Squidward Rittner

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Thaddäus (Tadeusz) Rittner (born May 31, 1873 in Lemberg , † June 19, 1921 in Bad Gastein ) was a Polish-Austrian writer , theater director and civil servant . He is best known for his dramas .

Life

Rittner was born in Lemberg as the son of the lawyer and politician Eduard Rittner and moved to Vienna at the age of 12, where he attended the Theresianum . He made his first literary attempts in early childhood as a nine-year-old. After graduating from high school, he studied law at the University of Vienna , where he was awarded the Dr. jur. completed. In the same year he began his career as a concept intern at the Lower Austrian Lieutenancy in Brno , in what is now the Czech Republic. From 1898 to 1918 he held various positions in the Ministry of Culture and Education. From 1916 he was responsible for the promotion of elementary school teaching in Galicia and for the department for the promotion of the fine arts. In 1912, 1917 and 1918 he applied as director of the Hofburgtheater , at which some of his plays also premiered, but was unsuccessful. According to Lehmann's apartment gazette , Rittner lived at Neulinggasse 26 from 1907 to 1920 .

In addition to Poland and Austria, Rittner traveled from his student days to the rest of Europe, especially France and Italy. He spoke french. During the First World War he stayed in Vienna, did not join the army, and was more interested in Polish than Austrian interests.

In the 1915/1916 season Rittner headed the Polish theater in Vienna. With the ensamble he performed his own pieces as well as pieces by other Polish authors.

In addition to other social commitments, Rittner frequented the salon of the writer and journalist Berta Zuckerkandl .

He retired in 1918 and took Polish citizenship in 1919. He then only worked as a freelance writer, although he tried unsuccessfully to get a comparable civil servant position in Warsaw .

Rittner was married to the painter Zofia Szwejkowska , a student of Albin Egger-Lienz . The couple had no children.

When his health deteriorated, he had to refrain from moving to Warsaw for a short time and stayed in Austria, in Vienna, because of the spa opportunities. Rittner died in Bad Gastein in 1921, the same year as his mother Helene Tarnawska, after a serious febrile illness. He was only 52 years old. A performance of his play The Tragedy of Eumenes at the Burgtheater on November 18 of the same year served as a commemoration and fundraiser for the grave monument .

Literary activity

In 1894, while still a student, Rittner published his first novella, Lulu, in the Cracow newspaper Csas. Subsequently he was mainly active as a playwright, but also wrote German and Polish feature articles . At the beginning of his activity, Rittner wrote his texts in Polish and translated them into German himself. Soon, however, his texts were first written in German. A uniform classification of his work in a specific style is difficult, as his pieces and works sometimes differ greatly.

As a publicist for Polish feature pages, Rittner sometimes used the pseudonym Tomasz Czaszka. With these contributions in German and Polish newspapers, literature became his sideline at the beginning of Rittner's civil service career.

In 1904, the one-act play Die from next door, a first German drama, premiered in Vienna. The very brief piece tells the story of two impoverished students in Paris who listen to their neighbor's return. In addition, his Polish dramas were received with relative success, although they received negative reviews. Before his success at the Burgtheater, Rittner mainly worked on pieces for the Vienna Volkstheater.

Although he was one of the most played playwrights in Austria during his lifetime, most of his plays have been forgotten in Austria. His most popular piece was the comedy Wolves in the Night , in which Rittner addresses the double standards in the legal system. In Poland, however, there was increased performance and publication of Rittner's pieces during the 1960s.

He turned to the novel form only after the First World War. Above all, autobiographical elements are incorporated here.

Rittner's stylistic influences came from the Młoda Polska movement on the one hand, and from his admiration for playwrights such as Hamsun , Hauptmann , Ibsen , and Schnitzler on the other . He was also influenced by his personal contacts with the authors of Junge Wien . Rittner had a special friendship with Peter Altenberg . However, he was critical of the ideas of some representatives. The literary developments in Vienna and Berlin also gave rise to several Polish feature pages. Hermann Bahr in particular was mentioned frequently by Rittner, although Bahr's role as the mouthpiece of Viennese modernism was viewed critically. While Rittner was positive about Arthur Schnitzler and admired his style, Schnitzler's diary suggests that he did not appreciate Rittner's dramas.

His novels, which appeared in German between 1918 and 1921, were translated into Polish by his wife Zofia and published posthumously in Poland. Thaddäus Rittner's literary activity stands out above all because of its bilingualism and its special position between the two languages.

In addition to the known works, there are fragments of novels and dramas that have not been preserved and that may have been partially destroyed by the author. 21 theater pieces have been preserved, 6 of which were not performed during Rittner's lifetime. His estate is administered by the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw.

Awards and honors

  • Order of the Iron Crown III. Class (1918)
  • On September 28, 1960, the Vienna City Council named Rittnergasse in the 22nd district after Thaddäus Rittner.

Works

Maria Mayen in Thaddäus Rittner's comedy “Garden of Youth” 1918

Dramas

  • The little home. Drama in 3 acts. Cotta's bookstore. Stuttgart Berlin 1908.
  • Stupid Jacob. Comedy in 3 acts. Fleischel. Berlin 1910.
  • Summer . Comedy . German-Austrian publisher. Vienna 1912.
  • The man in the prompter box. Comedy. German-Austrian publisher. Vienna 1912.
  • The one next door. Drama in 1 act. German-Austrian publisher. Vienna 1913.
  • Children of the earth. Play in 3 acts and 1 interlude. German-Austrian publisher. Vienna 1914.
  • Wolves in the night . Comedy in three acts . German-Austrian publisher. Vienna Leipzig 1914. Reprint 2018 ISBN 978-139144947-0 .
  • Garden of Youth . Comedy . German-Austrian publisher. Vienna Leipzig 1917. Reprint 2018 ISBN 978-036557715-7 .
  • Visit at dusk. One act. German-Austrian publisher. Vienna 1920.
  • The tragedy of Eumenes. Comedy in 4 acts. German-Austrian publisher. Vienna 1920.
  • The enemies of the rich. Acting in eight pictures. Donauverlag. Leipzig Vienna 1921 (dramatization of the novel The Other World )
  • On road. A Don Juan drama in 3 acts. German-Austrian publisher. 3. Edition. Vienna 1922.

Novels

  • The bridge. Novel. Ullstein. Berlin 1920.
  • Ghosts in the city. Rikola Publishing House. 4th edition. Vienna 1921.
  • The room of waiting. Novel. Berglandverlag. Vienna 1969; Reprint 2018, ISBN 978-036692185-0 .
  • The other world. ISBN 978-1396234453 .

Novellas

  • Lulu, Dora. Novellas. Gemma. Vienna 1922.
  • Three days of spring. 1900.
  • I know you. 1912.

literature

  • Ewa Woehrer-Ryszawy: Thaddäus Rittner's dramas. Dissertation. University of Vienna 1981.
  • Susanne Maria Spiegel: Vienna around 1900 between art and everyday life: Thadeusz Rittner's Polish feuilletons from Vienna. Thesis. University of Vienna 2010.
  • Merzena Nowak: Thaddäus Rittner's German dramas. Thesis. University of Vienna 1989.
  • Małgorzata Barbara Ziemiańska: Thaddeusz Rittner's car versions. Dissertation. University of Vienna 1979.
  • Erich Johannes Steiner: Thaddäus Rittner: his life and his work . Dissertation. University of Vienna 1932.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Austrian Biographical Lexicon and biographical documentation: Rittner, Thaddäus (Tadeusz); Ps. Tomasz Czaszka. 2003, accessed December 5, 2019 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g Erich Johannes Steiner: Thaddäus Rittner: his life and his work . Dissertation University of Vienna, 1932.
  3. ↑ a b Anne Hultsch: "A city without sun"? Change of elite in Vienna in the interwar period in Tadeusz / Thaddäus Rittner's novels . In: Martin Erian, Primus-Heinz Kucher (Hrsg.): Exploration of urban spaces - Vienna 1918-38 (everyday) cultural, artistic and literary surveys of the city in the interwar period . Vandenhoeck & Rupprecht, Göttingen 2019, ISBN 978-3-8470-1071-5 , p. 271-286 .
  4. ↑ Vienna Library - wbr01 / Adolph Lehmann's general housing anzeiger. Retrieved December 16, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Austria Forum | https://austria-forum.org : Rittner, Tadeusz Thaddäus, pseudonym Thomasz Czaszka. Retrieved December 9, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Markus Oppenauer: The Salon Zuckerkandl in the context of science, politics and the public. Popular scientific aspects of Viennese salon culture around 1900 (=  Encyclopedia of Viennese Knowledge . No. 15 ). Provincial Library, Weitra 2012, ISBN 978-3-99028-031-7 .
  7. ↑ a b c d e f German biography: Rittner, Tadeusz - German biography. Retrieved December 9, 2019 .
  8. ^ Tadeusz Rittner | Życie i twórczość | Artysta. Accessed December 30, 2019 .
  9. ^ Anton Wildgans: Prologue for the performance of The Tragedy of Eumenes as a memorial service for Thaddäus Rittner . November 18, 1921.
  10. ^ Thaddäus Rittner in the Vienna History Wiki of the City of Vienna
  11. ↑ Fedor Poli︠a︡kov, Stefan Simonek: Slawische Literaturen-Österreichische Literatur (en) . Lang, Bern 2009, ISBN 978-3-03911-205-0 .
  12. ↑ Stefan Simonek: deterritorializes texts. Using the example of Tadeusz / Thaddäus Rittner and Peter Altenberg . In: Helga Mitterbauer, Katharina Scherke (ed.): Un-bounded spaces: cultural transfers around 1900 and in the present (=  studies on modernity . No. 22 ). Passagen-Verlag, Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-85165-640-7 .
  13. ^ A b Susanne Maria Spiegel: Vienna around 1900 between art and everyday life. Tadeusz Rittner's Polish feature articles from Vienna . Thesis. Vienna 2010.
  14. ↑ Rittner street in Vienna History Wiki of the city of Vienna
personal data
SURNAME Rittner, Squidward
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rittner, Tadeusz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish-Austrian writer, theater manager and civil servant
DATE OF BIRTH May 31, 1873
PLACE OF BIRTH Lviv
DATE OF DEATH June 19, 1921
Place of death Bad Gastein