Sigismund von Radecki

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Sigismund von Radecki ( pseudonym : Homunculus , born November 19, 1891 in Riga , † March 13, 1970 in Gladbeck ) was a German writer and literary translator .

Life

Sigismund von Radecki came from a Baltic family who were distantly related to the Austrian Marshal Radetzky . His older sister was the writer Eva von Radecki . In addition to German , he learned the Russian language at an early age . He attended a middle school in Saint Petersburg and studied at the University of Dorpat and the Bergakademie Freiberg , where he passed the examination to become a qualified engineer in 1913 . He then went on trips to France , Italy and Scandinavia . From 1914 he worked as an irrigation engineer in Turkestan . During the First World War he volunteered for the Imperial Russian Army, then after the German-Russian armistice to the German army, but was not drafted on both occasions. In 1919 he fought with a unit of the Baltic State Army against Soviet troops.

In the 1920s, Radecki was initially employed as an electrical engineer at the Siemens Schuckert works in Berlin . In 1924 he gave up this activity and tried himself as an actor and portrait artist for three years . In 1926 he stayed in Paris for a short time , but then returned to Berlin and has worked as a freelance writer and journalist ever since . A close friendship connected him with Karl Kraus . In 1931 the Protestant Radecki converted to Catholicism under the influence of the writings of John Henry Newman . At the beginning of the Second World War he was a forest overseer on the island of Usedom for a short time . At the end of April 1942 he met Hans Scholl in Munich . In 1943 he moved to Munich , where he was in contact with the Catholic philosopher Theodor Haecker . From 1946 he lived in Zurich . He died during a stay in Gladbeck / Westphalia , where he had gone for medical treatment.

Sigismund von Radecki's work consists primarily of feature sections and essays , which are mostly based on everyday observations and are often humorous or satirical in character. In his later work, Radecki developed into a critic of culture and time. He has also emerged as a translator from Russian and English.

Sigismund von Radecki received the following awards: 1953 the honorary gift of the city of Zurich , 1957 the literature prize of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts , 1960 the Willibald Pirckheimer Medal , 1962 the Immermann Prize of the city of Düsseldorf and 1964 the East German Literature Prize .

Book publications

  • What I wanted to say (1926)
  • The iron screw steamer Hurricane (1929)
  • By the way (1936)
  • The rose and the brick. Anecdotes from around the world (1938)
  • The world in your pocket (1938)
  • Anything (1939)
  • Words and Miracles (1940)
  • How does that come about? (1942)
  • Looking Back at My Future (1943)
  • You have to read this! (1946)
  • The Round Day (1947)
  • About Freedom (1950)
  • The ABC of Laughter (1953)
  • The voice of the street. Feature sections . Ed. And with an afterword by Hans Dieter Schäfer (Mainz series, new series, volume 14). Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2014, ISBN 978-3-8353-1513-6

Editing

Newspaper articles

  • On the 100th anniversary of Pushkin's death , Frankfurter Zeitung , February 10, 1937.
  • How Kathleen was fished , Hamburger Nachrichten , No. 92, April 3, 1938.
  • How to become a regular customer , Das Reich No. 33, August 17, 1941.
  • What is a knot? , Das Reich No. 25, June 20, 1943.
  • Raspberries , Das Reich, No. 31, August 1, 1943.
  • Delete what does not apply , Das Reich No. 40, October 3, 1943.
  • The round day (dedicated to Mellenthin Castle) , Das Reich No. 42, October 17, 1943.

Translations

literature

Web links

Wikiquote: Sigismund von Radecki  - Quotes
personal data
SURNAME Radecki, Sigismund von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Homunculus (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer and translator
DATE OF BIRTH November 19, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Riga
DATE OF DEATH March 13, 1970
Place of death Gladbeck