Friedrich von Gagern (Author)

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Friedrich Heinrich Karl Gustav Freiherr von Gagern (born June 26, 1882 in Mokritz , † November 15, 1947 in Geigenberg near St. Leonhard am Forst ) was an Austrian author of natural hunting, animal and adventure stories.

origin

An inscription in a granitoid rock (the Gagernstein ) near Steinau, northeast of the Neunkircher Höhe in the Odenwald, reminds of the nature and hunting writer.

The travel and hunting writer Friedrich von Gagern, who was born at Mokritz Castle ( Carniola in Slovenia ) as the son of Heinrich Freiherr von Gagern (1841-1894) and Countess Beatrix von Auersperg (1848-1919), was a great-nephew of Anastasius Grün , a grandson of Max Ludwig Freiherr von Gagern and a childhood friend of Anton Wildgans . Heinrich von Gagern , President of the National Assembly from 1848 in the Paulskirche, is one of his other ancestors .

Life

Von Gagern studied philosophy, history and literary history in Vienna, then lived and worked as editor of the Hugo'schen Jagdzeitung (1906 to 1914) and from 1914 as a freelance writer. He traveled to America and Africa and processed these experiences in his works.

In January 1897 he wrote to Karl May and asked a few questions from the reader.

In his novels and stories he expressed his strong feeling for nature, and he especially shaped the type of hunting story. He is considered the hunter-poet of the 20th century who was able to capture and capture the moods of the hunt precisely. For him, hunting was not just the satisfaction of instincts or greed for trophies, but rather a comprehensive experience and observation of nature while at the same time turning away from social conventions, which is expressed above all in his later work.

He was the author of expressionist novels, which were very popular at the time. a. exotic adventure tales in sock leather fashion , in which male loneliness and the originality of foreign peoples are idealized, local novels and social chronicles of an aristocratic bygone world. Most of his books appeared between the world wars and had high editions. Between 1919 and 1929 wrote of Gagern from the cloth for the originally planned novel The Prairie , the three Books The stake , The Dead Man and The Grenzerbuch . They tell of the occupation of America by white settlers and were popular books for young people even after the Second World War.

In 1927 Gagern chose the "Haus Geigenberg" south of Melk as his residence, a villa in the municipality of St. Leonhard am Forst. He was buried at the St. Leonhard local cemetery. In his honor, a hunting room was set up in the community castle, in which his life and work are documented.

The Mokrice Castle - in today's Slovenia in the immediate vicinity of the Croatian capital Zagreb - now houses a hotel, the park a golf course.

In 1973 the Gagerngasse in Vienna- Donaustadt (22nd district) was named after him.

family

He married in 1911 on Mojawola Ruth von Kospoth (1880-1914), divorced Freiin von Venningen and daughter of Count Karl August von Kospoth auf Briese and Nora von Klitzing . The marriage had two sons, including the writer Falk von Gagern (born August 23, 1912, † June 5, 2000).

After the death of his first wife, he married Samobor in 1917 (divorced in 1921) Adaschka von Lepel (1881-1956), a daughter of Gerhard von Lepel and Johanna von Francisci . The couple had a daughter. The last one he married in Gotha in 1924 was the banker's daughter Charlotte Rehfeldt (1901–1951), a daughter of Paul Rehfeldt and Olga Heydenreich .

Works (selection)

  • The Evil Spirit, 1913
  • The Secret, 1919
  • The wounds, 1919
  • Kolk the raven and other animal stories, 1920
  • Ocean, 1921
  • Bare Life, 1923
  • One people, 1924
  • The torture stake. Story, 1925
  • The border book, 1927
  • The dead man, 1927
  • The road, 1929
  • The Green Trilogy: Birches and Bucks / The Hunter and His Shadow / The Green Chronicle: Hour and Mood; Days after my heart
  • Swords and Spindles - Ancestors of the West, 1939

An introduced selection of works by Friedrich von Gagern was published in 1958 by Norbert Langer under the title Jäger und Gejelte .

Performances

In November 2009, the artistic director of the Berliner Volksbühne , Frank Castorf , provided the world premiere of the play Ocean . In this piece, a colorful tour company set out for America in 1848 to find happiness, freedom and equality there. The play takes place on the high seas. The first acts take place in the tween deck of a sailing ship on which German emigrants travel to America, the third act then takes place on a raft, from which you can already see that the development is not easy. Among these passengers are revolutionaries, journalists, grave diggers, Silesian weavers, pimps, prostitutes and, last but not least, two priests. Gagern shows how the solidarity of former common fighters breaks up, how the ideals literally go overboard. Existential despair breaks out. The drama is primarily a piece of debate without a connecting thread.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Karl May Chronicle II, p. 9