
DATE OF DEATH May 29, 1885
Place of death Bregenz