Ödön von Horváth

Ödön von Horváth in 1919

Edmund Josef von Horváth (December 9, 1901 Sušak, Rijeka, then in Austria–Hungary, now in Croatia - June 1, 1938 Paris) was a German-writing Austro-Hungarian-born playwright and novelist. He preferred the Hungarian version of his first name and published as Ödön von Horváth.

Early life and education

Horváth was the oldest son of the Austro-Hungarian diplomat of Hungarian origin from Slavonia. Dr. Edmund (Ödön) Josef Horvát and Maria Lulu Hermine (Prehnal) Horvát, who was from an Austro-Hungarian military family.

From 1908 he attended elementary school in Budapest and later the Rákóczianum, where he was educated in Hungarian. In 1909, his father was ennobled (indicated in German by the preposition "von", and in Hungarian by an additional "h" at the end of the last name) and assigned to Munich, but Ödön and his mother did not accompany him. The young Horváth went to high school in Bratislava and Vienna, where he was taught German - this not being his native tongue - beginning in 1913, and where he also earned his Matura (high school diploma), before finally re-joining his parents at Munich (more precisely at Murnau am Staffelsee, near Munich), where, from 1919, he studied at the Ludwig Maximilians University.

Later life

He started writing as a student, from 1920. Quitting university without a degree in early 1922, he moved to Berlin. Later, he lived in Salzburg and Murnau am Staffelsee in Upper Bavaria. In 1931, he was awarded, along with Erik Reger, the Kleist Prize. In 1933, at the beginning of the Nazi regime in Germany, he relocated to Vienna.

Following Austria's Anschluss with Germany in 1938, Horváth emigrated to Paris. Having always lived in fear of being struck by lightning, in Paris Horváth was hit by a falling branch and killed during a thunderstorm on the Champs-Élysées, opposite the Théâtre Marigny. Ödön von Horváth was buried in Saint-Ouen cemetery in northern Paris. In 1988, on the 50th anniversary of his death, his remains were transferred to Vienna and reinterred at the Heiligenstädter Friedhof.

Ödön von Horváth's family tombstone in Vienna

Important topics in Horváth's works were popular culture, politics and history. He especially tried to warn of the dawn of fascism and its dangers. Among Horváth's most enduringly popular works, Jugend ohne Gott describes the youth in Nazi Germany from a disgruntled teacher's point of view, who, himself at first an opportunist, is helpless against the racist and militaristic Nazi propaganda that his pupils are subjected to and that de-humanizes them and, at last, loses his job but gains his identity.

The title of his novel Ein Kind unserer Zeit (A Child of Our Time) was used in English by Michael Tippett for his oratorio (1939–1941), composed during World War II.

Works

Plays

• Das Buch der Tänze, 1920
• Mord in der Mohrengasse, 1923
• Zur schönen Aussicht, 1926
• Die Bergbahn, 1926, originally Revolte auf Côte 3018
• Sladek der schwarze Reichswehrmann, 1929, originally Sladek oder Die schwarze Armee (Sladek in volume Plays One, translation by Penny Black, Oberon, 2000, ISBN 1-84002-133-0)
• Rund um den Kongreß, 1929 (A Sexual Congress in volume Plays One, translation by Penny Black, Oberon, 2000, ISBN 1-84002-133-0)
• Italienische Nacht, 1930 (Italian Night in volume Plays Two, Oberon, 2000, ISBN 1-84002-152-7)
• Geschichten aus dem Wiener Wald (Tales from the Vienna Wood), 1931, winner of the Kleist Prize the same year ; available as well in volume Plays Two, Oberon, 2000, ISBN 1-84002-152-7)
• Glaube, Liebe, Hoffnung, 1932 (Faith, Hope, and Charity in volume Four Plays, PAJ Publications, 1986, ISBN 1-55554-002-3)
• Kasimir und Karoline, 1932 (Kasimir and Karoline in volume Four Plays, PAJ Publications, 1986, ISBN 1-55554-002-3)
• Die Unbekannte aus der Seine, 1933
• Hin und her, 1934
• Don Juan kommt aus dem Krieg, 1936 (Don Juan Comes Back From the War, Faber & Faber, 1978, ISBN 0-571-11301-X)
• Figaro läßt sich scheiden, 1936 (Giselher Klebe wrote the libretto and composed his 1963 opera of the same name based on this work) (Figaro Gets a Divorce in volume Four Plays, PAJ Publications, 1986, ISBN 1-55554-002-3)
• Pompeji. Komödie eines Erdbebens, 1937
• Ein Dorf ohne Männer, 1937
• Himmelwärts, 1937
• Der jüngste Tag, 1937 (Giselher Klebe composed his 1980 opera of the same name based on this work; Lore Klebe wrote the libretto) (Judgement Day in volume Four Plays, PAJ Publications, 1986, ISBN 1-55554-002-3)

Novels

• Der ewige Spießer, 1930 (The Eternal Philistine, 2011)
• Jugend ohne Gott, 1938 (The Age of the Fish, 1939)
• Ein Kind unserer Zeit, 1938 (A Child of Our Time, 1939)

Other prose

• Sportmärchen, 1924–1926
• Interview, 1932
• Gebrauchsanweisung, 1932

Quotes

• "Nothing conveys the feeling of infinity as much as stupidity does." (Motto of Geschichten aus dem Wienerwald)
• "Eigentlich bin ich ganz anders, nur komme ich so selten dazu."
• Ödön von Horváth was once walking in the Bavarian Alps when he discovered the skeleton of a long dead man with his knapsack still intact. Von Horváth opened the knapsack and found a postcard reading "Having a wonderful time". Asked by friends what he did with it, von Horváth replied "I posted it".
• "If you ask me what is my native country, I answer: I was born in Fiume, grew up in Belgrade, Budapest, Pressburg [Bratislava], Vienna and Munich, and I have a Hungarian passport, but I have no fatherland. I am a very typical mix of old Austria–Hungary: at once Magyar, Croatian, German and Czech; my country is Hungary; my mother tongue is German."

In popular culture

• Christopher Hampton's play Tales from Hollywood (1984, adapted for television in 1992) portrays a fictional Horváth. He survives the falling branch and moves to the United States, where expatriate German authors such as Bertolt Brecht and Thomas Mann write for the motion picture industry.

References

Bibliography

Balme, Christopher B., The Reformation of Comedy Genre Critique in the Comedies of Odon von Horvath University of Otago, Dunedin 1985 ISBN 0959765026

Persondata
Name	Horvath, Odon Von
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	December 9, 1901
Place of birth
Date of death	June 1, 1938
Place of death