Rita Schober

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Rita Schober (2010)

Rita Schober (born June 13, 1918 in Rumburg ; † December 26, 2012 in Berlin-Pankow ) was a German Romance studies and literary scholar.

life and work

Rita Schober was born as Rita Tomaschek in Rumburg (today Rumburk, Czech Republic); she was the daughter of a clerk and a seamstress. From 1928 to 1936 she attended the Realgymnasium in Rumburg and then studied Romance Studies and Classical Philology at the German Charles University in Prague until 1945 . Studies were interrupted several times during the war: from October 1940 to 1943 and from December 1944 to December 1945 by working as a temporary high school teacher for Latin in Warnsdorf . Peter H. Feist was one of her students there. She received her doctorate as Rita Hetzer in Prague in March 1945 with a linguistic dissertation with Erhard Preiziger on the suffix -age.

After the end of World War II, they were expelled into the Soviet zone of occupation in Germany. From 1946 to 1949 she was a research assistant and from 1947 lecturer for Old French and Old Provençal at the Martin Luther University Halle (MLU). In 1946 she was also the dean of studies. From 1948 she worked under Victor Klemperer, who was appointed to the MLU, in the field of French literary studies and became a habilitation candidate with him.

In 1951/1952 she was the main assistant for languages ​​in the State Secretariat for Higher and Technical Schools of the GDR government in East Berlin and in 1952 she followed Klemperer as an assistant at the Romance Studies Institute of the Humboldt University in Berlin (HUB). In 1952 she was appointed lecturer at the Romance Studies Institute at the HUB and given a professorship with a teaching position for Romance philology.

Schober completed his habilitation in 1954 at Klemperer with Émile Zola's theory of the naturalistic novel and the problem of realism. In 1957 she was appointed professor to the chair for Romance studies at the HUB. From 1959 she was Klemperer's successor until 1978 director of the Institute of Romance Studies. At the same time she worked from 1969 to 1975 (after the third university reform of the GDR ) as dean of the social science faculty at the HUB.

In 1969 she was elected a full member of the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin . From 1974 she worked as a member of the Executive Council of UNESCO . Since 1975 she has been chairwoman of the National Committee for Literary Studies of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR and a member of the Presidium of the PEN Center of the GDR . In 1978 she retired. A contract with the university management regulated their activities in teaching and research as well as in science and personnel policy at the Institute for Romance Studies and at higher university levels until 1989.

Rita Schober was the editor of the first German edition of the novel series Die Rougon-Macquart by Émile Zola after World War II. These 20 volumes were published by Verlag Rütten & Loening between 1952 and 1976 and have mostly been newly translated.

Her works dealt with French authors from different eras, in particular Nicolas Boileau , Louis Aragon , Émile Zola and, most recently, Michel Houllebecq . Schober was also very well known in the field of literary theory, especially structuralism . Together with her employees and specialist colleagues, she has produced almost 70 book publications. Part of this extensive work was created at her summer residence in Prieros in the Dahme-Spreewald district.

Schober had been an honorary doctorate from Humboldt University since 1988, and in 1993 she was one of the founding members of the Leibniz Society of Sciences in Berlin . Her students include a. the Romanists Horst Heintze and Hans-Otto Dill .

Rita Schober had entered into two marriages: in 1940 with Hans Hetzer , since 1943 missing at Stalingrad; 1950 with Robert Schober , died 1994 in Berlin. Her son Hans-Robert Schober was born in Berlin in 1952 and died in Munich in 2011.

Rita Schober found her final resting place in the Pankow IV cemetery in Berlin-Niederschönhausen .

Memberships and honors (selection)

Works (selection)

  • Sketches for literary theory. German Science Publishing House, Berlin 1956
  • Under the spell of language. Structuralism in the Nouvelle Critique, especially in Roland Barthes. Hall a. P. 1968
  • From the real world in poetry. Essays on the theory and practice of realism in French literature. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1970
  • Image, symbol, evaluation. Essays on the theory and practice of literary communication. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1982, 2nd edition 1988
  • Zola and French Impressionism . Epilogue to Volume 20 “The Work” of the Rougon-Marquart cycle. Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1966, pp. 449-484; again in 1983
  • Louis Aragon . On the search of poetry for knowledge of the world. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1985
  • On the sense or nonsense of literary studies. Essays. Mitteldeutscher Verlag Halle (Saale) 1988
  • 100 years of Rougon-Macquart in the course of the history of reception (together with Winfried Engler ), Gunther Narr, Tübingen 1995
  • On the test bench: Zola - Houellebecq - Klemperer. Berlin 2003

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Obituary (PDF; 11 kB)
  2. ↑ Klemperer's heiress. She has always been interested in literature as a mirror and seismograph of society. Known as "Rote Rita", she traveled to conferences and guest lectures abroad, including the West, during the GDR era. For the 90th birthday of the Romance philologist Rita Schober. In: “Der Tagesspiegel” from June 19, 2008; Retrieved October 28, 2010.
  3. ↑ as CDs from Directmedia Publishing, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-89853-528-2 .
  4. ^ Obituary notice, Tagesspiegel from January 6, 2013
  5. ↑ Announcement of the book 100 Years of Rougon-Macquart ... on Google Books
personal data
SURNAME Schober, Rita
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Romance studies and literary scholar
DATE OF BIRTH June 13, 1918
PLACE OF BIRTH Rumburg
DATE OF DEATH December 26, 2012
Place of death Berlin-Pankow