Hermann Burger (10 July 1942 – 28 February 1989), was a
Swiss poet
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wri ...
,
novelist
A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others asp ...
and
essayist
An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal ...
. In his creative works Burger often focused on society's lonely outsiders and, increasingly, the inevitability of death. His virtuosity in applying literary styles and use of thorough
research
Research is " creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness ...
are significant features of many of his publications.
Life
Hermann Burger was born in 1942 in
Menziken
Menziken is a municipality in the district of Kulm in the canton of Aargau in Switzerland. On 1 January 2023 the former municipality of Burg merged to form the municipality of Menziken.
History
Menziken is first mentioned in 1045 as ''Manzincho ...
, Canton of
Aargau; his father worked for an insurance company. He enrolled at the
ETH Zurich in 1962 and began studying architecture, but switched to German literature and art history in 1964. The publication of the poetry collection "
Rauchsignale" ("Smoke Signals") in 1967 marked the beginning of his literary career, followed by the prose collection ''
Bork'' in 1970. For the next couple of years Burger focused on his career in literary studies, writing his
thesis
A thesis ( : theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144: ...
on
Paul Celan and his
habilitation treatise on contemporary
Swiss literature. He taught at universities in
Zurich,
Bern and
Fribourg
, neighboring_municipalities= Düdingen, Givisiez, Granges-Paccot, Marly, Pierrafortscha, Sankt Ursen, Tafers, Villars-sur-Glâne
, twintowns = Rueil-Malmaison (France)
, website = www.ville-fribourg.ch
, Location of , Location of ()
() ...
and worked as a literary editor for the
Aargauer Tagblatt. His academic experience is reflected in the loosely autobiographical novel "
Die künstliche Mutter" ("The Artificial Mother") which won him the
Conrad-Ferdinand-Meyer-Preis
The Conrad-Ferdinand-Meyer-Preis is a literary award in memory of Conrad Ferdinand Meyer.
The prize is given annually to up to three recipients by the ''Conrad Ferdinand Meyer-Stiftung'' in Zurich.
Laureates
*1938 Max Frisch
*1939 Franz Fisch ...
in 1980. It was dedicated to his wife and its first edition has the dedication ''„Für Anne Marie“''.
Burger's first major novel "
Schilten. Schulbericht zuhanden der Inspektorenkonferenz" ("Schilten. School Report for the Attention of the Inspectors' Conference") was published in 1976 and made into a movie by Swiss film director Beat Kuert in 1979. It is about a teacher who has to tell the conference of inspectors about the development of his pupils, but speaks about death cult, graveyards and burials in a very detailed way. Archetypes of this novels are
Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It ...
and
Thomas Bernhard
Nicolaas Thomas Bernhard (; 9 February 1931 – 12 February 1989) was an Austrian novelist, playwright and poet who explored death, social injustice, and human misery in controversial literature that was deeply pessimistic about modern civilizat ...
. Burger mixes reality and fiction, and the more one reads about him, the more one finds out, that Burger writes about himself, his own suffering.
He won the
Ingeborg Bachmann Prize
The Festival of German-Language Literature (german: Tage der deutschsprachigen Literatur, links=no) is a literary event which takes place annually in Klagenfurt, Austria. During this major literary festival which lasts for several days a number of ...
in 1985 for his story "
Die Wasserfallfinsternis von Badgastein" ("The Waterfall-Eclipse of Badgastein"). 1988, a changing of publishers from
S. Fischer to
Suhrkamp
Suhrkamp Verlag is a German publishing house, established in 1950 and generally acknowledged as one of the leading European publishers of fine literature. Its roots go back to the "arianized" part of the S. Fischer Verlag.
In January 2010 the ...
took place in a spectacular way.
The novel ''Brenner'' (in two volumes, four were planned), shows a protagonist wrapped in cigar smoke, who tells his life - Burger himself was a cigar smoker and descendant of cigar producers. Volume 1 has 25 chapters, like a cigar box contains 25 cigars. Each chapter's name contains the name of a famous cigar brand. The second chapter announces the author's suicide intention: a red Ferrari is bought, because saving money no longer makes sense. It is about the divorce and the grief about having no contact to his two kids. Burger's last lessor was emeritus historian
Jean Rudolf von Salis
Jean Rudolf von Salis was a Swiss historian who gained prominence with his weekly "Weltchronik" (English: ''world chronicle'') radio broadcasts from 1940 until 1947. Article also available in French and Italian.
As von Salis never wrote English p ...
(= „Jérôme von Castelmur-Bondo“ in the novel). The last months of Burger's life and a review on his 46 years are described detailed in this
roman a clef, he describes all coining persons.
Burger's depressive and desperate moods grew with his literary acclaim, leading him to write the "
Tractatus logico-suicidalis" (1988), a collection of
aphorism
An aphorism (from Greek ἀφορισμός: ''aphorismos'', denoting 'delimitation', 'distinction', and 'definition') is a concise, terse, laconic, or memorable expression of a general truth or principle. Aphorisms are often handed down by ...
s advocating
suicide. The 1046 aphorisms are about the sentence ''„Gegeben ist der Tod, bitte finden Sie die Lebensursache heraus.“'' (Death is given, please find the cause of life.) The title remembers
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He is con ...
's ''
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
The ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'' (widely abbreviated and cited as TLP) is a book-length philosophical work by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein which deals with the relationship between language and reality and aims to define th ...
''. The book about suicide was viewed by the critics with sarcasm, and the seriousness of his suicide plans were not recognized. On 28 February 1989 he committed suicide in
Brunegg
Brunegg is a municipality in the district of Lenzburg in the canton of Aargau in Switzerland.
History
Brunegg is first mentioned in first half of the 12th century as ''Bruneco''. In 1273 it was mentioned as ''Brunegge''. Brunegg castle was bu ...
by taking an overdose of sleeping pills. Not until Burger's death did the critics see similarities to
Jean Améry and his book ''Hand an sich legen'' (that Burger knew).
Burger's early promoter
Marcel Reich-Ranicki
Marcel Reich-Ranicki (; 2 June 1920 – 18 September 2013) was a Polish-born German literary critic and member of the informal literary association Gruppe 47. He was regarded as one of the most influential contemporary literary critics in the fi ...
, literature critic, wrote on 3 March 1989, few days after his death, in an obituary:
Hermann Burger was an artist who gave everything of himself, never held back. He was a man with a great longing for happiness. German literature has lost one of its most inventive literary artists.
His work—mainly prose—was coined by very precise investigation. He e.g. has sworn the magic oath because he wanted to write about a magician (in ''Diabelli''). The oath created a fascinating new challenge for him: Describing Diabelli's tricks without breaking the oath.
Burger was very faithful in linguistic matters, too. When he was young and wanted to build his style of writing, he did copy passages out of literature (e.g. by
Thomas Mann
Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novell ...
) and filled their syntax with new content. The protagonists of his novels and narrations try to describe the situation of their lives in a way that is linguistically virtuosic and in love with details. Those protagonists mostly are diseased and the receiver of their texts is very often a higher authority, e.g. the „Inspektorenkonferenz“ (inspector's conference) in "Schilten" (1976).
Hermann Burger's literary estate is archived in the
Swiss Literary Archives in Bern.
List of works
*''
Rauchsignale'' (1967) poems
*''
Bork'' (1970) prose pieces
*''
Schilten. Schulberichtzuhanden der Inspektorenkonferenz'' (1976) monologue
*''
Diabelli
Anton (or Antonio) Diabelli (5 September 17818 April 1858) was an Austrian music publisher, editor and composer. Best known in his time as a publisher, he is most familiar today as the composer of the waltz on which Ludwig van Beethoven wrote ...
'' (1979) stories
*''
Kirchberger idyllen'' (1980) poems
*''
Die Künstliche Mutter'' (1982) novel
*''
Ein Mann aus Wörtern'' (1983)
*''
Die allmähliche Verfertigung der Idee beim Schreiben'' (1986)
*''Blankenburg'' (1986) stories
*''
Als Autor auf der Stör'' (1987)
*''
Der Schuss auf die Kanzel. Eine Erzählung'' (1988)
*''
Tractatus logico-suicidalis. Über die Selbsttötung'' (1988)
*''
Brenner'' (volume 1 published in 1989; volume 2 published posthumously in 1992; English translation, by Adrian Nathan West, published by Archipelago Books in 2022)
Awards
* 1977 - Award of the
Schweizerische Schillerstiftung for ''Schilten''
* 1980 -
Conrad Ferdinand Meyer
Conrad Ferdinand Meyer (11 October 1825 – 28 November 1898) was a Swiss poet and historical novelist, a master of literary realism who is mainly remembered for stirring narrative ballads like "Die Füße im Feuer" (The Feet in the Fire).
Biog ...
-Award
* 1983 -
Friedrich Hölderlin
Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin (, ; ; 20 March 1770 – 7 June 1843) was a German poet and philosopher. Described by Norbert von Hellingrath as "the most German of Germans", Hölderlin was a key figure of German Romanticism. Part ...
-Award of Bad Homburg for ''Die künstliche Mutter''
* 1984 - Aargau Literature Award
* 1985 -
Ingeborg Bachmann
Ingeborg Bachmann (25 June 1926 – 17 October 1973) was an Austrian poet and author.
Biography
Bachmann was born in Klagenfurt, in the Austrian state of Carinthia, the daughter of Olga (née Haas) and Matthias Bachmann, a schoolteacher. Her f ...
-Award for ''Die Wasserfallfinsternis von Badgastein, ein Hydrotestament in fünf Sätzen'' (in: ''Blankenburg'')
* 1986 - Work order of the Stiftung ''
Pro Helvetia
The foundation Pro Helvetia is a public foundation of Switzerland.
Presidents
*From 1939 to 1943, Heinrich Häberlin.
*From 1944 to 1952, Paul Lachenal.
*From 1952 to 1964, Jean-Rodolphe de Salis.
*From 1965 to 1970, Michael Stettler.
*From 19 ...
''
* 1988 - "Gesamtwerkspreis" of the
Schweizerische Schillerstiftung
References
External links
*
*
Profile Burger Hermann
* http://hermann_burger.know-library.net/
* https://web.archive.org/web/20060803050834/http://www.svbbpt.ch/Literatur/deutsch/treschT12.htm
{{DEFAULTSORT:Burger, Hermann
1942 births
1989 deaths
People from Kulm District
Swiss poets in German
Ingeborg Bachmann Prize winners
Swiss male poets
20th-century Swiss poets
20th-century male writers
1989 suicides