Friedrich Kaiser (actor)

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Friedrich Kaiser, lithograph by Josef Kriehuber , 1844

Friedrich Kaiser (born April 3, 1814 in Biberach an der Riss ; † November 6, 1874 in Vienna ) was an Austrian playwright and revolutionary. He wrote over 160 pieces in series production for the Vienna Volkstheater of the 19th century.

Life

Kaiser was a son of kk lieutenants Emperor Franz Joseph and his wife Franziska Grelz. He and his family came to Vienna as a child. He completed his school days at the academic high school and then began to study philosophy at the university in his hometown. At the same time he was also a student of the painter Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller .

Even as a student, Kaiser tried his hand at writing. When he began an internship at the Vienna Court War Council in 1833 , his literary work was strengthened and he was able to successfully debut another comedy ( Das Rendezvous ) the following year .

During this time Kaiser u. a. the acquaintance with the theater director Carl Carl and this staged Kaiser's Das Rendezvous under the title Hans Hasenkopf . In the following years Kaiser was under contract with Carl for six comedies a year. When the comedy Wolf and Bride in 1836 was a great - above all financial - success, Kaiser resigned from civil service in 1838 and from then on devoted himself only to writing.

In 1840 Kaiser founded the artists' association “Concordia” together with like-minded people. Evidence of political activity has been increasing since 1840. In 1845 Kaiser moved to Franz Pokorny at the Josefstädter Theater , but there he had less and less success with his plays. Perhaps it was because of Kaiser's illness in 1846, but perhaps just because of the politically uncertain times that led to the revolution in 1848 .

Friedrich Kaiser proclaims the Constitution March 15, 1848. Lithograph by Josef Cajetan

On March 13, 1848, he presented the Lower Austrian provinces with a petition to abolish censorship . On March 15, 1848, Emperor Ferdinanf announced the impending constitutional proclamation and the end of censorship. The constitutional text, which the Kaiser then announced on April 25th, disappointed the expectations of the revolutionaries and Friedrich Kaiser sided with the Academic Legion , which at the mass demonstration on May 15th called for the one-chamber system as the constituent assembly. In his notes he imagined the "people's spring " was coming. During the entire popular uprising, Kaiser stood at the side of the "Legion", first as a lieutenant, then as a captain, and finally as "Platz-Commandant" of the Heumarkt barracks . After the surrender of the revolutionaries of Vienna in November 1848, Kaiser narrowly escaped execution by the troops of Field Marshal Lieutenant Alfred Fürst zu Windisch-Graetz . He processed the experience of the revolution in the play Hanswurst on the barricade, among others . He criticized the immaturity of the people and condemned the violence of the rioters.

Grave of Friedrich Kaiser

During the days of the revolution he published a small pamphlet: About the Jews. A word to the people. He reminded that the Jews of Vienna were there on March 13th and that they had to be granted the same rights as the other guarantors.

After the revolution, Kaiser again acted as playwright for director Carl and his theater. When he died in 1854, he worked with Johann Nepomuk Nestroy and Pokorny's son. Kaiser had an affair with Marie von Pospischill and from it an illegitimate daughter; Henriette (* 1854).

In 1862 Kaiser withdrew from the theater and settled on the outskirts of Vienna. He lived in very simple circumstances and could not improve his financial situation much through his literary work. Kaiser died at the age of 60 on November 6, 1874 in Vienna and found his final resting place in the Vienna Central Cemetery (Gr. 0, R. 1, No. 74).

meaning

After Ferdinand Raimund and next to Nestroy, Kaiser was one of the most distinctive dramatists in the Vienna Volkstheater in the pre- and post-March period . He gained a special format through his literary versatility, his cultural and political commitment (founder of Concordia and the Green Island ; editor of Kobold and Eulenspiegel ). Influenced by Horace , Schiller , Jean Paul and genre painting , he created the image of life and character in 1840 . He enriched the local tradition ( posse ) with numerous imports from other cultures ( vaudeville , English social drama, village stories) and developed his own dramaturgy. His folk drama alternates between comedy and seriousness, between satire and ethics. It conveys the optimistic attitude that it is precisely the “little people” who have been healed from the grievances of current society and are capable of liberal democracy .

In 1894, Friedrich-Kaiser-Gasse in Vienna- Ottakring (16th district) was named after him.

reception

Kaiser wrote 162 plays, mainly comedies and folk plays of the old Viennese folk theater , most of which were performed at the Theater an der Wien or the Carltheater . He claimed to have invented the theatrical genre of the life image (also character image, time image, genre image, etc.). Johann Nepomuk Nestroy ridiculed them as "serious farce ". The emperor's model for this was the Parisian melodrama .

In Nestroy's time, Kaiser was one of the most important playwrights in Vienna. Ludwig Anzengruber continued his efforts to create a serious folk piece . Between 1989 and 1993 Jeanne Benay published several volumes about Kaiser, e.g. Partly in French. In Austrian literary history, Kaiser is overshadowed by Raimund, Nestroy and Anzengruber, which does not do justice to his literary achievement. Despite the efforts of Jeanne Benay, Friedrich remained a largely unknown poet. In most Germanic libraries neither works are by him, nor him, and since it was selected in the German-Austrian classics library that Otto Rommel put together, not easily accessible factory output is more appeared.

Trivia

In 1841 Franz Eybl created a portrait of Kaiser as a lithograph; in the following year Kaiser was also portrayed by Franz Eybl. In 1848 J. Cajetan painted his picture “The people poet Friedrich Kaiser proclaims the constitution on March 15, 1848”.

Works (selection)

Autobiography
  • Under fifteen theater directors. Colorful pictures from the Viennese stage world. Vienna, RvWaldheim, 1870
Biographies
Novels
Plays
  • The rendezvous . 1834.
  • Wolf and bride . 1836.
  • Maid service or box and watch . 1840.
  • Money . 1841.
  • The tailor as a poet of nature . 1843.
  • The Rastelbinder or 1000 guilders . 1850.
  • Father Abraham a Sancta Clara . 1870.
Work edition
  • Selected works (= Altwiener Volkstheater; 7). Prochaska, Vienna 1913

literature

  • Constantin von Wurzbach : Kaiser, Friedrich (II.) . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 10th part. Kaiserlich-Königliche Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1863, pp. 360–372 ( digitized version ).
  • Anton Schlossar:  Kaiser, Friedrich . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 15, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1882, pp. 6-8.
  • Walter Pöll: The Viennese theater poet Friedrich Kaiser . Dissertation. University of Vienna, 1947.
  • Emperor Friedrich. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 3, Publishing House of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1965, p. 181 f. (Direct links on p. 181 , p. 182 ).
  • Hermann Bausinger : Folk pieces in series production. Friedrich Kaiser from Biberach . In: Schwäbische Heimat , Vol. 26 (1975), pp. 36–38 ( full text ) - revised version; ders: Folk plays in series production. Friedrich Kaiser from Biberach. In: Hermann Bausinger: A little immortal. Swabian profiles. Gerlingen 1999. ISBN 3 -88350-329-0
  • Roswitha Woytek:  Kaiser, Friedrich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 11, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1977, ISBN 3-428-00192-3 , p. 36 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Jeanne Benay: The Viennese Volkstheater as intention and strategy dramaturgy. An example: Friedrich Kaiser and his French templates. In: J.-M. Valentin (Hrsg.): The Austrian people's theater in a European context. 1830-1880 , Bern, Lang, 1988. pp. 107-132
  • Letters from and to Friedrich Kaiser . Ed. Introduced and commented by Jeanne Benay, Collection 'Contacts', Theatrica 6, Lang, Bern 1989
  • Jeanne Benay: Friedrich Kaiser. Overall primary bibliography . Collection 'Contacts', Theatrica 14 Lang, Bern 1991, ISBN 3-261-04327-X .
  • Jeanne Benay: Friedrich Kaiser et Johann Nestroy: tableau de caractère (character image) et farce locale (Posse) , in: Gerald Steig, Jean-Marie Valentin, Johann Nestroy 1801-1862. Vision du monde et écriture dramatique . Asnière: Publicatuins de l'Institut d'Allemand de Paris III, 1991, pp. 35-48
  • Jeanne Benay: Friedrich Kaiser (1814-1874) et le théấtre populaire en Autriche au XIX e siècle. Collection 'Contacts', Theatrica 14, 2 volumes, Lang, Bern 1993, ISBN 3-906751-06-6
  • Elisabeth Th. Hilscher-Fritz: Kaiser, Friedrich. In: Oesterreichisches Musiklexikon . Online edition, Vienna 2002 ff., ISBN 3-7001-3077-5 ; Print edition: Volume 2, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2003, ISBN 3-7001-3044-9 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Friedrich Kaiser: Under fifteen theater directors. Colorful pictures from the Viennese stage world . Ed .: Wien, RvWaldheim, 1870, p. 167.
  2. ↑ (according to NDB)
  3. ^ Jeanne Benay: Friedrich Kaiser . 1993, volume 1 , p. IX.
  4. ↑ Jeanne Benay, Friedrich Kaiser , 1993, Volume 2, pp. 877-884
  5. ↑ Hermann Bausinger: A little immortal. ISBN 3-88350-329-0 .
personal data
SURNAME Kaiser, Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian actor and writer
DATE OF BIRTH April 3, 1814
PLACE OF BIRTH Biberach an der Riss
DATE OF DEATH November 6, 1874
Place of death Vienna