Joseph Viktor Widmann

Widmann, Joseph Viktor 

Born Feb. 20, 1842, in Nennowitz (Moravia); died Nov. 6, 1911, in Bern. Swiss writer; wrote in German.

The son of a pastor, Widmann broke with religion. He sympathized with the Revolution of 1905-07 in Russia and protested against the tsarist government’s incarceration of Maxim Gorky in the Peter and Paul Fortress in January 1905. His first collection, Verses of Youth, appeared in 1862. Wid-mann was the author of the dramas Erasmus of Rotterdam (1865) and The Queen of the East (1878) and of the novels The Editor (1884; Russian translation, 1888) and The Patrician Lady (1888). He also wrote the anti-Nietzschean play Beyond Good and Evil (1893) and the play May Beetle Comedy (1897), as well as the narrative poem The Saint and the Animals (1905). In his collection of lyric poetry Poems (1912), Widmann celebrates life, love, and nature.

WORKS

Touristennovellen, 2nd ed. Stuttgart-Berlin [1911].
Gedichte. Frauenfeld, 1912.
Ausgewählte Feuilletons. Frauenfeld, 1913.

REFERENCES

Widmann, E., and M. Widmann. J. V. Widmann, vols. 1-2. Frauenfeld, 1922-24.
Strasser, C. J. V. Widmann: Der Dichter und Kulturerzieher des Volkes. Zurich [1942].

N. B. VESELOVSKAIA