Gustav Meyrink

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Gustav Meyrink (approx. 1886)

Gustav Meyrink (actually Gustav Meyer , sometimes incorrectly listed as G. Meyrinck , born  January 19, 1868 in Vienna , †  December 4, 1932 in Starnberg ) was an Austrian writer and translator .

Life

Born in Vienna in 1868 as the illegitimate son of the Württemberg State Minister Karl von Varnbuler and the court actress Marie Meyer , Gustav Meyrink attended the Wilhelmsgymnasium in Munich until 1880 , then the Johanneum in Hamburg, before he finally graduated from high school in Prague in 1883. After attending the commercial academy in Prague (1885–88), Meyrink became co-owner from 1889–1902, then sole owner of the Prague bank and changer business Meyer & Morgenstern. In 1891 Meyrink co-founder and chairman was Loge "The Blue Star", a Prague local union of 1875 by Helena Blavatsky launched Theosophical Society . In 1893 he married Hedwig Aloysia Certl and undertook mystical studies with Alois Mailänder . Since 1895 Meyrink was in the Association of German Visual Artists in Bohemia , in which u. a. he met Rainer Maria Rilke , Emil Orlik , Oskar Wiener and Hugo Steiner . In 1896 he made the acquaintance of Philomena Bernt, who would later become his second wife. In 1900 he developed a spinal cord disease. In 1901 he published his first publication (" Der heisse Soldat ") in Munich's Simplicissimus under the artist name " Meyrink " . Because of the bankruptcy of his banking business in 1902, he was taken into custody. The subsequent fraud proceedings ended in an acquittal, but his subsequent attempts at rehabilitation were unsuccessful. In 1903 he moved to Vienna, where he took over the editing of the Viennese satirical magazine Lieber Augustin . In the same year the collection of orchids appeared. Strange stories . In 1904 the spinal cord disease increased; the doctors declared Meyrink's case incurable. Nevertheless, he recovered within a year and attributed the healing to his yoga exercises.

In 1905 he divorced Hedwig Aloysa, and in the same year he married Philomena Bernt. From this marriage in 1906 the daughter Sibylle Felizitas was born. In 1906 the company moved to Munich. In 1907 Meyrink received Bavarian citizenship. Until 1908 Meyrink worked for the literary monthly "März". In 1908 his son Harro Fortunat was born, who took his own life in July 1932 after an accidental spinal cord injury. Meyrink made trips to Lake Garda, Prague, Berlin and Switzerland. In 1909 the first edition of Des Deutschen Spießers Wunderhorn was published . The following collaboration with the writer Roda Roda resulted in several comedies: In 1912 Bubi and The Slave of Rhodus were premiered. In addition, the comedy The Medical Council was created . In 1911 he moved to Starnberg , where he lived until his death. In 1915 his most successful novel Der Golem appeared , the preparatory work of which he had already started in Munich in 1907. 1916 appeared bats and the green face in Kurt Wolff , the following year came his novel Walpurgisnacht out . In 1921 he published The White Dominican. From the diary of an invisible man , he also edited the series of novels and books of magic until 1924 . In 1922 he published the witch stories by Ludwig Bechstein , a year later he published the essay On the Border of the Beyond . In 1925 he dealt extensively with Thomas Aquinas , whose treatise on the Philosopher's Stone he translated, introduced and edited. The following year his novel The Angel of the Western Window, which deals with the English magician John Dee , was published . In 1927 Gustav Meyrink converted from Protestantism to Mahayana Buddhism . In 1928 the house in Starnberg, where Meyrink had lived since 1920, was sold.

Meyrink died in Starnberg on December 4, 1932 and was buried three days later in the town's cemetery.

plant

The anthology The Hot Soldier (1903)

The centers of his literary work were Prague and Munich. He had a deep love-hate relationship with both cities throughout his life.

As one of the first in the German-speaking area (after ETA Hoffmann and Paul Scheerbart ), Meyrink wrote fantastic novels . While his early work deals with the philistine bourgeoisie of his time (Des Deutschen Spießers Wunderhorn) , his later works, often set in old Prague, deal mainly with supernatural phenomena and the metaphysical meaning of existence ( The Golem , The Green Face, The White Dominican, The Angel from the western window). In these novels as well as in various articles, Meyrink, himself a member of the Theosophical Society Germania from an early age , expressed esoteric - mystical views that included religious-messianic ideas and elements of Buddhism, Jewish and Christian mysticism, as well as theosophy and alchemy . In Rosicrucianism and Theosophy of the 20th century, as well as common among people interested esoteric his works be of particular interest. Meyrink - like Thomas Mann - took part in meetings with the Austrian medium Willi Schneider , which were carried out by Baron Albert von Schrenck-Notzing in Munich, and also published on parapsychology ( On the Border of the Beyond ).

Between 1909 and 1914 Meyrink translated works by Charles Dickens ( Nikolas Nickleby , David Copperfield, Oliver Twist , Die Pickwicker ), Rudyard Kipling's Dark India and writings by Camille Flammarion . In 1928 the Leipzig List-Verlag published George Sylvester Vierecks and Paul Eldridge's My First 2000 Years: Autobiography of the Eternal Jew , and in 1929 Ludwig Lewisohn's novel Das Erbe im Blut , in translations by Meyrink.

reception

Gershom Scholem , one of the most important researchers of Jewish mysticism , visited Meyrink in Starnberg in 1921, mainly to discuss details of his novel The Golem with him . Sixty years later he characterized Meyrink as a "then famous writer who combined an extraordinary talent for anti-bourgeois satire with a no less pronounced for mystical barking, which was reflected primarily in hair-raising, sometimes very impressive but not entirely serious short stories, their literary ones Quality has only been exceeded in our time by Jorge Luis Borges . "

Relationships with (esoteric) groups

Meyrink was a member of several secret societies and claimed to be in telepathic contact with Ramana Maharshi , the guru of Paul Brunton .

  • In Prague in 1891 Meyrink was co-founder of the theosophical occultist lodge “Zum Blaue Stern”, where he met the writer Karl Weinfurter . The lodge met either in his apartment or in a Prague cafe.
  • Meyrink was one of the first members of the German Theosophical Society, whose inner department, the "Esoteric School", he later joined.
  • Under the name of the order "Brother Dagobert" he was a member of the World Alliance of Illuminati .
  • Under the box name "Kama, Censor of the ROOoSB" he was a member of the Kerning Order .
  • Member of the "Brotherhood of the ancient rites of the Holy Grail in the great Orient of Patmos".
  • Member of the mystical society of Christian Rosicrucian orientation of Alois Mailänder .
  • Member of the chess club Starnberg 1920 e. V. where he was three times club champion.

Henri Clemens Birven mentions in his book "Lebenskunst in Yoga und Magie" (Origo Verlag, Zurich 1953) that he, together with Meyrink and Ernst Peithman, a prominent representative of the Gnostic Catholic Church , did research on the mysterious identity of the founder of the Golden Dawn should have operated.

Freemasonry

During the First World War , Meyrink came into contact with Freemasonry , and this in an extremely piquant and curious way. In 1917 he was asked by the Foreign Office in Berlin to write a propagandistic occult novel in which it was suggested to the public that Freemasonry as a whole, but especially French and Italian Freemasonry, were to blame for the war. For this purpose, Meyrink was given a large number of Masonic literature from the Foreign Office. The novel was also to be translated into English and Swedish, and half a million copies were to be distributed worldwide. The theologian Carl Vogl writes about this: “When I visited Meyrink in the third year of the war (July 1917), I saw a table with him piled high with old and new books of Masonic content. Regarding her, M. gave me the information that he had her from the Foreign Office in Berlin, (...) ”Meyrink said to Vogl:“ I was telegraphed to the Foreign Office in Berlin. There I met a legation counselor and two representatives, including the confessor of the Queen of Bavaria. The following proposal was immediately put to me: write us a novel in which you can prove that the Freemasons were to blame for the world war. (…) I was quite astonished and replied that it would be better to entrust Frenssen or Ganghofer with this task. But the gentlemen said they were far too national and military-friendly, you needed a prominent writer who the audience knew was critical, yes, more than critical of these things (...). "Meyrink accepted the assignment, probably with the intention to let the project fail or at least to be able to influence it in order to mitigate its result. Before the work was completed, however, he was released from the assignment and asked to return the documents he received to the Foreign Office in Berlin. The task was then transferred to the German-national Austrian politician Friedrich Wichtl , who subsequently wrote several pamphlets about the Masonic-Jewish world conspiracy and thus one of the pioneers of the anti-Masonic inflammatory writings of General Erich Ludendorff and the anti-Semitism of the National Socialists as well as the legend of Masonic-Jewish world conspiracy.

Honors

In 1958 Meyrinkgasse in Vienna-Liesing was named after him. Gustav-Meyrink-Strasse is named after him in Munich .

Works

The hot soldier, original edition, Albert Langen, Munich 1903
The Golem, original edition, Kurt Wolff Verlag, Leipzig 1915/16
The green face, original edition, Kurt Wolff Verlag, Leipzig 1917

First editions (chronological)

  • The hot soldier and other stories. Albert Langen Verlag, Munich 1903. 147 pp.
  • Orchids. Strange stories. Albert Langen Verlag, Munich undated (around 1905).
  • Gustav Meyrink's wax museum. Strange stories. With book decorations by Andre Lambert. Albert Langen Verlag, Munich 1908. 233 pages with 25 illustrations.
  • Together with Alexander Roda Roda : Comedies. Schuster & Loeffler, Berlin 1912. Therein:
    • Boy. Comedy in three acts
    • The slave from Rhodus (based on the eunuchus of Publius Terentius Afer , with a foreword by Wilhelm Klein)
    • The medical council
  • The German philistine Wunderhorn. Collected short stories. Albert Langen Verlag, Munich 1913. 3 volumes. 143, 140, 145 pp.
  • The violet death and other short stories. 1913
  • The clock. A game in two acts (together with Roda Roda), Schuster & Loeffler, Berlin 1914
  • The golem .
    • First print in: Die Weisse Blätter from 1st year, issue 4 (December 1913)
    • First edition: Kurt Wolff, Leipzig 1915. From 141,000 (1915) with 8 lithographs by Hugo Steiner-Prag . 343 pages.
    • Gustav Meyrink: The Golem. Vitalis, Prague new edition 2008, ISBN 978-3-89919-053-3
  • The Cardinal Napellus. Narrative. Bachmair, Munich 1915
  • Bats. A story book. Carl Schünemann, Bremen undated (1916).
  • The green face. A novel. Kurt Wolff, Leipzig 1917. 387 p. With the figure of Chidher Grün .
  • Walpurgis Night. Fantastic novel. Binding drawing by Emil Preetorius . Kurt Wolff, Leipzig 1917. 277 pp.
  • The lion Alois and other stories. With drawings by Carl Olaf Petersen. Einhorn Verlag, Dachau undated (1917). 77 pp.
  • The white Dominican. From the diary of someone invisible. Novel. Rikola Verlag, Vienna 1921. 291 pp.
  • The violet death and other short stories. Reclam (RUB 6311), Leipzig undated (1922)
  • At the limit of the afterlife. Essay. Cell library No. 65. Dürr & Weber, Leipzig 1923. 86 pp.
  • Master Leonhard. Hyperion (mini book), Munich 1925
  • Gold maker stories. August Scherl Verlag, Berlin 1925. 260 S, in collaboration with Friedrich Alfred Schmid Noerr ; (see also Michał Sędziwój )
  • The angel from the western window. Novel. An engraving by John Dee . Grethlein & Co., Leipzig 1927. 440 p. + Schünemann, Bremen 1927. 441 p. In collaboration with Friedrich Alfred Schmid Noerr.
  • The house to the last lantern. Leftover and scattered things. Edited by Eduard Frank. Albert Langen - Georg Müller Verlag, Munich 1973. 470 p. In it first complete reprint of the posthumous novel fragment Das Haus des Alchemisten. ISBN 3-7844-1524-5 .
  • Bats. Stories, fragments, essays. Edited by Eduard Frank. Albert Langen - Georg Müller, Munich - Vienna 1981. 444 pp. ISBN 3-7844-1832-5 .

Editing, translation and contributions

Work editions

  • Collected Works . Kurt Wolff, Leipzig 1913–1917. 6 volumes.
    1. The golem. 349 pp.
    2. The green face. 335 pp.
    3. Walpurgis Night. 277 pp.
    4. The German philistine Wunderhorn. First part. 255 pp.
    5. The German philistine Wunderhorn. Second part. 276 pp.
    6. Bats. A story book. 381 pp.
  • Collected Works . Albert Langen Verlag, Leipzig-Zurich-Munich (1917). 6 volumes.
    Corresponds to the edition by Kurt Wolff, but also contains the stories:
    • The storming of Serayevo
    • The ring of Saturn
    • Schöpsoglobin
    • The evaporated brain
    • petroleum

Revisions

  • The German philistine Wunderhorn. Novellas. Rudolf Wolff, Bad Schwartau 2009 (year of publication), July 2010 (date of publication). ISBN 978-3-86672-303-0 (approx. 472 pages in 1 volume)
  • The golem . A novel. Hamburg: Hoffmann and Campe 2015. - The text follows the first book edition, published by Kurt Wolff Verlag, Leipzig in 1915. Epilogue and timetable by Dr. Ulrike Ehmann, based on the Munich edition: dtv 2012. ISBN
  • The golem. With afterword and timetable by Ulrike Ehmann, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-423-13737-9 .
  • The golem. Novel. With fourteen illustrations by Hugo Steiner-Prag. Edited and with an afterword by Thomas Rietzschel . Gustav Kiepenheuer Verlag, Leipzig and Weimar 1983.
  • The green face. A novel. Ullstein, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-548-24439-4 .
  • The green face. Novel. Edited and with a comment by Thomas Rietzschel. Gustav Kiepenheuer Verlag, Leipzig and Weimar 1986.
  • Walpurgis Night. Fantastic novel. With afterword and timetable by Ulrike Ehmann, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-423-13651-8 .
  • The white Dominican. From the diary of someone invisible. With afterword and timetable by Ulrike Ehmann, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-423-13584-9 .
  • At the limit of the afterlife. Master Leonhard. Roller, Langen 2004, ISBN 3-923620-17-9 .
  • At the border of the hereafter - The transformation of the blood. Two essays on the subjects of occultism and yoga. Pandora-Verlag Schneider, Berlin 2006. ISBN 3-938878-04-5 .
  • The plants of Doctor Cinderella jmb, Hannover 2011, ISBN 978-3-940970-65-7 .
  • The storming of Serayevo. Satires, fables and grotesques. Elsinor Verlag , Coesfeld 2007, ISBN 978-3-939483-03-8 .

estate

literature

  • Evelin Aster: Personal bibliography by Gustav Meyrink. Peter Lang Verlag, Bern 1980. ISBN 3-261-04779-8 .
  • Hartmut Binder : Gustav Meyrink. A life under the spell of magic. Vitalis Verlag, Prague 2009, ISBN 978-3-89919-078-6 .
  • William R. van Buskirk: The Bases of Satire in Gustav Meyrink's Work. Dissertation. Michigan 1957.
  • Yvonne Caroutch (Ed.): Gustav Meyrink. Edition l'Herne, Paris 1976.
  • Misia Sophia Doms: The phenomenon of collective obsession in Alfred Kubin's “The Other Side” and Gustav Meyrink's “The Golem”. In: Hermes Andreas Kick u. a. (Ed.): Obsession, trance, exorcism. Affects and emotions as the basis of ethical value formation and endangerment in science and the arts. Affekt - Emotion - Ethik Vol. 2. Münster 2004. pp. 25–48
  • Peter Cersowsky: Fantastic literature in the first quarter of the 20th century. Investigations into the structural change of the genre, its intellectual-historical prerequisites and the tradition of "black romanticism" in particular with Gustav Meyrink, Alfred Kubin and Franz Kafka. Fink, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-7705-2133-1 .
  • Eduard Frank: Gustav Meyrink. Work and effect. Avalun-Verlag, Büdingen Gettenbach (1957)
  • Theodor Harmsen: The magical writer Gustav Meyrink, his friends and his work, illuminated by means of a tour of the Meyrink collection of the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica , Amsterdam, using other collections. In de Pelikaan Amsterdam, 2009, ISBN 978-90-71608-25-4 . In German, 320 pages, richly illustrated.
  • Arnold Keyserling: The Metaphysics of the Watchmaker by Gustav Meyrinck. Interpretation and text. Verlag Bruno Martin, Südergellersen 1988, ISBN 3-921786-57-6 , online
  • Egon Erwin Kisch : Man is man or the transformation of banker Meyer. In: Prager Pitaval - Late Reportages Collected Works in Individual Editions II / 2 ed. by Bodo Uhse and Gisela Kisch. Structure, Berlin a. Weimar / DDR 1969. pp. 286–288.
  • Manfred Lube: Gustav Meyrink. Contributions to biography and studies of his art theory. Dissertations from the University of Graz No. 51. dbv-Verlag d. Univ. Graz, Graz 1980. ISBN 3-7041-9011-X .
  • Luis Montiel. (2013). Aweysha. Spiritual Epidemics and Psychic Contagion in the Works of Gustav Meyrink . In: Th. Rütten, M. King (Eds.): Contagionism and Contagious diseases. Medicine and Literature 1880-1933 . De Gruyter, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-11-030572-2 , pp. 167-183.
  • Luis Montiel: El rizoma oculto de la psicología profunda. Gustav Meyrink y Carl Gustav Jung . Frenia, 2012, ISBN 978-84-695-3540-0 .
  • Detlef Münch: Time flukes, black holes, artificial organs & the end of the world. The Science Fiction of Horror by Gustav Meyrink 1901–1916. Synergen, Dortmund 2005, ISBN 3-935634-48-X .
  • Jan Christoph Meister: Hypostasis - the logic of mythical thinking in the work of Gustav Meyrink after 1907. Frankfurt / Bern / New York (Lang), 1987 (= volume 3 of the series 'Hamburg Contributions to German Studies'), ISBN 3-8204-9389- 1 .
  • Mohammad Qasim: Gustav Meyrink. A monographic study. Dissertation (Munich, Philosophical Faculty for Language and Literature Studies II). Heinz, Stuttgart 1981. ISBN 3-88099-099-9 .
  • Mohammad Qasim:  Gustav Meyrink. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 17, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-428-00198-2 , pp. 404-406 ( digitized version ).
  • Angela Reinthal: Alchemy of the Poet - John Dee (1527–1608) in Gustav Meyrink's novel “The Angel from the Western Window” (1927). In: Iliaster. Literature and Natural History in the Early Modern Era. Celebration for Joachim Telle on the occasion of his 60th birthday. Published by Wilhelm Kühlmann and Wolf-Dieter Müller-Jahncke, Manutius Verlag, Heidelberg 1999, pp. 221–239, ISBN 3-925678-87-5 . Also in: Fascination of the Occult. Discourses on the supernatural. Edited by Wolfgang Müller-Funk and Christa A. Tuczay . A. Francke-Verlag, Tübingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-7720-8259-7 .
  • Frans Smit: Gustav Meyrink: het leven van een esoterisch auteur en geestelijk zoeker. Ankh-Hermes, Deventer 1986.
    • Translation: Gustav Meyrink. In search of the supernatural. German by Konrad Dietzfelbinger. Langen-Müller, Munich 1988. ISBN 3-7844-2162-8 .
  • Thomas Wörtche : Fantasticism and indecision. The structural criterion of a genre. Investigations on texts by Hanns Heinz Ewers and Gustav Meyrink. Corian, Meitingen 1987, ISBN 3-89048-113-2 .
  • Verna Schuetz: The bizarre literature of Hanns Heinz Ewers, Alfred Kubin, Gustav Meyrink, and Karl Hans Strobl . Madison WI, Univ. Diss. 1974
  • Carl Vogl: Confessions of a Pastor . Aegis-Verlag, Vienna / Berlin 1930

Web links

Wikisource: Gustav Meyrink  - Sources and full texts
Wikiquote: Gustav Meyrink  - Quotes
Commons : Gustav Meyrink  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hartmut Binder: Gustav Meyrink. A life under the spell of magic. Vitalis, Prague 2009. ISBN 978-3-89919-078-6 . P. 83: “In the Meyrink literature there is almost regularly the reference that Johann David Morgenstern was a cousin or close relative of the writer Christian Morgenstern [...]. It is one of the many legends that surround Meyrink. For while Christian Morgenstern came from a Protestant family, a document from the Teplitz rabbinate , which has been preserved in the files of the Prague Commercial Court , states that Meyrinks, a partner born on May 11, 1862 in Teplitz, a son of 1832 in Jirschitz , district Karolinenthal (Karlín) born distiller and solicitor Leopold Morgenstern, was of Jewish origin. "
  2. ↑ Information from Gustav Meyrink: Der Golem . A novel. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 2015, “Zeittafel”, pp. 381–383.
  3. ↑ Roland Reuss : What one wears in ghost circles . In: FAZ , September 21, 2010, p. 32 (review of two books on Meyrink)
  4. ↑ Marc Roberts: The new lexicon of esotericism. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2005. ISBN 3-89602-537-6 . P. 183. and P. 459.
  5. ^ Helmut Zander: Anthroposophy in Germany. Theosophical worldview and social practice 1884–1945 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-525-55452-4 . Volume I p. 699.
  6. ↑ Horst E. Miers : Lexicon of secret knowledge. Goldmann, Munich 1993. ISBN 3-442-12179-5 . P. 423 and p. 652
  7. ^ Helmut Zander: Anthroposophy in Germany. Theosophical worldview and social practice 1884–1945 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-525-55452-4 , Volume I, p. 840.
  8. ^ Member of the Starnberg Chess Club 1920 e. V. ( Memento of December 8, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  9. ^ Three-time club master at the Starnberg chess club 1920 e. V. ( Memento of December 8, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (1920/21, 1921/22, 1930/31)
  10. ↑ Horst E. Miers: Lexicon of secret knowledge. Goldmann Verlag, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-442-12179-5 . Page 423 and 652
  11. ↑ cf. also in the following Carl Vogl: Confessions of a Pastor. Aegis-Verlag, Vienna / Berlin 1930
  12. ↑ Among other things, Friedrich Wichtl: Dr. Karl Krámář, the instigator of the world war. Munich 1918; (ders.): Masonic murders. Vienna 1920 as well as world freemasonry - world revolution - world republic . 11th edition, Munich 1928.
  13. ↑ cf. Lennhoff, Posner, Binder: Internationales Freemaurerlexikon. As of February 2000, p. 565 & p. 902.
  14. ↑ Theodor Harmsen: “My strangest vision”: Occultism and modernity in Gustav Meyrink's strange stories (PDF)
personal data
SURNAME Meyrink, Gustav
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Meyer, Gustav (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION writer
DATE OF BIRTH January 19, 1868
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH 4th December 1932
Place of death Starnberg