Ferdinand Raimund was an Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

n actor

Actor

An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

 and dramatist

Playwright

A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...

.

Life and work

He was born in Vienna as a son of Bohemia

Bohemia

Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...

n woodturning

Woodturning

Woodturning is a form of woodworking that is used to create wooden objects on a lathe . Woodturning differs from most other forms of woodworking in that the wood is moving while a stationary tool is used to cut and shape it...

 master craftsman

Master craftsman

A master craftsman or master tradesman was a member of a guild. In the European guild system, only masters were allowed to be members of the guild....

 Jakob Raimann. In 1811, he acted at the Theater in der Josefstadt

Theater in der Josefstadt

The Theater in der Josefstadt is a theater in Vienna in the eighth district of Josefstadt. It was founded in 1788 and is the oldest still performing theater in Vienna...

, and, in 1817 at the Leopoldstädter Theater

Theater in der Leopoldstadt

The Theater in der Leopoldstadt was an opera house in Vienna, founded in 1781 by Karl von Marinelli, following the Schauspielfreiheit by Joseph II in 1776...

. In 1823 he produced his first play, Der Barometermacher auf der Zauberinsel, which was followed by Der Diamant des Geisterkönigs (1824). The still popular Bauer als Millionär (1826), Der Alpenkönig und der Menschenfeind (1828) and Der Verschwender (1833) are Raimund's masterpieces. Raimund's comedies are still frequently performed in Austria today.

When Raimund was bitten by a dog, which he falsely believed to be rabid

Rabies

Rabies is a viral disease that causes acute encephalitis in warm-blooded animals. It is zoonotic , most commonly by a bite from an infected animal. For a human, rabies is almost invariably fatal if post-exposure prophylaxis is not administered prior to the onset of severe symptoms...

, he tried to shoot himself on during the night of 29 August 1836; he died on 5 September 1836 in Pottenstein, aged 46. Raimund is buried in Gutenstein, which features a Raimund memorial.

Raimund was a master of the Viennese Posse

Posse mit Gesang

Posse mit Gesang is a form of popular German-language music drama, that developed in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Early examples are sometimes called 'Possenspil' or 'Possenspiel'...

 or farce

Farce

In theatre, a farce is a comedy which aims at entertaining the audience by means of unlikely, extravagant, and improbable situations, disguise and mistaken identity, verbal humour of varying degrees of sophistication, which may include word play, and a fast-paced plot whose speed usually increases,...

; his rich humour is seen to best advantage in his realistic portraits of his fellow-citizens. The Raimund Theater

Raimund Theater

The Raimund Theater is a theatre in the Mariahilf district of Vienna, Austria.Named after the Austrian dramatist Ferdinand Raimund, the theatre was built by an association of Viennese citizens and opened on 28 November 1893 with Raimund's play Die gefesselte Phantasie...

in Vienna is named after him.

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