Paul Gurk

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Commemorative plaque on the house at Afrikanische Strasse 144b, in Berlin-Wedding
Original edition, Holle & Co., Berlin 1935
Paul Gurk - Berlin, first edition 1934
tomb

Paul Gurk (born April 26, 1880 in Frankfurt (Oder) , † August 12, 1953 in Berlin ), pseudonym Franz Grau , was a German writer and painter .

Paul Gurk was the son of a stagecoach. After the early death of his father, he grew up as a foster child with an uncle in Berlin . He attended elementary and secondary school , but had to drop out of the latter prematurely. He switched to the so-called " preparatory institute " of a teachers' college ; However, he also broke off this training. From 1900 he was employed for 24 years, initially as an office assistant and later as a municipal civil servant , in various offices of the Berlin magistrate , and in doing so made it up to the senior secretary of the registry office. In 1924 he asked for early release, but did not retire until 1934.

Gurk had only started writing in 1912 and surprisingly received the Kleist Prize in 1921 for his piece Thomas Münzer . His tragedy Wallenstein and Ferdinand II was still successfully performed in 1927. But shortly afterwards he was already so forgotten that in 1930 he resignedly stated: "I am just as lost today as I was before 1921." For the rest of his life, the solitary author led a miserable existence as a freelance writer . During the Nazi era , Gurk came into conflict with the government; some of his works were banned. From 1943 to 1945 he stayed in Nienstedt am Harz , then back in Berlin . By the time he died, Gurk was largely forgotten, and even a few attempts in the 1980s to revive his extensive work for the reading public were ultimately unsuccessful. His estate includes a large number of unprinted novels and plays .

Paul Gurk, who also painted and drew in addition to his literary work, is one of the great outsiders of German-language literature of the 20th century, whose work cannot be assigned to any of the literary directions such as Expressionism , Surrealism or New Objectivity , as it is both irrational , anti-bourgeois and also has apolitical, pessimistic and romantic traits. In 1952 his works are treated in detail (5 pages) in the history of literature by Paul Fechter .

His grave is located in the cemetery of the Oberpfarr- und Domkirche zu Berlin, Müllerstraße 72/73, Berlin-Mitte (Wedding), only a few hundred meters from his last apartment at African Straße 144b. It was dedicated to the city of Berlin as a grave of honor until 2009 .

Works

  • Trinity. Trier 1922.
  • Fables. Trier 1922.
  • Thomas Münzer. Berlin 1922.
  • The ways of the teel Hans. Trier 1922.
  • The song of friendship. Trier 1923.
  • Master Eckehart. Trier 1925.
  • The sayings of Fu-Kiang. Lübeck 1927.
  • Wallenstein and Ferdinand II. Lübeck 1927.
  • Palang. Stuttgart 1930.
  • Judas. Stuttgart [u. a.] 1931.
  • The festival of the last and the first sheaf. Berlin 1933.
  • Emperor Heinrich VI. Berlin 1933.
  • Berlin. Berlin 1934; New edition Wuppertal 2016, ISBN 978-3-938375-73-0 .
  • Fables, fairy tales and legends. Langensalza 1934.
  • The colorful veil. Bremen 1935.
  • The decoy. Berlin 1935.
  • Burglary of the safe. Berlin 1935. New edition: Berlin and Darmstadt 1981, ISBN 978-3-87008-097-6 .
  • Tuzub 37. Berlin 1935.
  • Magister Tinius. Chemnitz 1936.
  • Parables. Berlin 1939.
  • Turning times. Essen (under the name Franz Grau)
    • 1. Serenissism. 1940.
    • 2. Gapon is looking for the tsar. 1941.
    • 3. Office assistant Tödtke. 1941.
  • Skyten train. Dessau 1943.
  • The dream city of the emperor Kien-Lung. Prague [u. a.] 1943.
  • Iskander. Dessau 1944.
  • Stories about Mahgub the potter. Cologne 1947.
  • First faces. Frankfurt a. M. 1948.
  • The golden boat. Neuwied 1949.
  • The Emperor of America. Essen 1949.
  • Swan Lake arbor colony. Berlin 1949.
  • An ordinary person. Berlin 1957.
  • Strange people. Berlin 1959.
  • Poems 1939-1945. Siegen 1987.

literature

  • Hans Joachim Alpers , Werner Fuchs , Ronald M. Hahn : Reclam's science fiction guide. Reclam, Stuttgart 1982, ISBN 3-15-010312-6 , p. 180 f.
  • Elisabeth Emter: Paul Gurk ( 1880-1953 ) , Frankfurter Bunthefte, Frankfurt (Oder) 1995.
  • Anke Glever: Flanerie or the reading of modernism: Franz Hessel and Paul Gurk with an excursus on modern German literature, Univ. Diss., University of California, Irvine, 1988.
  • Detlef Holland: Gurk, Paul . In: Literature Lexicon. Authors and works of German language. Edited by Walther Killy. 15 volumes. Gütersloh 1988-1993. Vol. 4. pp. 432-433.
  • Irmgart Elsner Hunt: Die Berlinromane Paul Gurks , in: Authors then and now , pp. 547-570 ( preview on Google Books )
  • Oliver Ohmann: Paul Gurk - A genius for waiting money . In: Communications from the Association for the History of Berlin. 97th year. Issue 1 (2001), pp. 162-169.
  • Hans J. Schütz: Gurk, Paul . In: 'I was once a German poet.' Forgotten and misunderstood authors of the 20th century. Von Schütz, Hans J. Munich 1988. pp. 94-99.
  • Gertraude Wilhelm:  Gurk, Paul. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 7, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1966, ISBN 3-428-00188-5 , p. 326 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

Commons : Paul Gurk  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Gurk, Paul
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Grau, Franz (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer and painter
DATE OF BIRTH April 26, 1880
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt (Oder)
DATE OF DEATH August 12, 1953
Place of death Berlin