Gustav Landauer

Gustav Landauer
Born (1870-04-07)7 April 1870
Karlsruhe, Grand Duchy of Baden
Died 2 May 1919(1919-05-02) (aged 49)
Munich, Bavarian Soviet Republic
Nationality German
Spouse(s) Hedwig Lachmann
Gustav Landauer (1892)

Gustav Landauer (7 April 1870 – 2 May 1919) was one of the leading theorists on anarchism in Germany at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. He was an advocate of social anarchism and an avowed pacifist. In 1919, during the German Revolution, he was briefly Commissioner of Enlightenment and Public Instruction of the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic.[1] He was killed when this Republic was overthrown.

Landauer is also known for his study of metaphysics and religion, and his translations of William Shakespeare's works into German.

Life and career

Landauer was the second child of Jewish parents Rosa (Neuberger) and Herman Landauer.[2]

Landauer developed an anarchism which was not individualistic; he rejected individualist anarchism. Landauer supported anarchism already in the 1890s. In those years, he was especially enthusiastic about the individualistic approach of Max Stirner and Friedrich Nietzsche, but also "cautioned against an apotheosis of the unrestrained individual, potentially leading to the neglect of solidarity".[3]

One of Landauer's grandchildren, with wife and author Hedwig Lachmann, was Mike Nichols, the American television, stage and film director, writer, and producer.[4]

Works

  • Skepsis und Mystik (1903)
  • Die Revolution (trans. Revolution) (1907)
  • Aufruf zum Sozialismus (1911) (trans. by David J. Parent as For Socialism. Telos Press, 1978. ISBN 0-914386-11-5)
  • Editor of the journal Der Sozialist (trans. The Socialist) from 1893–1899
  • "Anarchism in Germany" (1895), "Weak Statesmen, Weaker People" (1910) and "Stand Up Socialist" (1915) are excerpted in Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas – Volume One: From Anarchy to Anarchism (300 CE–1939), ed. Robert Graham. Black Rose Books, 2005. ISBN 1-55164-250-6
  • Gustav Landauer. Gesammelte Schriften Essays Und Reden Zu Literatur, Philosophie, Judentum. (translated title: Collected Writings Essays and Speeches of Literature, Philosophy and Judaica). (Wiley-VCH, 1996) ISBN 3-05-002993-5
  • Gustav Landauer. Anarchism in Germany and Other Essays. eds. Stephen Bender and Gabriel Kuhn. Barbary Coast Collective.
  • Gustav Landauer. Revolution and Other Writings: A Political Reader, ed. & trans. Gabriel Kuhn; PM Press, 2010. ISBN 978-1-60486-054-2

References

  1. ↑ Samuel Hugo Bergman and Noam Zadoff. "Landauer, Gustav". Jewish Virtual Library/Encyclopedia Judaica. Retrieved November 21, 2014.
  2. ↑ Faces of America: How 12 Extraordinary People Discovered Their Pasts, by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., 2010, p. 10
  3. ↑ Miething, Dominique (2016-04-02). "Overcoming the preachers of death: Gustav Landauer's reading of Friedrich Nietzsche". Intellectual History Review. 26 (2): 285–304. doi:10.1080/17496977.2016.1140404. ISSN 1749-6977.
  4. ↑ Bruce Weber (November 20, 2014). "Mike Nichols, 83, Acclaimed Director on Broadway and in Hollywood, Dies". New York Times.

Further reading

  • Thomas Esper. The Anarchism of Gustav Landauer. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961)
  • Ruth Link-Salinger Hyman. Gustav Landauer: Philosopher of Utopia. (Hackett Publishing Company, 1977). ISBN 0-915144-27-1
  • Eugene Lunn. Prophet of Community: The Romantic Socialism of Gustav Landauer. (Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company, 1973). ISBN 0-520-02207-6
  • Charles B. Maurer. Call to Revolution: The Mystical Anarchism of Gustav Landauer. (Wayne State University Press, 1971). ISBN 0-8143-1441-4
  • Michael Löwy, Redemption & Utopia: Jewish Libertarian Thought in Central Europe, a Study in Elective Affinity. Translated by Hope Heaney. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992.
  • Martin Buber. Paths in Utopia. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1949.
  • Works by Gustav Landauer at Project Gutenberg
  • Works by or about Gustav Landauer at Internet Archive
  • Gustav Landauer. "Dr. Siegbert Wolf". Lexikon der Anarchie.
  • Gustav Landauer Page from the Anarchist Encyclopedia
  • Gambone, Larry. "The Communitarian Anarchism of Gustav Landauer".
  • Yassour, Avraham. "Gustav Landauer – the Man, the Jew and the Anarchist".
  • Yassour, Avraham. "Topos and Utopia in Landauer's and Buber's Social Philosophy".
  • [http://www.theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/Saul_Newman__Voluntary_Servitude_Reconsidered__Radical_Politics_and_the_Problem_of_Self-Domination.html "Voluntary Servitude Reconsidered: Radical Politics and the Problem of Self-Domination" by Saul Newman. Newman relates Landauer's views on social change to those of Etienne de la Boëtie
  • Biography of Gustav Landauer in the Anarchy Archives
  • Gustav Landauer Essays from The Scarlet Letter Archive
  • Gustav Landauer Papers. Details the holdings of the International Institute of Social History
  • Guide to the Gustav Landauer Collection at the Leo Baeck Institute, New York.
  • Gustav Landauer at Find a Grave
  • Gustav Landauer online bibliography (ongoing participative project)
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.