Hermann Sudermann
Encyclopedia

Hermann Sudermann was a German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 dramatist and novelist.

Early career

He was born at Matzicken, a village just to the east of Heydekrug in the Province of Prussia
Province of Prussia
The Province of Prussia was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1829-1878 created out of the provinces of East Prussia and West Prussia....

 (now Macikai and Šilutė
Šilute
Šilutė is a city in the south of the Klaipėda County, Lithuania. The city was part of the Klaipėda Region and ethnographic Lithuania Minor. Šilutė was the interwar capital of Šilutė County and is currently the capital of Šilutė district municipality.-Name:...

, in southwestern Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

), close to the Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n frontier. The Sudermanns were a Mennonite
Mennonite
The Mennonites are a group of Christian Anabaptist denominations named after the Frisian Menno Simons , who, through his writings, articulated and thereby formalized the teachings of earlier Swiss founders...

 family long settled near Elbing, a city in northern Poland (now Elbląg
Elblag
Elbląg is a city in northern Poland with 127,892 inhabitants . It is the capital of Elbląg County and has been assigned to the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship since 1999. Before then it was the capital of Elbląg Voivodeship and a county seat in Gdańsk Voivodeship...

).

His father owned a small brewery in Heydekrug, and Sudermann received his early education at the Realschule
Realschule
The Realschule is a type of secondary school in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. It has also existed in Croatia , Denmark , Sweden , Hungary and in the Russian Empire .-History:The Realschule was an outgrowth of the rationalism and empiricism of the seventeenth and...

in Elbing
Elbing
Elbing is the German name of Elbląg, a city in northern Poland which until 1945 was a German city in the province of East Prussia.Elbing may also refer to:- Ships :* SMS Elbing, light cruiser of the Imperial Germany Navy...

, but, his parents having been reduced in circumstances, he was apprenticed to a chemist
Chemist
A chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...

 at the age of fourteen. He was, however, able to enter the Realgymnasium (high school) in Tilsit, and to study philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

 and history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...

 at Königsberg University
University of Königsberg
The University of Königsberg was the university of Königsberg in East Prussia. It was founded in 1544 as second Protestant academy by Duke Albert of Prussia, and was commonly known as the Albertina....

.

In order to complete his studies Sudermann went to Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, where he was tutor to several families, including that of the author Hans Hopfen (1835–1904). Next he became a journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

, and was in 1881 and 1882 the co-editor of the Deutsches Reichsblatt. He then devoted himself to fiction, beginning with a collection of naturalistic short stories called Im Zwielicht ("At Twilight", 1886), and the novels Frau Sorge
Frau Sorge
Frau Sorge is the first of Hermann Sudermann's complete novels and the work which brought him his fame as a writer of fiction.-Theme:The story is conceived around the imaginative legend of Frau Sorge, with which the story ends...

("Dame Care", 1887), Geschwister ("Siblings", 1888) and Der Katzensteg ("Cats' Bridge", 1890). These works failed to bring the young author as much recognition as his first drama, Die Ehre ("Honour", 1889), which inaugurated a new period in the history of the German stage. This play, originally intended to be a tragedy
Tragedy
Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...

, but on Blumenthal's advice given a "happy ending," was a pseudo-Nietzschean attack on the morality of the lowly.

He married the novelist Clara Lauckner (1861–1924), née Schulz on 20 October 1891. She was a widow and already had three children from her previous short-lived marriage, and she would have one child with Sudermann: a daughter, Hede. They lived in Königsberg
Königsberg
Königsberg was the capital of East Prussia from the Late Middle Ages until 1945 as well as the northernmost and easternmost German city with 286,666 inhabitants . Due to the multicultural society in and around the city, there are several local names for it...

 for the next two years, before moving to Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

, and then Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 in 1895.

Fame

Another successful drama, Heimat
Heimat (play)
Heimat is a play by the German dramatist Hermann Sudermann. The play, either in the original German or in translations, was commonly also known as Magda, the name of the heroine...

(1893), was translated into English as Magda (1896). In this play, Sudermann emphasizes the right of the artist to a freer moral life than that of the petty bourgeoisie. It has some of the moralistic and didactic tendency of the later French dramatists, especially the younger Dumas, and all of their technical finesse. Productions featured some of the best known actresses of the time, including Helena Modjeska
Helena Modjeska
Helena Modjeska Helena Modjeska Helena Modjeska (October 12, 1840 – April 8, 1909, whose actual Polish surname was Modrzejewska , was a renowned actress who specialized in Shakespearean and tragic roles.Modjeska was the mother of Polish-American bridge engineer Ralph Modjeski....

, Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt was a French stage and early film actress, and has been referred to as "the most famous actress the world has ever known". Bernhardt made her fame on the stages of France in the 1870s, and was soon in demand in Europe and the Americas...

, Eleonora Duse
Eleonora Duse
-Life and career:Duse was born in Vigevano, Lombardy, and began acting as a child. Both her father and her grandfather were actors, and she joined the troupe at age four. Due to poverty, she initially worked continually, traveling from city to city with whichever troupe her family was currently...

, and Mrs Patrick Campbell
Mrs Patrick Campbell
Mrs Patrick Campbell was a British stage actress.-Early life and marriages:Campbell was born Beatrice Stella Tanner in Kensington, London, to John Tanner and Maria Luigia Giovanna, daughter of Count Angelo Romanini...

.

He had a large following in Japan. During the 20th century, his plays were the basis of more than thirty films.

Sudermann returned to novels with Es War ("It Was", 1894, the title referring to Section 2, §1 of Nietzsche's Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen), a protest against the fruitlessness of brooding repentance. In 1902, he moved to a mansion with extensive grounds at Blankensee
Blankensee
Blankensee is a municipality in the Mecklenburgische Seenplatte district, in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany....

, and used his newfound wealth to collect paintings and sculpture, and to take trips to Italy, Greece, Egypt and India.

At the commencement of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, Sudermann was enthusiastic, publishing a Kaiserlied ("Song of the Kaiser"). In autumn 1917, he organised the Frohe Abende ("Cheery Evenings"), a programme promoting artistic endeavours among the common people, for which he received an Iron Cross
Iron Cross
The Iron Cross is a cross symbol typically in black with a white or silver outline that originated after 1219 when the Kingdom of Jerusalem granted the Teutonic Order the right to combine the Teutonic Black Cross placed above a silver Cross of Jerusalem....

 Second Class on 5 April 1918. After the end of the war he helped found the Bund schaffender Künstler ("Society of Creative Artists"), which posed as a centrist political force and which earned him the reputation of an opportunist.

The most important of his later works are Litauischen Geschichten ("Lithuanian Stories", 1917), a realistic portrait of his homeland, and a volume of memoirs in 1922. His last major work, written after the death of his wife in 1924, was Die Frau des Steffen Tromholt ("The Wife of Steffen Tromholt", 1927), a semi-autobiographical novel. He had a stroke in 1928, and died of a lung infection shortly afterwards, in Berlin, aged 71. His stepson Rolf Lauckner set up the Hermann Sudermann Foundation to support young dramatists.

Posthumous reputation

Sudermann's nationalism, and his delight in romanticized ideas of ethnicity and homeland, particularly noticeable in his later works, made him a favourite during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. Jürgen Fehling staged Johannisfeuer in Berlin, with Maria Gorvin, Maria Koppenhöfer and Paul Wegener in the lead roles. The film Die Reise nach Tilsit
Die Reise nach Tilsit
Die Reise nach Tilsit is a German 1939 film directed by Veit Harlan. It is a sound remake of the silent film Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, which was based on Hermann Sudermann's short story "Die Reise nach Tilsit"; Harlan maintained it was a true film, whereas Sunrise was only a poem, and it...

was based on his short story of the same title.

After 1945, his plays and novels were almost completely forgotten. He is chiefly remembered today for his Lithuanian stories, for his autobiography, and for the 1927 silent films Sunrise
Sunrise (film)
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, also known as Sunrise, is a 1927 American silent film directed by German film director F. W. Murnau. The story was adapted by Carl Mayer from the short story "Die Reise nach Tilsit" by Hermann Sudermann.Sunrise won an Academy Award for Unique and Artistic Production...

, based on his short story Die Reise nach Tilsit ("Trip to Tilset"), from the Collection Litauische Geschichten (Lithuanian Stories), and Flesh and the Devil
Flesh and the Devil
Flesh and the Devil is an MGM romantic drama silent film. It stars Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Lars Hanson, and Barbara Kent, directed by Clarence Brown, and based on the play The Undying Past by Hermann Sudermann....

, starring Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo , born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, was a Swedish film actress. Garbo was an international star and icon during Hollywood's silent and classic periods. Many of Garbo's films were sensational hits, and all but three were profitable...

, based on his play The Undying Past.

Works

  • Im Zwielicht: Zwanglose Geschichten ("At Twilight", 1886)
  • Frau Sorge
    Frau Sorge
    Frau Sorge is the first of Hermann Sudermann's complete novels and the work which brought him his fame as a writer of fiction.-Theme:The story is conceived around the imaginative legend of Frau Sorge, with which the story ends...

    ("Dame Care", 1887; translated by B. Overbeck in 1891)
  • Geschwister: Zwei Novellen ("Siblings: Two Stories", 1888)
    • Die Geschichte der stillen Mühle ("The Tale of the Idle Millstone")
    • Der Wunsch ("The Wish"; translated by Lily Henkel in 1894)
  • Die Ehre ("Honour", play, 1889/91)
  • Der Katzensteg ("Cats' Bridge", 1890; translated by Beatrice Marshall in 1898 as "Regina or the Sins of the Fathers")
  • Sodoms Ende ("Sodom's End", play, 1891), a tragedy of artistic life in Berlin
  • Jolanthes Hochzeit ("Iolanthe's Wedding", play, 1892; translated by Adele S. Seltzer in 1918), a humorous novel which breathes the serener realism of common life
  • Heimat
    Heimat (play)
    Heimat is a play by the German dramatist Hermann Sudermann. The play, either in the original German or in translations, was commonly also known as Magda, the name of the heroine...

    ("Homeland", play, 1893; translated by C. E. A. Winslow in 1896 as "Magda")
  • Es War ("It Was", 1894; translated by Beatrice Marshall in 1906 as "The Undying Past")
  • Die Schmetterlingsschlacht ("Battle of the Butterflies", comedy, 1895)
  • Das Glück im Winkel ("Happiness in a Quiet Corner", 1896)
  • Morituri (three one-act plays, 1896)
    • Teja, Fritzchen, Das Ewig-Männlich ("The Eternal Masculine")
  • Johannes (tragedy concerning John the Baptist
    John the Baptist
    John the Baptist was an itinerant preacher and a major religious figure mentioned in the Canonical gospels. He is described in the Gospel of Luke as a relative of Jesus, who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River...

    , 1898)
  • Die drei Reiherfedern ("Three Heron-Feathers", dramatic poem, 1899)
  • Drei Reden ("Three Lectures", 1900)
  • Johannisfeuer ("The St John's Eve Fire", 1900)
  • Es lebe das Leben! ("Let Life Live!", 1902; translated by Edith Wharton
    Edith Wharton
    Edith Wharton , was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, short story writer, and designer.- Early life and marriage:...

    in 1903 as "The Joy of Living")
  • Verrohung der Theaterkritik (1902)
  • Der Sturmgeselle Sokrates ("Stormfellow Socrates", comedy, 1903)
    • Die Sturmgesellen: Ein Wort zur Abwehr ("Stormfellows: a Defence", essay, 1903)
  • Stein unter Steinen ("Stone Among Stones", 1905)
  • Das Blumenboot ("The Flower Boat", 1905)
  • Rosen ("Roses", four one-act plays, 1907; translated by Grace Frank in 1912, the last story with the title "The Faraway Princess")
    • Die Lichtbänder ("Streaks of Light")
    • Margot
    • Der letzte Besuch ("The Last Visit")
    • Die Feen-Prinzessin ("The Fairy Princess")
  • Das hohe Lied ("The Song of Songs", 1908; translated by T. Seltzer in 1910 and by Edward Sheldton in 1914)
  • Strandkinder ("Beach Children", 1909)
  • Der Bettler von Syrakus ("The Beggar of Syracuse", 1911)
  • Die indische Lilie ("The Indian Lily", 1911; translated by L. Lewisohn in 1911)
  • Der gute Ruf ("The Good Name", 1912)
  • Die Lobgesänge des Claudian ("Hymns to Claudian", 1914)
  • Die entgötterte Welt ("The Godless World", 1915)
  • Litauische Geschichten ("Lithuanian Stories", 1917; reprinted 1984, 1985, 1989)
    • Die Reise nach Tilsit
    • Miks Bumbullis
    • Jons unds Erdine
    • Die Magd
  • Die Raschoffs ("The Raschoffs", 1919)
  • Der Hüter der Schwelle ("Watcher at the Step", 1921)
  • Das deutsche Schicksal ("The German Destiny", 1921)
  • Jons und Erdme: eine litauische Geschichte ("Jons and Erdme: a Lithuanian Tale", 1921)
  • Das Bilderbuch meiner Jugend: Autobiographie ("The Picture Book of my Youth", 1922; reprinted, Ernst Osterkamp, ed., 1980, 1988)
  • Wie die Träumenden ("Like Dreamers", 1923)
  • Die Denkmalsweihe ("Ceremony at the Monument", 1923)
  • Der tolle Professor: Roman aus der Bismarckzeit ("The Mad Professor: a Novel of the Bismarck Years", 1926; translated by Isabel Leighton in 1929)
  • Der Hasenfellhändler ("The Trader of Hareskins", 1927)
  • Die Frau des Steffen Tromholt ("The Wife of Steffen Tromholt", 1927)
  • Purzelchen (1928)

External links

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