Cosmician
The Kosmikerkreis , also known as the Kosmiker for short , around some private scholars such as Alfred Schuler (1865–1923), Ludwig Klages (1872–1956) and Karl Wolfskehl (1869–1948), was a par-religious group of intellectuals in Munich around the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries Century. The circle was open to numerous guests such as the Dutch poet Albert Verwey (1865–1937), the high school teacher Ludwig Derleth (1870–1948), the writer Oscar AH Schmitz (1873–1931), the poet Stefan George (1868–1933) or the book artist Melchior Lechter (1865–1937). The cosmics reflected particularly clearly certain intellectual currents of the fin de siècle . They were connected by their interest in non-Christian and at the same time non-Jewish myths. One of their main points of reference was the work of the Swiss mythologist Johann Jakob Bachofen (1815–1887) on early matriarchies ( Das Mutterrecht , 1861), which they rediscovered and reinterpreted. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Nietzsche were also among the “greats” in their eyes .
Goals and People
Cosmists raved about a revitalization of ancient religions, with different designs competing with one another. What they all had in common was the rejection of the Wilhelminian belief in progress and the "brainwashing" of the contemporary cultural debate.
The "pagan eros", which the cosmists revered, was supposed to become cosmogonic in terms of world creation and cosmic explanation of the world. In doing so, one increased oneself in various fantasies and personality cults (about Stefan George), which were already mocked by contemporaries, for example by Otto Julius Bierbaum (in Möbius Profiles , 1900). People also fled into peculiar pseudo-poetic and pseudo-religious metaphors; Alfred Schuler, who felt himself to be the reincarnation of an ancient Roman, prophesied the appearance of a “blood lamp”, in which the recovery of an original, but now completely lost, unity of sensation and understanding would manifest itself. His theories on poetry and language psychology are related to those of the language theorist Lazarus Geiger . But neither Schuler nor Geiger had any tangible cultural impact; he could hardly make himself understood outside the narrower limits of the circle. That was certainly also due to the fact that he hardly published, although he was a trained classical scientist. He was more famous for his oral lectures and spontaneous declamations, which his contemporaries described as extraordinarily impressive.
Ludwig Derleth left behind works such as the Proclamations , which appeared for the first time in 1904 and for the second time, in a slightly modified version, in 1919, and organized evening readings that made use of the literary type Also Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche without acquiring its meaning . Derleth was then parodied by Thomas Mann , who was present at one of the three readings of the 'Proclamations', in his story Beim Propheten (also from 1904) and again in 1947 in his novel Doctor Faustus as typical of Munich in those years Figure of Daniel shown to the height.
Ludwig Klages, who originally studied chemistry, tried to get closer to the "soul" with his friend Hans H. Busse by founding the science of graphology - a comparatively sensible undertaking. The later treatises Vom kosmogonischen Eros (1922) and The spirit as adversary of the soul (1929) were cultural-critical-philosophical works . Like Schuler, he also dealt with language psychology, Language as a source of soul science (1948).
Karl Wolfskehl was the financier and social center of the Bohème Brotherhood and host of the meetings. He was (because of his height called "Zeus von Schwabing") a recognized literary historian, anthologist and poet. The cosmists met regularly with him and celebrated their lavish carnival festivals in carefully chosen historical costumes.
Finally, the famous Countess Fanny zu Reventlow also played a certain role, in this group (even if actually against her will) as an inspiring muse , as a projection figure for new ideals of femininity ("Rebirth of the Hetaera", "Pagan Madonna", "Holstein Venus" ) and was appropriated as the erotic center; the latter, of course, more in theory. Fanny had personal relationships with members of the circle, for example a long-term love affair with Ludwig Klages, who was the guardian - but not the biological father - of her illegitimate son Rolf, and with Karl Wolfskehl; but these relationships were of a private nature. However, she did not escape being iconized in the circle and therefore already dealt with the circle in 1904 as a vicious commentator ( Schwabinger Observer ) and later in her new Swiss place of residence as an ironic chronicler of the "Wahnmochinger" situation in a key novel ( Herr Dames Aufzüge , 1913) .
The cosmics and above all the “cosmics crisis” around 1903 (at the end of which Wolfskehl and Georges von Klages and Schuler distanced themselves) also played an important role in the constitution of the George Circle . A variety of "circles", which often overlapped, was characteristic of Schwabing at that time . George was the role that the cosmicists Fanny Reventlow intended, rather incomprehensible (Fanny is said to have referred to him as the "Weihenstefan"). Towards her and other women, such as Ricarda Huch , he behaved domestically and dismissively. In addition, there was a kind of ascetic celibacy obligation in his circle (as was the case with the cosmicists), which was interpreted from the outside as hidden homosexuality, especially since 'beautiful young men' (Ludwig Klages himself, Friedrich Gundolf , Roderich Huch or Maximilian Kronberger ) for George probably that meant what Fanny Reventlow might have meant for Schuler and Klages (or other Schwabingers like Oskar Panizza ).
The End
The cosmists met regularly from 1899 to 1904, but the circle began to break as early as 1903. In 1904, the “big Schwabing crash” followed when there were anti-Semitic attacks on Karl Wolfskehl, which led to a dispute and rift. George, who sided with his friend Wolfskehl, fell out with Klages; the 'lower ranks' of the district are said to have been involved in nightly fights. Fanny Reventlow, who had friends in both 'parties', got between the fronts and since then has been thinking of turning her back on Munich, which she did not realize until four years later.
effect
The Kosmiker-Kreis co-founded Schwabing's reputation as an artists' quarter and exerted influence on the bohème of the fin de siècle up to today's esoteric scene .
As part of the intellectual history of National Socialism, the group was examined to see whether it was one of the intellectual forerunners of the racist ideology of National Socialism. The swastika (the swastika symbol, a sign from Hindu Asia) appeared in the emblematic of the circle. The cosmics, however, were only a small part of a subculture of similar endeavors throughout Europe, from which individual aspects of the Nazi worldview were nourished. A concrete causation cannot be proven in the eccentric and rather apolitical spirituality of the circle.
literature
- Georg Dörr: Mother myth and rule myth: on the dialectic of the Enlightenment at the turn of the century among the cosmists, Stefan George and in the Frankfurt School , Volume 588 of Epistemata. Literary Studies series, Verlag Königshausen & Neumann, 2007, ISBN 3-8260-3511-9 ( Review from querelles-net , No. 25/2008 , English-language review from: Focus on German Studies )
- Richard Faber : Men’s Round with Countess, Die “Kosmiker” Derleth, George, Klages, Schuler, Wolfskehl and Franziska zu Reventlow , with a reprint of the “Schwabinger Beobachter” research on literary and cultural history, Vol. 38, 1994, Verlag Peter Lang, 1994 . ISBN 978-3-631-46554-7
- Thomas Gräfe: Kosmiker , in: Wolfgang Benz (Hrsg.), Handbuch des Antisemitismus. Anti-Semitism in Past and Present , Vol. 7: Literature, Film, Theater and Art, Berlin: De Gruyter 2014, pp. 261–266.
- Johann Albrecht von Rantzau: On the history of the sexual revolution. Countess Franziska zu Reventlow and the Munich cosmists , in Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 56, 1974, pp. 394–446
- Walter Schmitz and Uwe Schneider: Völkisch semantics in the Munich 'Kosmikern' and in the George circle. In: Handbook for the "Völkischen Movement" 1871-1918 . Edited by Uwe Puschner , Walter Schmitz and Justus H. Ulbricht. Saur, Munich a. a. 1996, pp. 711-746. ISBN 3-598-11421-4
- Baal Müller : Cosmics. Process ontology and temporal poetics in Ludwig Klages and Alfred Schuler: On the philosophy and poetry of the Schwabinger Kosmischen Runde . Telesma-Verlag, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-9810057-3-8
Individual evidence
- ↑ Baal Müller, The Second Ear. Lazarus Geiger and the linguistic thinking of the cosmics in: ders. (Ed.) Alfred Schuler, the last Roman, Castrum Peregrini Presse, Amsterdam 2000, pp. 60–78
- ↑ Michael Petrow: The poet as a leader? About Stefan George's effect in the "Third Reich". Tectum-Verlag, Marburg 1995. ISBN 3-929019-69-8
- ^ Franz Wegener: Alfred Schuler, the last German Cathar. Gnosis, National Socialism and the mystical blood light . ( Memento of the original from October 6, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
