Published: 27 December 2020

Born in Königsberg in 1938.
Dr. phil. (PhD) 1968 at Kiel University, 1968-1973‚'Lektor‘ of German Language and Literature at London and Helsinki Universities, 1973-2002 Akademischer Rat/Direktor and Professor for Modern German Literature, Habilitation 1988.
Publications: Das Spiegelmotiv bei Clemens Brentano. Studie zum romantischen Ich-Bewußtsein, (Mirror Motifs in the Work of C.B.. A Study in Romantic Self-Awareness) Frankfurt/M. 1972; Brecht in Finnland. Studien zu Leben und Werk 1940-1941, Frankfurt/M 2007.
Editor of Eino Leino (Outlines of Finnish Literature, Slg Trajekt 1980); J. V. Snellman (Journey through Germany 1840-1841, Slg Trajekt 1984); Wuolijoki/Brecht: Das Estnische Kriegslied, Slg Trajekt 1984; Brecht: Herr Puntila und sein Knecht Matti (Materialien, edition suhrkamp 1987); Yamamoto Yuzo/ Bertolt Brecht u.a.: Die Judith von Shimoda. Rekonstruktion einer Spielfassung, edition suhrkamp 2006; Regensburger Skripten zur Literaturwissenschaft (27 vols and 5 reprints, 1996-2006).
Editorial board of and contributions to the almanac Trajekt, 1981-1986 edited by Manfred Peter Hein.
Articles and contributions on the Anecdote as literary genre, on an episode in Philip Sidney's „Arcadia“ and its impact on Cervantes, Wieland, Fontane and others, on Bürger and Lichtenberg, on Romanticism, on Hoffmann von Fallersleben, Alfons Paquet, Arnold Zweig, Bertolt Brecht (frequently), on Brecht-Wuolijoki, Brecht-Benjamin, Brecht-Bacon, on M.-L. Fleißer etc.

Published: 05 December 2020

Haufe was born in Dresden in 1931 and died in Weimar in 2013. He studied German philology, history and art history in Leipzig, was assistant to H. A. Korff and Hans Mayer and was expelled in 1958 for "political inappropriateness". He became a contributor to the Schiller National Edition, met Johannes Bobrowski, whose complete works he edited and commented on.
During and after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Haufe was politically active, becoming a member of the Weimar City Council in 1990 and its first vice-president, until he retired in 1993 after yet another stroke.
In 1992 Haufe was politically rehabilitated as a professor at Leipzig University, which once had expelled him.
The philosopher Manfred Riedel later said that for Haufe, leaving the GDR was never “up for discussion”, instead he was among those who kept up the tradition of intellectual Germany and remained.

His publication Schriften zur deutschen Literatur (Edited by Heinz Härtl and Gerhard R. Kaiser with the assistance of Ursula Härtl) was published at Wallstein of Göttingen, 2011.

His editional works include:

Johannes Bobrowski, Gesammelte Werke in sechs Bänden (1998-99)

Wilhelm von Humboldt. Aus den Briefen und Werken gesammelt von Eberhard Haufe, Weimar: Kiepenheuer 1963

Carl Gustav Jochmann: Die unzeitige Wahrheit. Aphorismen, Glossen und der Essay "Über die Öffentlichkeit". Weimar: Kiepenheuer 1976 

Deutsche Mariendichtung aus neun Jahrhunderten. Berlin: Union Verlag 1960

Wir vergehn wie Rauch von starken Winden. Deutsche Gedichte des 17. Jahrhunderts. 2 Bände. Berlin: Rütten & Loening / München: Beck 1985

Published: 26 November 2020

Published: 18 October 2020

Daniel Zwick, born 1980 in Hamburg, Germany, studied maritime archaeology at the University of Southampton (M.A.) and specialised further on medieval seafaring at the University of Kiel (Ph.D.) as part of a doctoral project in collaboration with the University of Southern Denmark and the Viking Ship Museum Roskilde.

He has worked in the rescue archaeology sector in Ireland, the United Kingdom and Germany, and participated in several archaeological research projects on land and under water all over Europe, from Iceland to Cyprus. Since 2016 he carries out research on three shipwrecks from the 17th and 18th centuries recently discovered in the North Frisian Wadden Sea.

Aside from his maritime-focussed archaeological career, he is also an ardent sailor of traditional clinker-built boats, which he sails in the fjords and archipelagoes of the Baltic Sea.

Published: 10 August 2020

In her second marriage (1917) with Johannes Öhquist, professor at Helsinki University, later cultural attaché at the Finnish Embassy in Berlin, she learnt both languages and translated prose works by among others Aleksis Kivi, Nobel prize winner Frans Eemil Sillanpää, Aino Kallas and Zacharias Topelius, but even children’s books and doctoral theses.

Published: 21 July 2020

Adam Olearius (born Adam Ölschläger, 1599 – 1671), was a German scholar, mathematician, geographer and librarian. He became secretary to the ambassador sent by Frederick III, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, to the Shah of Safavid Persia, and published two books about the events and observations during his travels.

He was born at Aschersleben, near Magdeburg. After studying at Leipzig he became librarian and court mathematician to Frederick III, and in 1633 he was appointed secretary to the ambassadors Philipp Crusius, jurisconsult, and Otto Bruggemann, a merchant from Hamburg, sent by the duke to Muscovy and Persia in the hope of making arrangements by which his newly founded city of Friedrichstadt should become the terminus of an overland silk-trade. This embassy started from Gottorp on 22 October 1633 and travelled by Hamburg, Lübeck, Riga, Dorpat (five months' stay), Reval, Narva, Ladoga, and Novgorod to Moscow (14 August 1634). Here they concluded an advantageous treaty with Tsar Michael of Russia, and returned forthwith to Gottorp (14 December 1634 – 7 April 1635) to procure the ratification of this arrangement from the duke, before proceeding to Persia.

With this accomplished, they started afresh from Hamburg on 22 October 1635, arrived at Moscow on 29 March 1636; and left Moscow on 30 June for Balakhna near Nizhniy Novgorod, to where they had already sent agents (in 1634/1635) to prepare a vessel for their descent of the Volga. Their voyage down the great river and over the Caspian Sea was slow and hindered by accidents, especially by grounding, as near Darband on 14 November 1636; but at last, by way of Shamakhy (three months' delay here), Ardabil, Soltaniyeh and Kasvin, they reached the Persian court at Isfahan (3 August 1637) and were received by the Safavid king, Shah Safi (16 August).

Negotiations here were not as successful as at Moscow, and the embassy left Isfahan on 21 December 1637, and returned home by Rasht, Lenkoran, Astrakhan, Kazan, Moscow, and other places. At Reval, Olearius parted from his colleagues (15 April 1639) and embarked directly for Lübeck. On his way he had made a chart of the Volga, and partly for this reason Michael wished to either persuade or compel him to enter his service. Once back at Gottorp, Olearius became librarian to the duke, who also made him keeper of his cabinet of curiosities, and induced the tsar to excuse his (promised) return to Moscow. Under his care the Gottorp library and cabinet were greatly enriched in manuscripts, books, and oriental and other works of art: in 1651 he purchased, for this purpose, the collection of the Dutch scholar and physician, Bernardus Paludanus (born Berent ten Broecke). He died at Gottorp on 22 February 1671.

It is by his admirable narrative of the Russian and the Persian legation (Beschreibung der muscowitischen und persischen Reise, Schleswig, 1647, and afterwards in several enlarged editions, 1656, etc.) that Olearius is best known, though he also published a history of Holstein (Kurtzer Begriff einer holsteinischen Chronic, Schleswig, 1663), a famous catalogue of the Holstein-Gottorp cabinet (1666), and a translation of the Gulistan (Persianisches Rosenthal, Schleswig, 1654), to which was written by Saadi Shirazi appended a translation of the fables of Luqman. A French version of the Beschreibung was published by Abraham de Wicquefort (Voyages en Moscovie, Tartarie et Perse, Paris, 1656), an English version was made by John Davies of Kidwelly (Travels of the Ambassadors sent by Frederic, Duke of Holstein, to the Great Duke of Muscovy and the King of Persia, London, 1662; and 1669), and a Dutch translation by Dieterius van Wageningen (Beschrijvingh van de nieuwe Parciaensche ofte Orientaelsche Reyse, Utrecht, 1651); an Italian translation of the Russian sections also appeared (Viaggi di Moscovia, Viterbo and Rome, 1658). Paul Fleming the poet and J. A. de Mandelslo, whose travels to the East Indies are usually published with those of Olearius, accompanied the embassy. Under Olearius' direction the celebrated globe of Gottorp and armillary sphere were executed between 1654 and 1664; the globe was given to Peter the Great of Russia in 1713 by Duke Frederick's grandson, Christian Augustus. Olearius' unpublished works include a Lexicon Persicum and several other Persian studies. Among his many translations of Persian literature into German are Saadi's Golistan: Persianischer Rosenthal. In welchem viel lustige Historien ... von ... Schich Saadi in Persianischer Sprache beschrieben, printed in Schleswig in 1654.