Wilhelm Wolfsohn

Wilhelm Wolfsohn ( Hermann Krone , around 1855)

Wilhelm Wolfsohn (pseudonym: Carl Maien , born October 20, 1820 in Odessa ; died August 13, 1865 in Dresden ) was a journalist , playwright, translator and mediator of German-Russian literary relations.

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Grave of Wilhelm Wolfsohn

Wilhelm Wolfsohn was born on October 20, 1820 as the son of an impoverished, Orthodox Jewish family of German origin in Odessa. He attended the Jewish high school in Odessa and began studying medicine in Leipzig on December 15, 1837 . He also attended courses in classical philosophy, philology and history. Wolfsohn published his first essays in the Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthums . From 1840 to 1841, poems by Wolfsohn appeared in the anthologies Veilchen und Sternbilder , but under his pseudonym Carl Maien . In the Leipzig “ Herwegh Club” he met Theodor Fontane in 1841 , with whom he became friends and whose former sponsor he was. In 1843 he went to Odessa to get material for translations from Russian. In 1845 he returned to Germany and had lived in Dresden since 1852. In Dresden he published works as a playwright such as Nur eine Seele (1855) and The Easter Vigil (1857). He was a co-founder of the German Schiller Foundation in Dresden. He was friends with the writer Berthold Auerbach .

He is buried in the old Jewish cemetery in Dresden.

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Works

• Ernst Richter [d. i. Wilhelm Wolfsohn]: The journalist mirror. Leipzig: Fort, 1839
• Carl Maien [d. i. Wilhelm Wolfsohn] and Siegm [and] Frankenberg (eds.): Jeschurun. Pocket book for descriptions u. Echoes from the life of the Jews. Leipzig: Fort 1841
• Wilhelm Wolfsohn: Russia's novelist . 3 vol., FA Brockhaus, Leipzig 1848–1851
• Wilhelm Wolfsohn: Dramatic Works . Vol. 1-3. Dresden: Kuntze 1857-1859

Letters

• Theodor Fontane's correspondence with Wilhelm Wolfsohn. Edited by Christa Schultze. Berlin u. Weimar, 1988.

literature

• Max Mendheim :  Wolfsohn, Wilhelm . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 44, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1898, p. 132 f.
• Kerstin Hagemeyer: Jewish life in Dresden. Exhibition on the occasion of the consecration of the new Dresden synagogue on November 9, 2001 . Saxon State Library - Dresden State and University Library, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-910005-27-6 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hagemeyer, p. 174 (8.7 Wilhelm Wolfsohn (1820–1865))

Web links

Wikisource: Wilhelm Wolfsohn  - Sources and full texts

Commons : Wilhelm Wolfsohn  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Wilhelm Wolfsohn in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Wilhelm Wolfsohn  in the German Digital Library
• Lenka-Maria Lange: Wolfsohn, Karl (Cajus) Wilhelm (Binjamin Seev) (pseudonym: Ernst Richter) . In: Institute for Saxon History and Folklore (Ed.): Saxon Biography .