Heidi Urban de Jauregui

Heidi Urbahn de Jauregui (born 1940 in Remscheid) is an emeritus Professor of German Literature at the Jean Monnet University, France, and essayist.

Life

Heidi Urbahn de Jauregui comes from a entrepreneurial family in Remscheid. After the basic studies (Philosophy, History, German) in Cologne, she moved to West Berlin. After a medical condition ended her studies and following her recuperation, she could "fulfill her desire to leave Adenauer Germany, something she had wished to do for some time."

She continued her studies in French Literature and German studies in Paris and concluded her Licence (French academic grade) at the Faculté de Lettres of the University of Montpellier.

It was not her possibility to take her necessary Agrégation ( a require competitive exam in France) for a University teaching commission since the French authorities refused naturalization her in spite of the fulfilling of the formal admission criteria. Reason were her research conditions close contact with authors in East Germany.

That is why she went to the University of Lyon in order to finish a dissertation on the poet Peter Hacks there and attain a doctorate.

She then received the naturalization and took the Agrégation.

After the tenure, an academic position would continually be refused to her. In particular one distrusted her argument, Peter Hacks was no East German dissident but a Utopian socialist with whom the East Germans did not entirely agree and support. Finally, she received a position as Maître de conférences at the Jean Monnet University.

Today she lives in Montpellier together with her husband the Spanish Biochemist Jaun de Jauregui-Adell, who researchs in Montpillier at the CNRS.

Work

Heidi Urbahn de Jauregui works mainly on essays. She has the reputation of a well known expert of Germans and in particular Literature of East Germany. She never stopped herself in her publications to academic rules. Her main interests allowed the classic of German literature, in particular Goethe, Thomas Mann, Heinrich Heine and Bertolt Brecht.

She received the Heinrich Mann Prize of the Academy of the Art in East Berlin in 1986.

Friendship with Peter Hacks

De Jauregui saw in the East German dramatist Peter Hacks the legitimate foundations of the German classics and the descendant of Goethe, Hegel and Heine. She devoted her dissertation and many essays to his creative activity. From 1975 on, she personally visited him regularly and nursed a continual correspondence until Hack's death in 2003.

Works on Heinrich Heine

A significant part of Heidi Urbahn de Jauregui's essays deal with Heinrich Heine's works. She presented the first comprehensive biography of Elise Krinitz, who was the Heine's last mistress, at the end of 2007 called "die Mouche."

Publications

Heidi Urbahn de Jauregui: Zwischen den Stühlen : der Dichter Peter Hacks. (Between the Chair: the Poet Peter Hacks) Eulenspiegel-Verlag, Berlin 2006, [Special:ISBN Search/3359016572] Heidi Urbahn de Jauregui: [http://www.peter-hacks.de/downloads/hujsteintext.htm Charlotte und Goethe - a Monolog] (German: Charlotte and Goethe - a Monologue) In: neue deutsche literatur (New German Literature) 3/1998, Nr. 46, pp 144-153 (Essay of Heidi Urbahn de Jauregui to a piece by Peter Hacks)

External links

* [http://dispatch.opac.d-nb.de/DB=4.1/REL?PPN=132136651 Literature on and by Heidi Urbahn de Jauregui] in the Catalog of the German National Library (German)
* [http://peter-hacks.de/enzyklopaedie/index.php?title=Heidi_Urbahn_de_Jauregui Hacks-Encyclopedia] (German)
* [http://toposzeitschrift.de/24_urbahn.htm Heidi Urbahn de Jauregui: Tocqueville - the Gentleman and the new Time] (German)
* [http://www.peter-hacks.de/downloads/heidiurbahndejaureguihacksessy2006.htm Heidi Urbahn de Jauregui: Peter Hacks and die Wende] (German)