Heinrich Laube

Laube, Heinrich 

Born Sept. 18, 1806, in Sprottau (Szprotawa); died Aug. 1, 1884, in Vienna. German writer, playwright, and theater figure. Son of a stonemason.

Laube studied theology and literature at the universities of Halle and Breslau (1826–30). He belonged to the Young Germany group and corresponded with H. Heine. His opposition to the status quo led to imprisonment in 1834 and 1837. Laube’s series of novels Young Europe (1833–38), written under the influence of the Revolution of July 1830 in France and the Polish Uprising of 1830–31, depicted enslaved Poland, torn apart by social and national conflicts.

Laube’s play Pupils of the Karlsschule (1847) is about Schiller at the time he was creating The Robbers and rebelling against tyranny. Laube attempted to create realistic characters in the drama Count Essex (1856). He wrote about the theater in Letters on the German Theater (1846–47), Burgtheater (1868), and The Viennese Stadttheater (1875). As a theater director and artistic manager, Laube greatly influenced the development of realistic traditions in the Austrian and German theater.

WORKS

Gesammelte Werke, vols. 1–50. Edited by H. Houben. Leipzig, 1908–10.
Schriftenüber Theater. Edited by E. Stahl-Wisten. Berlin, 1959.
In Russian translation:
Grafinia Shatobrian. St. Petersburg, 1881.
Liubov’ i korona. St. Petersburg, 1901.

REFERENCES

Marx, K., and F. Engels. Ob iskusstve, vol. 2. Moscow, 1967. Pages 146, 433, 505.
Dietze, W. Junges Deutschland und deutsche Klassik, 2nd ed. Berlin, 1958.
Zobel, G. H. Laubes Dramaturgie des Architekturstücks. Cologne, 1967. (Bibliography pages 208–16.)

E. IA. RUBINOVA