Biography of Thomas Mann, interesting facts from life

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

The surname "Mann" is widely known in literary circles. Heinrich, a novelist, playwright, belongs to this family; Eric, Klaus and Golo are writers; finally, the owner of such prizes as the Nobel Prize and Antonio Feltrinelli - Thomas.

Mann Thomas, whose brief biography is striking in its richness and inconsistency, will be the object of consideration.

Epic Novel Master

The German writer belongs to an illustrious literary family. However, it is believed that its most prominent and famous representative is Thomas Mann.

His biography shows that until the age of 16 he led a fairly carefree life. He was born into a we althy Lübeck family. However, after the death in 1891 of the head of the family - Johann Heinrich Mann, city senator - his wife and numerous children had to live on the percentage of the sale of the family company and house.

It can be assumed that the biography of Thomas Mann has changed dramatically after the tragic event.

Having sold the house in Lübeck, the family moved to permanent residence in Munich, where Thomasstarts working in an insurance company and sees his future in the journalistic field. The choice of a creative path is explained by the predilection of brother Heinrich, who was already a writer at that time.

Thomas Mann: the path from birth to military service

But we've gone too far. It is necessary to show through life what kind of person Thomas Mann was. The main dates from his biography will help us in this idea.

June 6, 1875 in a we althy family of Johann Mann, a grain merchant and head of a shipping company, and Julia Mann, nee Da Silva-Bruns, a son was born. Thomas Mann's mother was a musically gifted Creolo-Brazilian Portuguese family. It was she who was engaged in the education of the future playwright and all his sisters and brothers.

In 1891, my father died. According to his will, the company and the house were sold. The whole family moves to Munich, where Thomas graduated from the Technische Hochschule.

The first experience of traveling took place in 1896. Thomas and his brother Heinrich traveled together to Italy. After the trip, Thomas Mann became editor of the Simplicissimus magazine.

Three years later, in 1899, the biography of Thomas Mann was enriched by military service. The period of service formed and strengthened the writer's worldview. He created the novel Buddenbrooks, significant for his work.

Thomas Mann: the journey from marriage to World War I

At the age of 30, a significant event occurred that left its mark on the entire life of the writer. The biography of Thomas Mann has now become the history of more than oneman, but the union of two.

In 1905, he sealed the knot with Katya Prinsheim. The daughter of a Munich professor became the writer's faithful companion until the end of his days. Six children were born from their union, three of them followed in the footsteps of their father, becoming writers and writers.

Very soon after the playwright's marriage, the First World War began, which the writer warmly accepted at first, but soon realized the fallacy of political theories. Mann opposed social reform and pacifism. Political disagreements became the cause of disagreements in the family circle: Thomas Mann became the ideological opponent of his own older brother. But, having changed his point of view, Thomas realized the need for democratic change, after which he reconciled with Henry.

Searching for your country and citizenship. Thomas Mann: biography

On the German range of fascist deeds, he did not find his refuge. And so the move took place in 1933 to Küsnacht - a Swiss town - with his family. This step was planned by Thomas Mann himself.

Biography still keeps interesting facts about his citizenship to various states. It turns out that after 1936 the writer was deprived of German citizenship and became a citizen of Czechoslovakia. However, soon, in 1938, Thomas Mann moved to the United States, where in 1944 he became a citizen of this state. It is known that, having left Germany at the very beginning of the fascist regime (in 1933), he never returned to the "Hitler" country.

From abroad, the writer introduced into thinkingformer German compatriots dislike fascism, becoming the voice of anti-fascist radio programs.

Thomas Mann propagated anti-fascist sentiments even after the end of the war. The novel "Doctor Faustus", which was published in 1947, became a reflection of the author's personal opinion about the era of Nazism. Nazism is not a phenomenon that arose spontaneously and not by chance, it is a natural and expected stage towards which German history has been moving most of the time.

Thomas Mann (the biography was briefly described by us above) found his peace in the quiet Swiss town of Kilchberg. Here in 1952 he moved to permanent residence. Here his last novel, The Adventures of the Adventurer Felix Krul, was written.

It is noteworthy that from the first to the last creative note, Thomas Mann was true to his "I". "Adventure" describes the life of a man who worked his way to the top of the career ladder, using the unstable orders of the bourgeois world.

Paul Thomas Mann, the second son of Johann and Julia Mann, died on August 12, 1955 in the north-east of Switzerland in the city of Zurich.

The beginning of a creative path: the novel "Buddenbrooks"

The first publishing experience dates back to the years of studying at the gymnasium: thanks to Thomas, the literary and artistic and not childishly philosophical magazine "Spring Storm" saw the light.

A trip to Italy in 1896 had a good effect on the writer's work. Stories written during the trip, he sent to publishers at home. S. Fischer proposed to create a collection of them. He came out in 1898year called "Little Mr. Friederman". Some of his stories were written during his editorial days at the satirical weekly Simplicissimus.

During the year of military service, the writer further strengthened his opinion regarding the problems that worried him for a long time. After serving, in 1901 he published the novel Buddenbrooks. The story of the death of a family. It is believed that the work reflects the history of the parental family from the point of view from which Thomas Mann himself saw it. Biography and creativity, merged together, laid the foundation for a wonderful novel that examines narrow family issues through the prism of the social order.

A family novel about social order

The novel “Buddenbrooks. The story of the death of one family” touched upon universal and social issues that affect an ordinary family: material and spiritual life, decay and the possibility of rebirth of the bourgeois world. The problems of the place of the creator in society and life were also raised: the doom to a lonely existence, combined with an incredible responsibility to the society that abandoned him.

The novel showed the writer's denial of the norms of the bourgeois world. Unpleasant for him culture, emerging in the twentieth century, he opposed the burgher. The collapse of the once warm, well-established burgher world for Mann meant the collapse of the entire culture.

Thomas Mann shows that four generations of the family from year to year lose not only material well-being, but also moral values.

There is an opinion that Buddenbrooks as a social type are opposedpainter. This is true, but it is a mistake to assume that Thomas Mann prefers the latter. Neither the burghers nor the artist are held in high esteem by Mann.

Public Recognition: Nobel Prize

Recognition did not come to Thomas Mann immediately. It is known that only 100 copies of the Buddenbrooks family novel were bought in the year of publication. But 30 years later, in 1929, it was thanks to him that the writer forever entered his name in the list of Nobel laureates.

Already during his lifetime, the works of Thomas Mann began to be called classics.

After being awarded the award, Buddenbrooks was released in a million copies.

Beginning in 1933, the biography of Thomas Mann became the biography of a man young writers looked up to. Mann traveled around the country and lectured, including excerpts from his own works.

Thomas Mann: biography, creativity - everything is merged together

The second successful creation of Thomas Mann was the work "Tonio Kroeger", published in the collection "Tristan" (1903). In it, the author again demonstrated the contradictions that worried him between the world of creativity and the bourgeois world.

It can be said that life and work for Mann were inextricably linked. The novel "Buddenbrooks" was not the only work that reflected the personal life and opinion of the writer.

This is the play "Florence", published in 1907. Its characters speak through the writer's mouth, voicing his opinion about contemporary Thomasbourgeois world.

A similar view of society is inherent in most of his works, but the closest to the play is the novel "Royal Highness". Thomas Mann wrote that he "preaches humanity" in it.

However, according to the author himself, the novel "Magic Mountain" became a turning point. It reveals the ideological contradictions of the world in which Mann lived and worked.

A trustworthy family man and father, a fan of same-sex love

Thomas Mann, whose biography is replete with contradictions in ideological predilections, is interesting not only for his creative heritage, but also for his sexual preferences.

The main contradiction that manifested itself on the love front is the external family idyll and addiction to same-sex love.

The diaries and correspondence published after the death of the writer presented Thomas Mann in a frightening light.

From them it followed that the famous writer, Nobel Prize winner, father of six children, Paul Thomas Mann had a deep interest in males. Moreover, this interest was not limited to intellectual knowledge, which Mann Thomas was characterized during his lifetime.

The short biography of the writer does not provide the necessary information, and this prompted researchers to study his life in detail.

Who did Thomas Mann love?

The first signs of a strange love for boys appeared at a young age. Fourteen-year-old Thomas harbored an unrequited feeling in his classmate, Arnim Marten.

The second unrequited feeling was born throughtwo years. While studying in England, Paul fell in love with the son of a PE teacher.

The only novel that, according to the researchers, was far from platonic was the relationship with the artist Paul Ehrenberg. The relationship lasted for 5 years (from 1899 to 1904) and ended after the writer entered into a legal marriage with Katya Prinsheim.

Despite his addictions, Thomas Mann longed to have a family and children. However, even the strongest love for his wife did not prevent him from looking at men. It is known from the writer's diaries that thoughts about the beauty of the male body did not leave him until the end of his days.

The latest passion was Franz Westermeier. 75-year-old Thomas Mann fell asleep and woke up thinking about the Bavarian waiter. But everything was limited only to dreams.

Screenings of works by Thomas Mann

The works written by the writer began to be filmed during his lifetime. The number of film adaptations from 1923 to 2008 exceeds 30. And this is taking into account the fact that Thomas Mann's biography by date and creative heritage contains only one single work adapted for stage production or filmmaking - the play "Florence". By the way, it was not filmed. But "Buddenbrooks" became one of the most popular in terms of film adaptation of the works written by Thomas Mann.