Hans Lebert

Hans Lebert , actually: Johann Artur Lebert , (born January 9, 1919 in Vienna ; † August 20, 1993 in Baden near Vienna ) was an Austrian writer and opera singer.

Life

Childhood, school days and war

Hans Lebert, whose family got into financial difficulties due to the early death of his father, began singing training after finishing school. He first became a choir singer, then specialized in Wagner roles, but was forced to give up his singing career after the war due to the lack of opportunities to perform. Then he concentrated on the letter that his uncle Alban Berg had encouraged him to write .

After ignoring his draft into the German Wehrmacht , Lebert was charged in 1941 with " undermining military strength " and only escaped conviction by pretending to be schizophrenic. He spent the war at the family home in Trahütten, Styria , where he says he was active in the resistance.

Withdrawal, later success and final years

After the war and a few last engagements as a singer, Lebert settled first in Vienna, then from 1956 in Baden, where he pursued his writing activities in seclusion. His first works, mostly landscape and nature poems with great visual quality, were first published in the literary magazines Plan and Neue Wegen (Vienna). His novel Die Wolfshaut , first published by Claassen Verlag in Hamburg in 1960 and particularly successful as a reprint in the GDR, brought Lebert his breakthrough as an author. Writers like Ernst Jünger and Heimito von Doderer were enthusiastic about the novel. It was based on content such stylistic parallels between the wolf skin and three years later published novel Frost of Thomas Bernhard pointed out. In 1961 Hans Lebert was awarded the Theodor Körner Prize , in 1962 Lebert received the Austrian State Prize ; In 1968 he was awarded the Adalbert Stifter Medal . He retired again to work on the subsequent novel Der Feuerkreis from 1965 to 1971 , with which he attempted to “ break open the fascist myth from within, so to speak.” The lack of broad reception of wolf skin , negative criticism of the fire circle and finally death His wife Anette, born Schön (1923–1974), led Lebert to completely withdraw from literary life. With the exception of isolated, insignificant stories, Lebert did not publish anything for over twenty years.

Only the new edition of the wolf skin in 1991 brought Lebert renewed recognition in the last years of his life, which were marked by serious illness. Contemporary authors were enthusiastic about the work; Elfriede Jelinek described Die Wolfshaut as “one of the greatest reading experiences of her life” and “first radically modern novel in Austrian post-war literature” . When the late renaissance of his works earned him the Grillparzer Prize in 1992 , he spoke out against these authors who, in his harsh criticism of Austria, saw him as a predecessor and who “insulted and ridiculed Austria in order to receive applause abroad to harvest. Such authors prepare for colonization. "

Lebert's major works, Das Schiff im Gebirge , Der Feuerkreis and above all Die Wolfshaut , in which he strongly criticizes rural society in Austria in the immediate post-war period and the failure to come to terms with National Socialism, are among the most important Austrian “ anti-homeland romans ”. The wolf skin served as the template for the play of the same name by Helmut Peschina (arrangement) and Robert Matejka (direction), which was voted radio play of the year 2005 in Austria .

Hans Lebert died on August 20, 1993 in his Baden apartment, Elisabethstrasse 23; he was buried for rest on August 30, 1993 in the Vienna Central Cemetery (group 87A, row 63, number 25).

Works

• Exit , short stories, 1952
• The ship in the mountains , story, 1955
• Die Wolfshaut , Roman, 1960 (new edition 1991, new edition spring 2008)
• Der Feuerkreis , Roman, 1971 (new edition 1992, new edition autumn 2008)
• The dirty sister , two radio plays, 1972
• The ship in the mountains , stories, 1993
• The white face , short stories, 1995

literature

• Gerhard Fuchs (Ed.), Günther A. Höfler (Ed.): Hans Lebert . (Dossier, Vol. 12). Droschl, Graz / Vienna 1997, ISBN 3854204701 .
• Jürgen Egyptien : The "Anschluss" as a fall from man. Hans Lebert's literary work and intellectual figure . Special number, Vienna 1997, ISBN 3854491158 .
• Florian Braitenthaller: "Kiss me, you pig!". Hans Lebert's discrete relationships with modernity . WUV-Univ.-Verlag, Vienna 2003, ISBN 3851147502 .
• Joachim Hoell : Mythical world of imagination and an inherited nightmare. Ingeborg Bachmann and Thomas Bernhard . VanBremen-Verlag, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-9805534-4-2 . (In it: Antiheimat and historical consciousness, pp. 189–347).
• Alfred Reichling: Lebert, Hans (Johann Artur). In: Oesterreichisches Musiklexikon . Online edition, Vienna 2002 ff., ISBN 3-7001-3077-5 ; Print edition: Volume 3, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-7001-3045-7 .
• Jürgen Egyptien: Hans Lebert. A biographical silhouette. Vienna special number 2019.

Web links

• Entry on Hans Lebert in the Austria Forum  (in the AEIOU Austria Lexicon )
• Via Hans Lebert at www.literaturhaus.at
• Literature by and about Hans Lebert in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Karl-Markus Gauss: The dead are hungry . In: Die Zeit , October 25, 1991.
2. ^ Anton Thuswaldner: 1960: He broke the iron silence , in: Salzburger Nachrichten daily , May 30, 2018, p. 4, series 100 years of the Republic of Austria
3. ↑ Joachim Hoell: Mythical world of imagination and inherited nightmare. Ingeborg Bachmann and Thomas Bernhard, Berlin 1999, pp. 189–347
4. ↑ Presentation of the state prizes . In: Salzburger Nachrichten , March 5, 1968, p. 3.
5. ^ ^{A b} Karl Markus-Gauss: The Austria lover . In: Die Zeit , August 27, 1993.
6. ↑ Jürgen Egyptien: Preliminary remark to Wolfgang Schön's memories of Hans Lebert . In: - (Ed.): Literature in the modern age. Yearbook of the Walter Hasenclever Society . Volume 8 (2012/13). V - & - R-Unipress, Göttingen 2013, ISSN  2198-5480 , ISBN 978-8471-0144-7 , p. 207.