Andrzej Wirth

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Andrzej Tadeusz Wirth (born April 10, 1927 in Włodawa ; † March 10, 2019 in Berlin ) was a Polish- American theater scholar , theater critic and university lecturer . In 1982 he founded the Institute for Applied Theater Studies in Giessen , which for the first time combined theoretical, humanistic reflection and creative, practical activity during training. Graduates of this course have significantly shaped the trend in post-dramatic theater .

Life

Wirth's grandfather was a railway official in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy in Galicia . Wirth's mother was born in Russia as the daughter of exiled Polish nobles. His father served as a staff officer in the Polish government-in-exile from 1939, fought the German Wehrmacht in Italy and settled in Great Britain after the war.

Andrzej Wirth was born in 1927 in Włodawa, on the border between what is now Belarus and Poland. His parents owned a manor. During the Second World War, employees of the manor prevented the family from being deported to the concentration camp. Wirth secretly received high school lessons in Warsaw during the war.

Intellectual career

Wirth studied philosophy in Łódź and Warsaw and translated Horace and Lucretius from Latin and Johannes R. Becher from German. He later did his doctorate on Bertolt Brecht and translated Brecht's drama Schweyk during World War II . In socialist Poland he and his friend Marcel Reich-Ranicki translated novels by Franz Kafka and Friedrich Dürrenmatt into Polish. In the mid-fifties, Wirth was the literary editor of the weekly " Polityka ", where he preprinted two chapters from Günter Grass ' " Tin Drum ".

With his doctorate on Brecht, he also became known to German specialist circles, which enabled him to pursue a university career outside of Poland. From 1956 to 1958 he lived in Berlin at the invitation of the Berliner Ensemble , where he came into contact with German academics.

Wirth founded the avant-garde magazine Nowa Kultura , which was banned in 1963 by the head of the Communist Party of Poland, Władysław Gomułka .

Wirth worked as a theater and literary scholar as well as a critic, translator and editor and joined the group 47 . In 1966 he wrote an anthology of Polish modern drama. Alongside Jan Kott , he is considered one of the most important Polish theater critics .

In the 1960s he left for the USA. Since 1966 he has taught at Stanford University , Harvard University , Yale University , University of Oxford and in London , at the City University of New York and the Free University of Berlin .

He is the author of two forewords (1960 and 1976) to the Stroop report , the report of the leader of the mass murder in the Warsaw ghetto, Jürgen Stroop (1895–1952).

He emerged as the editor of Bruno Schulz and Tadeusz Borowski and was a member of Gruppe 47 .

In 1982 Wirth founded the Institute for Applied Theater Studies at the Justus Liebig University in Giessen and headed it until his retirement in 1992. Together with his colleague Hans-Thies Lehmann , he coined the term post-dramatic theater , which applied to the works of almost all of his Applicable to students.

students

Wirth's students and their theater groups include:

Awards

Works

Wirth published in Polish, German and English on Polish and international theater and literary history, as well as on the Nazi era and the persecution of Jews in Poland.

  • Andrzej Wirth (Ed.): Modern Polish Theater. Neuwied u. a. 1967.
  • Forewords to the Stroop report (1960 and 1976): "There is no longer a Jewish residential district in Warsaw": Stroop report / [Jürgen Stroop]. With foreword from 1960 a. 1976 by Andrzej Wirth. Darmstadt: Luchterhand, 1976 ( Luchterhand collection ; 171) first Neuwied [u. a.]: Luchterhand, 1960
  • The Stroop Report. The Jewish Quarter of Warsaw is no more! Translated from the German and Annotated by Sybil Milton. Introduction by Andrzej Wirth. New York 1979.
  • Andrzej Wirth / Sławomir Mroźek, Zabawa (eds.): Satire in a listless time. Frankfurt / Main 1992.
  • Andrzej Wirth / Stanisław Witkiewicz (eds.): Crazy Locomotive. A reader. Frankfurt / Main 1994.
  • Gerhard Fischer (ed.): Debating Enzensberger. Great Migration to Civil War. Tubingen 1996.
  • Praise the third thing. In: Spiegel der Forschung 20 (2003) No. 1 / 2.2003
  • Crossings between literature and media. Baden-Baden 2013
  • Short texts. Edited by Thomas Irmer. Publisher Theater der Zeit, Berlin 2016

Literature about Wirth

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Andrzej Wirth died , theaterderzeit.de retrieved 11 March 2019
  2. ↑ a b c d Gerhard Gnauck: How Andrzej Wirth should spy on Reich-Ranicki. In: Die Zeit, February 26, 2009
  3. ↑ a b Andrzej Wirth. Theater scholar. In: Website of the International Heiner Müller Society
  4. ↑ a b c d André Mumot: Wirth's world. Andrzej Wirth - Escape Forward. Spoken autobiography and materials. In: Nachtkritik, November 5, 2013
  5. ↑ a b c d Wirth, Andrzej, Glossary of Night Criticism
  6. ↑ ANDRZEJ WIRTH, in: Der Spiegel, 46/1965
  7. ^ Institute for Applied Theater Studies - Institute - Graduates. Retrieved March 13, 2019 .
  8. ↑ Andrzej Wirth. Theater scholar. In: Website of the International Heiner Müller Society
personal data
SURNAME Wirth, Andrzej
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wirth, Andrzej Tadeusz (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish-American theater scholar, theater critic and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH April 10, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Włodawa
DATE OF DEATH March 10, 2019
Place of death Berlin