Wyneken, Ruth

Born in Bavaria, Germany. Grew up in Essen. Master of Arts at the LMU University of Munich in 1977, in Slavic and Russian Studies and Philosophy; thesis on Chronotopos in Mikhail Bulgakov’s THE MASTER AND MARGARITA. Since 1987 working as a freelance.

Drama teacher and dramaturgy adviser with profound knowledge of Russian Theatre-School-Method (Stanislavsky and following masters) with about 20 lecturships. Initiator and artistic director of several German-Russian theatre- and cultural projects in Germany, Switzerland and Russia and the symposium “Bridges to Russia” at the European Womens’ Forum in Illereichen, Germany (2001). Author and editor of several books and more than 100 feature articles and publications on Russian culture and theatre in German-language newspapers and theatrical journals as well as for the radio. Translator of dramatic works and theatrical literature (Anatoly Vasilyev: “To the only Reader”, Berlin 2003) and from Prof. Yurij Alschitz. Closely connected with the “School of Dramatic Arts (former director: Anatoly Vasilyev) in Moscow since 1987; extensive travel in the former Soviet Union (Baltic, Volga, Siberia) by invitation of the Russian Theater Association from 1988 until 1991.

From 1992 through 1998 continuously living in St. Petersburg, after 1998 both in Germany and Russia. Lectures-Performances in Berlin, Leipzig, Dresden, Munich, Stuttgart and others.

Zwerg, Franziska

Born in 1969, Franziska Zwerg studied Slavic philology, German literature and Theater studies in Berlin and Moscow. Besides some translations of poems from Russian, she translated among others the novels Ich bin Tschetschene by German Sadulajew, Milch und Honig by Vladimir Lortschenkow and Der Himmel auf ihren Schultern by Sergei Lebedev.

Maurer, Franz

Franz Maurer (1831-72) grew up in Berlin in poor circumstances, had to leave school before finishing it, but became editor at the Vossische Zeitung and published two books: "Die Nikobaren" in 1867 and "Eine Reise durch Bosnien, die Saveländer und Ungarn" in 1870.
His German translation of Atterbom's travelogue was first published in Berliner Allgemeine Zeitung on 1st August 1863, where Maurer in his preface writes about this "memorial" of a time, that it was richer "an großen Geistern wie unser Epigonenzeitalter".

Hein, Manfred Peter

is a German speaking poet, translator and editor. Born in 1931 in Darkehmen, in the at that time German district of East Prussia, he grew up in the Baltic Sea town Labiau (today Polessk, Kaliningrad Oblast), which left its mark in his œuvre until today: “Summercloudlywhite dreamed world edge of childhood: Curonian Lagoon and Baltic Sea” (“Sommerwolkenweiß geträumte Weltkante der Kindheit: Kurisches Haff und Ostsee”, Fluchtfährte. Zürich 1999). This résumé in his autobiographic telling Fluchtfährte (1999, Escape Trail), shows that the Baltic Sea motive hasn’t left him until today, despite having lost his homeland to occupation by Soviet forces when Hein was a teenager. The sea appears in almost each of his poems, in one way or another: “[…] what I see / what I see in time / is different: // the beach grass / repeats the swell in the sand dune, / in the wind / the dune: only like that / they suit each other […]*” (“[…] was ich seh / was ich sehe auf Zeit / ist anders: // der Strandhafer / wiederholt die Dünung im Sand, / im Wind / die Düne: nur so / passen sie zusammen […]”. Schwarzort, Kurische Nehrung, 1967).

Manfred Peter Hein has not only been recognized with international prizes for his poetic work, but for his poem translations, too. He actually considers himself a transmitter of Finnish, Finland Swedish, Lapp, Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian literatures - though the literatures boarding the Baltic Sea regions - especially in editing the literary magazine Trajekt (1981-1986) broadcasting poems oft these literatures via translations and academic explanations. The publication of different poetry anthologies (Moderne finnische Lyrik, 1962; Auf der Karte Europas ein Fleck, 1991) did not only establish Hein as an influential acclaimed Baltic Sea poet, but an acknowledged Baltic Sea translator, too. Since the beginning of the 1960s he has been living in Espoo, Finland. Since that time Hein published over a dozen volumes of poetry, he edited and published poem translations and wrote critics or rather academic interpretations about poetry, Finnish and German literature.

Literary prizes: 1975 Finnischer Staatspreis, 1984 Peter-Huchel-Preis, 1992 Förderpreis zum Horst-Bienek-Preis für Lyrik, 1999 Paul-Scheerbart-Preis, 2002 Nossack-Preis für Dichter und ihre Übersetzer, 2004 Literaturpreis Lettlands für das übersetzerische Lebenswerk, 2006 Rainer-Malkowski-Preis

Niedner, Felix

Felix Niedner was a German philologist and literary historian who was born on April 14, 1859 in Halle/Saale and died in Eberswalde in 1934. After completing his doctorate in 1882, he worked as a high school teacher in Berlin from 1883 to 1907 and was awarded the title of professor in 1902. He also worked regularly as a translator and wrote popular works in the field of Old Norse studies.

His major works are Das deutsche Turnier im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert (1881), Zur Lieder-Edda (1896), Carl Michael Bellman, der schwedische Anakreon (1905) (which was followed by a brilliant translation of Bellman's Fredmans epistlar in 1909), Die Geschichte vom Skalden Egil (1911) and Islands Kultur zur Wikingerzeit (1913). Between 1911 and 1930 he edited the first 24 volumes of the famous collection Thule - Altnordische Dichtung und Prosa, published by Eugen Diederichs in Jena.

Trillmich, Werner

Werner Trillmich was a German historian who was born in Görlitz in 1914 and died in 1985. He achieved particular recognition for his new translation of Thietmar von Merseburg from Latin.
Trillmich studied in Leipzig, Freiburg and Breslau, where he wrote his doctoral thesis in 1938. After returning from internment as a prisoner of war, he first worked in Hamburg and, from 1952 onwards, as an editor for the "Westermann Großer Atlas zur Weltgeschichte".
In 1954 he began working as a university lecturer and in 1970 he was appointed Professor of History and Didactics at the Pedagogical University in Alfeld.