Max Brod

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Max Brod, 1914 in Dresden

Max Brod (born May 27, 1884 in Prague , Austria-Hungary ; died December 20, 1968 in Tel Aviv ) was a Czechoslovak-Israeli writer , theater and music critic . His once successful literary work is largely ignored today. His services to the preservation of the works of the writer Franz Kafka as their editor , editor and interpreter are significant . In addition, Brod was a patron of the composers Leoš Janáček and Jaromír Weinberger . He is also considered the discoverer of the poet Franz Werfel .

Life

Max Brod was born the son of a Prague bank clerk. His mother is only known to have had psychological problems with the symptoms of depression . Father and mother were enthusiastic opera fans. His father valued u. a. The Mastersingers of Nuremberg by Richard Wagner and sang opera arias at home; the mother is said to have been impressed by Giuseppe Verdi's La traviata . Max Brod, his brother Otto Brod (born July 6, 1888 in Prague, † October 1944 in Auschwitz) and his sister Sophie grew up in a cultured, bourgeois Jewish atmosphere in Prague.

Max Brod graduated from Stefans-Gymnasium in Prague, then took up law studies at the German Karl Ferdinand University in Prague, where he received his doctorate in law in 1907 (Dr. jur.). He joined the Academic Landsmannschaft Hercynia zu Prague , a student union that existed from 1871 to 1939 and still exists today as the Old Prager Landsmannschaft Hercynia in the CC zu Frankfurt am Main .

While studying, Max Brod met Franz Kafka on October 23, 1902 in the Prague "Reading and Speech Hall for German Students" , when Brod was giving a lecture on Arthur Schopenhauer . A lifelong friendship began, the beginning of which is recorded in a publication by Max Brod:

“After this lecture, Kafka, who was one year older, accompanied me home. - He used to take part in all meetings of the 'Section', but until then we had hardly paid any attention to one another. It would also have been difficult to notice him, who so seldom spoke up and whose outward character was a deep inconspicuousness - even his elegant, mostly dark blue suits were inconspicuous and reserved like him. At that time, however, something about me seemed to have attracted him, he was more open-minded than usual, but the endless home-side conversation started with strong contradiction to my overly crude formulations. "

From then on Max Brod and Franz Kafka met frequently, often every day, and remained friends until Kafka's death. Franz Kafka was often a guest in the Brod's parents' house and met his future girlfriend and fiancée Felice Bauer there in 1912 , who was a cousin of Brod's brother-in-law Max Friedmann. Together with Brod's close friend Felix Weltsch and Franz Kafka, they formed the so-called “Prague School”.

Brod also met Albert Einstein at the University of Prague; he became the model for the character of Johannes Kepler in his novel Tycho Brahe's Path to God (1915).

After graduating as Dr. jur. In 1907, Brod was initially a judicial, finance, postal and insurance clerk, then a theater and music critic and features editor for the “Prager Tagblatt”. He emigrated to Palestine in 1939 and was dramaturge at the Habimah Theater in Tel Aviv until his death in 1968 .

Beginning of the literary career

The publisher and its authors. Memorial plaque in Leipzig

At the age of 24 Brod published his fourth book, the novel "Schloß Nornepygge", which was enthusiastically celebrated as a masterpiece of Expressionism , especially in Berlin literary circles . Through this and other works, Brod became a well-known personality in German-language literature. He successfully promoted writers and musicians. Among the von Brod protégés was the poet Franz Werfel , whom he made known to the public as early as 1910 with a poetry lecture in Berlin , but later fell out with him at times when Werfel began to break away from Judaism and turned to Christianity . Brod also had arguments about this with the publicist and writer Karl Kraus , who had converted from the Jewish religion to the Roman Catholic faith . In the years before the First World War, Max Brod had changed from an indifferent to a conscious supporter of Judaism and an active representative of Zionism . He understood members of the Jewish religious community primarily as members of a "race and origin" and therefore firmly rejected assimilation and mixed marriages with members of other religions. He published his works with Kurt Wolff Verlag since 1912 .

Explorer and mentor

Max Brod, described by Johannes Urzidil as an extremely versatile poeta doctus , who also worked as a translator, composer and publicist and published several extensive philosophical works, contributed, among other things, to Jaroslav Hašek’s World War I satire The Brave Soldier Schwejk being played on Berlin stages and the Czech author became popular abroad as a result.

Max Brod also holds an honorable place in music history. In collaboration with the Moravian composer Leoš Janáček, he wrote German-language libretti for his operas and thus helped him achieve his breakthrough on the international opera stages. Performances in the Czech language did not find an audience outside the countries of the Bohemian Crown and even in Prague they were by no means a matter of course. Brod mastered the difficult task of harmonizing his text with music based entirely on the language melody of Czech. This required concessions and adaptations by the composer. B. the German-speaking Jenůfa does not exactly match the Czech opera text. In addition to Jenufa , Brod also translated the libretti for the operas Katja Kabanova , The Cunning Little Vixen , The Makropulos Case and From a House of the Dead . In addition, Brod contributed through numerous publications and a first biography to Janáček's gradual fame. He also used his influence to get performances of the then avant-garde works at European opera houses.

Above all, however, Max Brod became the decisive promoter and mentor of the works of Franz Kafka . Brod tried to support Kafka, who doubted his talent, in his literary endeavors and urged him to publish his work. It is probably thanks to Brod that Kafka started keeping a diary. Although they also agreed on joint literary projects, these did not materialize due to the different working methods of the two authors. Even after his marriage to Elsa Taussig in 1913, Brod remained Kafka's closest friend and admirer. He stood by him in his life crises, whereas Brod often sought and found advice and help from Kafka with his own problems. In 1913, Brod took Franz Kafka into the yearbook for poetry Arkadia, which he published . The “ Berliner Tageblatt ” wrote in its edition of April 29, 1914: “Two talents from the younger generation are Franz Kafka and Heinrich Eduard Jacob . Playing both off against each other is absurd. There are hardly any major contradictions in the formulation of the ethical. But everyone achieves amazing things in their field. "

After the First World War

When, after the war in 1918, the Austro-Hungarian monarchy fell apart and Czechoslovakia was constituted, Brod briefly became Vice President of the Jewish National Council . After Brod had given up his job as a civil servant in the postal service in Prague, he worked as an art critic and freelance writer. In the 1920s, his books achieved large editions. Thus, of way to God Tycho printed until 1920 52.000 copies.

The National Socialist German Workers' Party put him on their list of burned books in 1933, when they took power in Berlin, and Max Brod was on the list of banned authors during the Nazi era .

During this time, Brod, as editor of the “ Prager Tagblatt ”, accepted numerous articles and short stories from exiled German journalists and writers, although it was clear to him that he could never publish them all. The fees paid out in cash, even if they were small amounts, were important bridging aid for many emigrants. The author Maria Treben also worked for him for a while. On the evening before the German occupation of Prague on March 15, 1939, Brod emigrated with Felix Weltsch on the last free refugee train to Palestine .

Brod as administrator of Franz Kafka's estate

Kafka died in 1924 in the Lower Austrian sanatorium Kierling and had last willed that all his literary records should be destroyed, and Max Brod had been appointed as administrator. Brod defied his last will, believing that he could not culturally justify the ordered destruction of Franz Kafka's manuscripts and wanted to continue to publish them. To this day, this has led to disputes about the famous and lucrative legacy. Max Brod is said to have felt obliged to draw the attention of the literary world to the life and thought of Kafka, whom he praised as the “greatest poet of our time”, namely of the 20th century.

As early as 1925, Max Brod began to publish fragments of Kafka's novels. A six-volume edition of works and a biography of Kafka followed in the 1930s. In numerous publications, Brod defended himself against what he regarded as one-sided interpretation of Kafka's works, which led to the labeling of certain facts as Kafkaesque .

1939 until death

Max Brod turned to Zionism at an early age under the influence of Martin Buber . In addition to his Jewish religion and the persecution by the National Socialists that began after 1933, this was one of the reasons why he fled to Palestine in 1939, when the German Wehrmacht occupied the remaining areas of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia existed until May 1945 .

Max Brod (right) with Habimah directors , 1942

His brother, the writer Otto Brod (1888–1944), was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1942 and to Auschwitz in 1944 , where he was murdered in the gas chamber . When Max Brod found out about the fate of his brother (and friend) after the war, it gave him the impetus to deal with theological issues again. Above all, the questions: “Is the soul immortal?” And: “How can the suffering of the world be reconciled with belief in an all-powerful and all-good God?” He shares with other faith communities and religions .

Brod in 1965

From 1938 to 1947 Max Brod published almost nothing. The events of World War II and the death of his wife in 1942 had paralyzed his strength. During this time, the close friendship with Felix Weltsch in Jerusalem, which was expressed through hundreds of letters, was very important to him . His friendship with Brod lasted 75 years from the Piarist school until Weltsch's death.

Max Brod worked and lived in Tel Aviv until his death in 1968 as a freelance writer, journalist and dramaturge at the Habimah National Theater .

After his death, his former secretary and partner Esther Hoffe managed his estate and thus also part of Franz Kafka's estate, sometimes criticized and suspicious . There is disagreement as to whether she and later her daughters as her heirs would have the right to sell this estate to the German Literature Archive in Marbach or whether it is a “national cultural asset” that must remain in Israel . The Israeli courts ruled through all instances of the National Library, most recently in August 2016 at the Supreme Court of Justice Eljakim Rubinstein .

The musician and composer

Max Brod (right) with the composer Paul Ben-Haim and his wife

In addition to law, Brod had also studied musicology, composition and piano and was an excellent pianist. He was active as a composer until the 1950s, mainly creating chamber music works, including 14 song cycles alone. His composition teacher was a student of Antonín Dvořák , whose music clearly shaped his work. It was only later - in the 1940s - that influences from contemporary music became apparent in his compositions, and Israeli folklore also left its mark on his work.

recognition

Memorial plaque for Max Brod in Czech on the cemetery wall opposite the grave of Franz Kafka in the New Jewish Cemetery in Prague- Žižkov

In 1948 Brod was awarded the Bialik Literature Prize, and in 1965 he received the honorary gift of the Heinrich Heine Society in Düsseldorf. In 1964 he was accepted into the Free Academy of the Arts in Hamburg and was awarded its plaque in the same year. In 1973 the Max-Brod-Gasse in Vienna- Hernals (17th district) was named after him.

Works

Literary writings

  • Death to the Dead (short stories) (1906)
  • Nornepygge Castle. Novel 1908
  • A Czech Maid (novel) (1909)
  • Education for the hetaerae (novellas) (1909)
  • Jewish women (novel) (1911)
  • Women economy. Novellas 1913; therein: August Nachreiter's assassination attempt
  • View and concept (together with Felix Weltsch ) (1913)
  • The height of feeling (poems) (1913)
  • Arnold Beer, The Story of a Jew (1906–1913)
  • A fight for truth (novel trilogy):
  • On the Beauty of Ugly Pictures (1913)
  • Tycho Brahe's Path to God (1915)
  • Reubeni, Prince of the Jews (1925)
  • Galileo in captivity (1948)
  • The first hour after death. A Ghost Story (1916)
  • The big risk . Novel. Wolff, Leipzig 1918. ( = Max Brod: Selected Novels and Novels, Volume 6 )
  • Life with a Goddess (1923), Kurt Wolff Verlag
  • The Woman One Longs For (novel) (1927)
  • Magic Kingdom of Love (1928) Paul Zsolnay Verlag
  • The Woman Who Doesn't Disappoint (1934)
  • Heinrich Heine (biography) (1935) with Allert de Lange / Amsterdam and EPTal / Vienna.
  • Novellas from Bohemia (1936).
  • Annerl (1937).
  • Unambo (1949) (novel from the Jewish-Arab war)
  • The Master (1952) (Christ novel)
  • Almost a Preferred Student or Piece touchee (1952)
  • The castle , drama based on Franz Kafka (1953)
  • Poor Cicero (1955)
  • Rebel Hearts (1957)
  • Prager Tagblatt (1957) (novel by an editorial team)
  • Mira (1958) (novel about Hofmannsthal)
  • Youth in the Fog (1959)
  • Life in dispute (1960) (autobiographical writing)
  • The rose coral. A Prague novel. (1961)
  • The sold bride. The adventurous life novel by the lyricist Karel Sabina Bechtle, Munich / Esslingen 1962 ( DNB 450634434 ).

Selected works: Edited by Hans-Gerd Koch and Hans Dieter Zimmermann in collaboration with Barbora Šrámková and Norbert Miller :

other: women's economy. Novellas 1913; therein: August Nachreiter's assassination attempt (also as a single print 1921; again in: Neue deutsche Erzählers vol. 1 (Max Brod et al.) Paul Franke, Berlin undated (1930)

Treatises

  • Outlook and concept. Basics of a system of concept formation. (together with Felix Weltsch), Berlin: De Gruyter 2017, ed. v. Claus Zittel (EA Kurt Wolff Verlag, Vienna 1913)
  • On the Beauty of Ugly Pictures (1913)
  • Paganism, Christianity and Judaism (1921)
  • Starry sky. Music and theater experiences (1923)
  • Leoš Janáček. Life and Work (1925)
  • Heinrich Heine (1934) (biography)
  • Racial Theory and Judaism. With an appendix on national humanism by F. Weltsch (1936)
  • Franz Kafka (1937, expanded 1954)
  • This world and the hereafter (2 volumes):
    • The Crisis of Souls and the New Science of the World (1946)
    • On the immortality of the soul, God's righteousness and a new politics (1947)
  • Israel's Music (1951)
  • Arguable Life (Autobiography) (1960)
  • Johannes Reuchlin and his struggle (1965)
  • The Prague Circle (1966)

To Franz Kafka

  • The poet Franz Kafka (1921)
  • Franz Kafka's estate (1924)
  • Franz Kafka and Max Brod in their dual professions (1927)
  • Franz Kafka's basic experience (1931)
  • From Franz Kafka's childhood days (1937)
  • Franz Kafka's position of faith (1937)
  • Franz Kafka. A biography (1st edition 1937). (This was followed by further editions with an expanded scope; new edition: About Franz Kafka , Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1974ff, ISBN 3-596-21496-3 )
  • The Jewish in Franz Kafka (1947)
  • Franz Kafka's Faith and Doctrine (1948). Republication, extended by forewords and afterwords by Felix Weltsch and HD Zimmermann: onomato Verlag , Düsseldorf 2011, ISBN 978-3-939511-92-2 .
  • Franz Kafka as a pioneering figure (1951). Republication: onomato, Düsseldorf 2011, ISBN 978-3-942864-02-2 .
  • Murder of a doll named Franz Kafka (1952)
  • Despair and Redemption in the Works of Franz Kafka (1959)

German-language libretti

to Leoš Janáček's operas
to Hans Krása
to Manfred Gurlitt
  • Nana , opera in 4 acts (7 images). Text based on the eponymous novel by Émile Zola .

Translations

  • C. Valerius Catullus : Poems. Complete edition. German by Max Brod with partial use of the broadcast from KW Ramler . Munich and Leipzig, published by Georg Müller in 1914.

Music reviews in the Prager Tagblatt

  • Janáček and others. Essais 1924–1938 . Edited by Robert Schmitt Scheubel. consassis.de, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-937416-31-1 .

estate

In 2019, parts of his estate were exhibited in Jerusalem for the first time. Several streets in Israel are named after Brod.

literature

  • Claus-Ekkehard Bärsch : Max Brod in the “fight for Judaism” . On the life and work of a German-Jewish poet from Prague. Passagen-Verlag, Vienna 1992, ISBN 3-85165-024-7 .
  • Schalom Ben-Chorin : Memories of Max Brod from three decades in: Journal for the History of the Jews ZGDJ, 1969 issue 1. Tel Aviv: Olamenu; Pp. 1-10.
  • Hugo Gold : Max Brod. A memorial book , Tel Aviv, 1969
  • Elisabeth Th. Hilscher-Fritz, Monika Kornberger: Brod, Max. In: Oesterreichisches Musiklexikon . Online edition, Vienna 2002 ff., ISBN 3-7001-3077-5 ; Print edition: Volume 1, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2002, ISBN 3-7001-3043-0 .
  • Werner Kayser: Max Brod (= Hamburger Bibliographien , Volume 12). Christians, Hamburg 1972.
  • Wilhelm Kosch : German Literature Lexicon. Biographisches und Bibliographisches Handbuch , Volume 2, 1969, with further references.
  • Renate Lerperger : Max Brod. Talent after many pages (exhibition catalog) Vienna, 1987
  • Margarita Pazi : Max Brod. Work and personality , Bouvier, Bonn 1970, ISBN 3-416-00681-X (also dissertation at the University of Würzburg ).
  • Margarita Pazi (Ed.): Max Brod 1884–1984. Research into Max Brod's literary and philosophical writings . Lang, New York, NY / Bern / Frankfurt am Main 1987, ISBN 0-8204-0571-X (volume on the congress in Jerusalem 1984, texts in German and English).
  • Paul Raabe : Visiting Max Brod. Impressions in Israel 1965 ; Ed. Lower Saxony State Library. Hameln: Niemeyer 2004; ISBN 3-8271-8813-X (series: reading room, 13).
  • Barbora Šrámková: Max Brod and the Czech culture. Arco , Wuppertal 2010, Arco Wissenschaft Volume 17; ISBN 978-3-938375-27-3 .
  • Heribert Sturm : Biographical lexicon on the history of the Bohemian countries, published on behalf of the Collegium Carolinum (Institute) , Volume I, Oldenbourg, Munich / Vienna 1979 ISBN 3-486-49491-0 , pages 147 and 148.
  • Johannes Urzidil : Goethe in Böhmen , Epstein, Vienna / Leipzig 1932; 3rd edition, Artemis, Zurich / Munich 1981, ISBN 3-7608-0251-6 (page 480 and 481 text passage on Max Brod, * 1884, German poet and writer from Prague).
  • Gaëlle Vassogne: Max Brod in Prague: Identity and Mediation (= Conditio Judaica , Volume 75). Max Niemeyer Verlag, Tübingen 2009; ISBN 978-3-484-65175-3 ; Walter de Gruyter / Max Niemeyer, Tübingen 2009, ISBN 978-3-11-174143-7 (in 2004, she received her Ph.D. from the Université Paris 3 - Sorbonne Nouvelle).
  • Volker Weidermann : The book of burned books . Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2008, ISBN 978-3-462-03962-7 (pp. 126–129).
  • Bernd W. Wessling: Max Brod: A portrait . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart, Berlin, Cologne and Mainz 1969. New edition: Max Brod: A portrait for the 100th birthday . Bleicher, Gerlingen 1984, ISBN 3-88350-009-7 .
  • Claus Zittel: The Poetics of Blurriness. Philosophical, psychological and aesthetic concepts of perception in Prague modernity, in: Bernd Stiegler, Sylwia Werner (ed.): Laboratorien der Moderne. Places and spaces of knowledge in Eastern and Central Europe, Munich: Fink 2016, pp. 49–95.

Web links

Commons : Max Brod  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Max Brod  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biographical Lexicon for the History of the Bohemian Lands, Volume I.
  2. ^ Max Brod: Franz Kafka. A biography. Third, expanded edition. S. Fischer Verlag, Berlin and Frankfurt am Main 1954, p. 57.
  3. ↑ Gaëlle Vassogne: Max Brod in Prague: Identity and Mediation (= Conditio Judaica , Volume 75), Walter de Gruyter / Max Niemeyer, Tübingen 2009, page 94f. ISBN 978-3-11-174143-7 , ISBN 978-3-484-97101-1 (online).
  4. ↑ Oliver Young. German-Israeli cultural crisis. Tug of war for Kafka and Brod . FAZ, February 8, 2010.
  5. ↑ Ofer Aderet: Professors call for Max Brod's archive, including unpublished Kafka manuscripts, to stay in Israel ( Memento from January 25, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) in: Haaretz , February 8, 2010.
  6. ↑ Andreas Kilcher: Epic dispute comes to an end , in Neue Zürcher Zeitung of August 13, 2016 [1] , accessed on February 19, 2018
  7. ^ Benjamin Balint: Kafka's last trial in Die Zeit of September 12, 2016 [2] , accessed on February 19, 2018
  8. ^ Jochen Stahnke: Max Brod estate. He was sure of its importance. In: FAZ . August 8, 2019, accessed October 13, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Brod, Max
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czech writer
DATE OF BIRTH May 27, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH Prague
DATE OF DEATH 20th December 1968
Place of death Tel Aviv