Kotzebue, August Friedrich Ferdinand von

Kotzebue, August Friedrich Ferdinand von 

Born May 3, 1761, in Weimar; died Mar. 23, 1819, in Mannheim. German writer.

Kotzebue wrote novels, stories, and an enormous number of dramas written for the taste of the German petite bourgeoisie. F. Engels, in a passing reference to Kotzebue’s tragedy The Stranger (1789), noted its inherent tone of “whining descriptions of the misfortunes of the German petite bourgeoisie” (K. Marx and F. Engls, Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 3, p. 577). Kotzebue, a reactionary and an agent of the Holy Alliance, was murdered by the student K. Sand.

WORKS

Theater, vols. 1–40. Leipzig, 1840–41.
Ausgewählte prosaische Schriften, vols. 1–45. Vienna, 1842–43.
In Russian translation:
Teatr A. fon Kotsebu: Sb. p’es, 2nd ed., parts 1–12. Moscow, 1824.

REFERENCES

Jäckh, E. Studien zu Kotzebue’s Lustspieltechnik. Stuttgart, 1900. (Dissertation.)