Wolfgang Kasack

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Wolfgang Kasack (born January 20, 1927 in Potsdam , † January 10, 2003 in Much near Cologne ) was a German Slavic scholar , literary scholar and translator .

Life

Kasack, born in Potsdam in 1927 as the son of the writer Hermann Kasack , was captured by the Soviets at the age of just 18 - he was a frontline helper near Berlin - a week before the German surrender. He was taken to the camp for German prisoners of war on the Volga , where a Soviet officer added him to the list of Germans who were allowed to return home. While in captivity, Kasack became acquainted with the Russian language and culture. In November 1946 he returned to Germany. 1947–1951 he studied in Heidelberg , which he completed as a certified interpreter for Russian. From 1951 to 1953 he studied Slavic Studies and Eastern European History in Göttingen , where he was awarded a Dr. phil. received his doctorate.

In 1953/54 he was employed by the Working Group for Eastern European Research in Tübingen . In 1955 he was an interpreter in Konrad Adenauer's delegation on the state visit to the Soviet Union , and from 1956–60 he was chief interpreter at the newly established embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Moscow after this state visit. After that he continued to work on behalf of the Federal Foreign Office . In 1960 he drafted the second cultural agreement between the Federal Republic and the Soviet Union and organized the first exchange of scientists and students between the two countries for the German Research Foundation , after which he was annually in Moscow for negotiations until 1968. In addition, from 1960 onwards he organized exhibitions in Moscow on behalf of the Foreign Office. In 1968 he was banned from entering the Soviet Union.

In 1968, Kasack completed his habilitation at the University of Cologne in Slavic Philology , where he was appointed full professor the following year and taught (even after his retirement in 1992) until his death. In the course of his professional activity at the University of Cologne, he also acted as director of the Slavic Institute, head of the international office and dean of the philosophical faculty (1974/75) as well as after his retirement as senate representative for the exchange with the Maxim-Gorki- Literature Institute in Moscow. In 1983 he was visiting professor at Cornell University .

From 1974 to 1979 Kasack was chairman of the West German Association of University Lecturers for Slavic Studies (today: Deutscher Slavistenverband ), from 1976 to 1991 he was also a member of the board of the German Society for Eastern European Studies, in which he set up the sections on literature / language and religious studies.

In 1953 he married Waltraud Schleuning. After her death in 1976, he married Friederike Langmann in 1978. He had three children from his first marriage and two from his second marriage. He lived in Much , where he also served as organist of the Evangelical Church since 1992 and died on January 10, 2003.

In the course of his life, Kasack published several hundred positions, including numerous translations. One of his main works is the Lexicon of 20th Century Russian Literature , which has been published several times and has been translated into numerous languages , a reference work with 857 articles on writers, literary magazines and organizations, which is particularly notable for the fact that it contains many Russian writers who are in the Soviet Union were hushed up. From the 1990s on, he also turned to religious topics and did research on the Russian Orthodox Church , among other things .

Honourings and prices

Works (selection)

  • Lexicon of Russian literature from 1917 (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 451). Kröner, Stuttgart 1976, ISBN 3-520-45101-8 ; 2nd edition under the title Lexicon of Russian Literature of the 20th Century , Munich: Sagner 1992, ISBN 3-87690-459-5 ; Supplementary volume Bibliographical and Biographical Supplements, Munich: Sagner 2000, ISBN 3-87690-761-6
  • Russian Christmas: a literary reading book , Freiburg im Breisgau; Basel; Vienna, Herder, 2000, ISBN 3-451-05075-7
  • Christ in Russian literature: a walk through its history from the beginning to the end of the 20th century , Stuttgart, Verl. Urachhaus, 2000 ISBN 3-8251-7250-3
  • Death in Russian literature: essays and materials from the estate (Ed. Frank Göbler ), Munich, Sagner, 2005 ISBN 3-87690-907-4
  • Hermann Kasack. A breviary , Frankfurt am Main 1966
  • Russian Literature of the 20th Century in German 1976-1983 , Volume 1. Munich 1985; Volume 2: 1984–1990 , Munich 1992
  • German literature of the 20th century in Russian translations , Mainz 1991
  • Russian authors in individual portraits , Stuttgart 1994
  • Russian writers' emigration in the 20th century , 1996
  • Russian literary histories and encyclopedias of Russian literature. Overview - Introduction - Wegführer , Konstanz 1997
  • Dostoevsky. Life and Work [Brevier], Frankfurt am Main 1998
  • further monographs on Nikolai Gogol (1957), Konstantin Paustowski (1971) and Wladimir Lindenberg (1987)
  • The technique of portraying people in Nikolaj Vasilevič Gogol , Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1957, DNB 480675783 , ( dissertation University of Göttingen , Philosophical Faculty, December 6, 1957).
as editor
translation

numerous literary works from Russian into German:

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See the list of the chairpersons of the German Slavist Association.
personal data
SURNAME Kasack, Wolfgang
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Slavist
DATE OF BIRTH January 20, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Potsdam
DATE OF DEATH January 10, 2003
Place of death Much