Ernst Raupach

Ernst Benjamin Salomo Raupach ( born May 21, 1784 in Straupitz at Liegnitz; † March 18, 1852 in Berlin) was a German writer.

Life

Ernst Raupach was the son of the preacher Johann Christoph Raupach († 1794). With 17 years Raupach began to study in the summer of 1801 aesthetics, history, mathematics and theology at the University of Halle. He finished this study in the fall of 1803 and was held in great- Wirsewitz at Liegnitz a job as a tutor.

1806 Raupach went to his older brother, Johann Friedrich, who for several years has also served as a tutor in Russia. Through its support Raupach soon found a job in the household of the Minister Nowossitzoff in St. Petersburg. 1814, Raupach lecturer in German language and history at the University of St. Petersburg and two years later he was promoted to full professor there.

In the same year married Raupach in St. Petersburg, the Swiss Cecilia of Wildermeth, but died the following year on puerperal fever. In 1817 he was entrusted with a professorship of history and he held this office until June 1822. Then he made ​​an extensive study trip to and through Italy and only returned in the spring of 1823 returned to Russia. His experiences and impressions about this trip Raupach published under the pseudonym " millet Menzel ". Later, the writer Karl Leberecht Immermann used this name in his Munchausen, in order to parody Raupach.

In August of the same year (1823 ) put Raupach all his offices. For a short time he was in Weimar, but could be 1824 forever settled in Berlin. Through his good contacts to the yard in Russia, he graduated in Weimar and friendship with the Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna and her daughter Augusta. And he soon found access to the circles of the author Johanna Schopenhauer.

1820 took place the premiere of Raupach's play The Prince Chawansky with great success. The audience was enthusiastic and Ernst August Friedrich Klingemann saw in his criticism Raupach as legitimate successors of Schiller. Due to this success, but also by his good contacts to the court Raupach was asked to write a libretto for Agnes von Hohenstaufen (Music Gaspare Spontini ). This opera was first performed at the wedding of Princess Marie Louise of Saxe-Weimar -Eisenach with Prince Carl of Prussia on May 18, 1827.

Began in 1830 with the world premiere of Henry's death the 16-car Hohenstaufen cycle, with whom he wanted to establish a National Theatre. In the same year had Raupach's social drama The miller and his child premiere at Vienna's Burgtheater and was so successful that it annually (usually to All Saints' Day ) was to the 20th century in many theaters on the game board.

Due to his success on the stage, Raupach was able to negotiate with the general director of the royal spectacles Karl Graf von Brühl, and later with his successor, Count Friedrich Wilhelm von Rederns financial corrections of its contracts. Also successful were Raupach negotiations with Theodore of Küstner; later took Küstner among others as an opportunity to introduce royalties. As of 1846, King Friedrich Wilhelm IV Raupach this sum to pay off as a royal honorarium.

A special feature of Raupachschen stage plays was that he did not treat his subjects as completed in a single piece, but that he was about to go into details other pieces by the familiar recorded in new pieces from older pieces again. Above all, he created some standing figures, which occurred repeatedly under slightly altered form. So his " Till " and his village barber " clamp " found in many pieces " in all sorts of disguises, in ever new situations and with new jokes in the mouth ".

On May 12, 1848 in Berlin Raupach married the actress Amalie Pauline Werner.

Five weeks before his 68th birthday died Ernst Raupach on 18 March 1852 respiratory and lung paralysis and was buried in the Trinity Cemetery I in Berlin- Kreuzberg in field 2. The writer Ludwig Rellstab wrote on March 26, 1852 in the Allgemeine Zeitung an obituary Raupach, which states:

The Berlin- Brandenburg Academy of Sciences manages his estate today.

Reception

In his earliest pieces, such as The Earth Night, Isidor and Olga or The Prince Chawansky saw the official theater criticism Raupach as successor Friedrich Schiller. However, it was held no further, but was given for the best -known time and again in variations.

From his huge work has ultimately survived everything; only his 16 -part cycle, the Hohenstaufen, up to Conradin reaching tragedy of Barbarossa series and the piece of the miller and his child are still occasionally in conversation. Walter Friedemann's film version of The Miller and his child is the earliest surviving Austrian film.

Many of his plays are liberal adaptations of works of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Friedrich Schiller, various Spanish dramatists and others. Even his comedies, from the classic conversation piece up to the Posse and anecdote, Raupach found exactly the taste of the audience. His success as The Zeitgeist, The Smugglers or The Sealed mayor prove his sense of dry wit, humor and especially for situation comedy. Raupach helped himself again and again the parody and satire, which he sometimes exaggerated, but could use more effective and amusing. Heinz Riihmann describes in his autobiography, " That's it " - his first appearance around 1917 - on a stage with " The miller and his child ": " .. In the last act in the cemetery, I joined as a ghost .. "

The contemporary critics, including Carl Leberecht Immermann and Friedrich Hebbel, was partially rather rudely with Raupach order: the former called him again and again as sad caterpillar; the latter covered by a public in - alcohol - set Hohenstaufenstraße tapeworms. Pugnacious as he was, Raupach was not but according to his colleagues. The young Germany, he refused vehemently; Karl Gutzkow, Heinrich Laube but also Prutz he spoke from any skill. He also called for in the last years of his life again and again a theater reform through the establishment of a royal private theater, for its game plan he recommended himself warmly.

Honors

• Red Eagle Order, III. class
• House Order of the White Falcon, a Grand Ducal Saxon Merit

Works (selection)

• The royalists
• Cromwell's end
• Mirabeau '
• Timoleon
• The miller and his child
• Lebrecht millet Menzel, a German schoolmaster, letters from and about Italy. Publisher Cnobloch, Leipzig 1823.
• Dramatic works of comic genre. Hoffmann & Campe, Hamburg 1828-35.

• Dramatic works of serious genre. Hoffmann & Campe, Hamburg 1830-1843. (16 vols )
• A hundred years ago, or: The Old Dessauer and the Vice-Rector Langer. Great comic character painting of the last century in four divisions. about 1839.

Films

The film The miller and his child is regarded as the oldest complete movie in Austria.