Ferdinand Avenarius

Ferdinand Avenarius (20 December 1856, in Berlin – 22 September 1923, in Kampen) was a German lyric poet, a leading representative of the culture reform movement of his time and the first popularizer of Sylt. [1]

Ferdinand Avenarius
Born20 December 1856 
Berlin 
Died22 September 1923  (aged 66)

Life

Avenarius was born in Berlin. His father, Eduard Avenarius, a publisher from Leipzig, founded a joint subsidiary company with the Brockhaus publishing house. His mother, Cäcilie née Geyer, was a daughter of the actor and painter Ludwig Geyer. Eduard Avenarius represented the company in Paris, where he consorted with Heinrich Heine and Richard Wagner, the latter being the step-uncle of Ferdinand Avenarius and his brother, the philosopher Richard Avenarius.[2] However, there are speculations in science that Ludwig Geyer was not only the stepfather but the biological father of Wagner too.[3]

Ferdinand Avenarius attended schools in Berlin and Dresden and studied in Leipzig and Zurich medicine, natural sciences, art and literature history as well as philosophy. He returned to Dresden in 1882, where he founded the magazine Der Kunstwart, the leading publication channel of the German culture reform movement, which was dedicated to aesthetic education as well as to love to culture and nature. Avenarius married Else Doehn divorced Schumann. His father-in-law, Dr. Rudolf Doehn, was a German writer and an American representative in Missouri. In 1895, Schilling & Graebner built a first villa for Avenarius in Blasewitz, where he lived with his wife and his step-son Wolfgang Schumann.

In 1902 Avenarius founded together with art historian Paul Schumann the Dürerbund, named after Albrecht Dürer, which became the leading culture organization in the German Empire, Austria and Switzerland. Avenarius was member of Deutscher Werkbund and belonged to the directorate of the German garden city movement. From 1903, Avenarius spent the summer months on Sylt, which he made popular.[4] Kampen made him its first honorary citizen and the University of Heidelberg appointed him honorary doctor.[5]

Avenarius became especially known as editor and publisher. In 1902 he published a very successful anthology of German poetry: Hausbuch Deutscher Lyrik. He supported young authors like Hermann Häfker and painters, but fought heavily against all appearances of "low taste" or "little value", as he ranked e. g. the work by Karl May.[6] This controversy lasted many years.

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References
  1. Garland, Henry; Garland, Mary (1997), "Avenarius, Ferdinand", The Oxford Companion to German Literature, Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acref/9780198158967.001.0001, ISBN 9780198158967, retrieved 2019-04-09
  2. Kunstwart und Dürerbund. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Gebildeten im Zeitalter des Imperialismus. Vandenhoeck u. Ruprecht, Göttingen 1969. ISBN 3-525-36125-4.
  3. "Wagner's Name Geyer" in der New York Times
  4. Eva Missler, Matthias Wieland. Sylt, Amrum, Föhr. Ausgabe 4, Baedeker. 2005.
  5. Paul Fechter (1953), "Avenarius, Ferdinand Ernst Albert", Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB) (in German), 1, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 466–467
  6. Karl-May-Wiki

Biographies

Bibliographies

Further reading
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