František Langer

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František Langer, around 1928
Bust of František Langer in Prague

František Langer (born March 3, 1888 in Prague ; † August 2, 1965 there ) was a Czech writer and military doctor, dramaturge, essayist, literary critic and publicist. He was the brother of Jiří Mordechai Langer .

Life

Langer was born into a Jewish family in the Prague suburb of Vinohrady, the son of a shoemaker. He was not a practicing Jew and saw himself as a Czech, in contrast to his younger brother Jiří Mordechai Langer , who published in German, Czech and Hebrew. In 1906 he graduated from high school and studied at the medical faculty until 1914. During the First World War he served as chief of the health service of the 1st Corps of the Czechoslovak Legions , the Czech army in exile in France and later in England, and was taken prisoner by the Russians. In 1920 Langer returned to Prague via Japan and China .

For eighteen years Langer belonged to the intellectual and literary elite of the young Czechoslovak Republic , he founded magazines, literary clubs and organizations for children's aid at home and abroad. He co-founded the Prague section of the PEN Club, campaigned for young, talented authors and wrote for theaters, book publishers and newspapers. From 1935 to 1938 he took over the chief dramaturgy at the City Theater on the Vineyards . The premieres of the stage works took place almost exclusively in this theater. For many years Langer was the closest collaborator of this leading theater, which was not so recognized in comparison to the Prague National Theater. He was friends with Jaroslav Hašek and Karel Čapek , to whom he was also very close in literary terms, he was the first to write a review of Franz Kafka's stoker . In the second half of the 1920s, Langer was a participant in the meetings of the informal Stammtisch group of Prague intellectual Pátečníci .

After the Germans occupied Czechoslovakia in 1939, Langer emigrated first to Poland and then via France to England. In the latter two countries he organized the medical services of the Czech army in exile. After the Second World War he returned to his homeland, but was soon retired and, as an author, increasingly pushed to the edge of the cultural scene. His books were banned, although his plays enjoyed great success abroad. In the last years of his life he published very little.

Literary works

As a high school student, Langer wrote neoclassical novels and later novels and a number of dramas and folk plays, the characters of which live in and out of the Prague suburban atmosphere. As a journalist, he wrote regularly for Lidové noviny (People's Newspaper). He later published numerous dramas in the style of New Classicism , which made up the majority of his work. He mostly dealt with the questions of crime, guilt and punishment. But he also implemented life in the legions in his works. Langer also published four books for young people.

The best known is Langer's drama Peripherie ( Periférie ), the story of the criminal waiter and dancer Franzi, who returns to Prague's poor district on the periphery of the “Golden City” after serving a prison sentence. There he meets the pretty Anna, who initially betrays him. Without wanting to, he kills her rich lover. The play about the "marauding on the borders of civilization" ( Alfred Polgar ) was written in 1925 and was released on June 1, 1927 under the direction of Max Reinhardt with Hermann Thimig , Dagny Servaes , Egon Friedell , Hans Thimig , Theodor Danegger , Vladimir Sokoloff and Hans Moser premiered. It is a dramatic Moritat from the Prague suburbs with a strong poetic charisma.

František Langer's comedy The camel going through the eye ( Velbloud uchem jehly ), translated by Otto Pick was a very successful comedy that at the Vienna Burgtheater under director Hermann Röbbeling under the direction of Hans Wengraf came out. The work, which is widely played in German-speaking countries, is a “critical-ironic folk piece with concrete, utopian features” ( Hilde Haider-Pregler ), in which in the end “poor and rich” find each other across all class barriers. The poor proletarian girl, the very pretty, very young, smart Zuzka, who comes across an heir of millions by sheer coincidence, is not at all about the money, although she proves to be a commercial natural talent, she loves her inhibited, shy, self-doubted gallant for himself will and thanks to her ability to live and her optimism wins respect and affection from the future father-in-law. She also succeeds in giving her mother (played by Maria Eis , in the film by Jane Tilden ) a start as a respectable business woman. František Langer's comedy is thematically related to the ready-to-wear pieces and films of the little saleswoman or secretary, which were popular at the time, and who managed to survive successfully even in times of economic depression. Felix Dvorak created a version in which the political conditions of the interwar period were given more space and which was performed at the 1993 Festival in Berndorf. In addition to Felix Dvorak, Johanna von Koczian, Bert Fortell, Fritz Lehmann, Erich Padalewsky and others played in the premiere. The young couple was portrayed by Katje Dvorak-Löwy and Marcus Strahl . In 2012, Marcus Strahl staged the Dvorak version with his mother Waltraut Haas at the Weissenkirchen Festival.

In the piece U bratří Makabejských ( With the Maccabean Brothers ), which was premiered in April 1911 and which Langer wrote together with Jaroslav Hašek and other supporters of the satirical party for moderate progress within the limits of the law , the figure of Schwejk first appeared, which later became famous in the novel The Good Soldier Schwejk von Hašek.

Works

  • Peripherie (drama, German by Oskar Willner ) 1926
  • The camel goes through the eye of the needle (comedy in three acts in German by Paul and Putti Kruntorad) 1929
  • The silver key (1968), Herold-Verlag
  • The white key (1958), Artia Verlag
  • A suitcase from overseas (1966), Nymphenburger Verlag
  • The Conversion of Ferdys Pistora (comedy in three acts, German by Oskar Willner, 1929)
  • Sparks in the Ashes (Comedy in five acts, German by Peter Lotar)
  • Prisoner Number 72 (Drama)
  • Rhapsody in bronze (antique tragedy, prologue and four chants, German by Otto F. Babler )
  • Angels among us (legend in three acts and an epilogue, German by Otto Pick, 1931)
  • The Brotherhood of the White Key (youth novel, 1949)
  • The Children and Satan (1949)
  • The bells (dramatized legend, German by Otto Pick)
  • Grand Hotel Nevada (Comedy in three acts, German by Otto Pick)
  • Mr. Pickwick (cheerful game in three acts, German by Otto Pick)
  • Million (drama)
  • Reiterpatrouille (play in three acts, German by Otto Pick)

See also: List of Czech writers

Film adaptations

Web links

Commons : František Langer  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Václav Stehlík: Stari Friday Men Novodobí a Zpátečníci! , online at: vasevec.parlamentnilisty.cz / ...
  2. ↑ František Langer: Byli a bylo. ( It was and it was. ) Prague 1963, p. 45.
personal data
SURNAME Langer, František
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czech writer and military doctor, dramaturge, essayist, literary critic and publicist
DATE OF BIRTH March 3, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Prague
DATE OF DEATH August 2, 1965
Place of death Prague