Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann, with a brief biography of which the interested reader can find on the pages of the site, is a prominent representative of German romanticism. Diversified gifted, Hoffmann is known as a musician, as an artist, and, of course, as a writer. After his death, Hoffmann's works, mostly misunderstood by his contemporaries, inspired such great writers as Balzac, Poe, Kafka, Dostoevsky, and many others.

Hoffmann's childhood

Hoffmann was born in Königsberg (East Prussia) in 1776 in the family of a lawyer. At baptism, the boy was named Ernst Theodor Wilhelm, but later, in 1805, he changed his name Wilhelm to Amadeus - in honor of his musical idol Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. After his parents divorced, three-year-old Ernst was brought up in the house of his maternal grandmother. His uncle had a great influence on the formation of the boy's worldview, which is clearly manifested in further milestones in the biography and work of Hoffmann. Like Ernst's father, he was a lawyer by profession, a talented and intelligent person, prone to mysticism, however, according to Ernst himself, limited and overly pedantic. Despite the difficult relationship, it was his uncle who helped Hoffmann to reveal his musical and artistic talents, and contributed to his education in these fields of art.

Youth years: studying at the university

Following the example of his uncle and father, Hoffmann decided to study law, but his commitment to the family business played a cruel joke on him. Having brilliantly graduated from the University of Königsberg, the young man left his hometown and for several years served as a judicial officer in Glogau, Poznan, Plock, Warsaw. However, like many talented people, Hoffmann constantly felt dissatisfaction with the quiet bourgeois life, trying to escape from the addictive routine and start making a living by music and painting. From 1807 to 1808, while living in Berlin, Hoffmann earned a living by private music lessons.

E. Hoffmann's first love

While studying at the university, Ernst Hoffmann earned a living from music lessons. Dora (Cora) Hutt, a lovely young woman of 25, the wife of a wine merchant and mother of five, became his student. Hoffmann sees in her a kindred spirit who understands his desire to escape from the gray monotonous everyday life. After several years of relations, gossip spread around the city, and after the birth of Dora's sixth child, Ernst's relatives decide to send him from Konigsberg to Glogau, where his other uncle lived. From time to time he returns to see his beloved. Their last meeting took place in 1797, after which their paths parted forever - Hoffmann, with the approval of relatives, entered into an engagement with his cousin from Glogau, and Dora the Hutt, after divorcing her husband, remarries, this time to a school teacher.

The beginning of a creative path: a musical career

During this period, Hoffmann's career as a composer began. Ernst Amadeus Hoffmann, whose biography serves as proof of the statement that "a talented person is talented in everything," wrote his musical works under the pseudonym of Johann Kreisler. Among his most famous works are many piano sonatas (1805-1808), the operas Aurora (1812) and Ondine (1816), and the ballet Harlequin (1808). In 1808, Hoffmann held the post of theater conductor in Bamberg, in subsequent years he served as a conductor in the theaters of Dresden and Leipzig, but in 1814 he had to return to public service.

Hoffmann also showed himself as a music critic, and he was interested in both his contemporaries, in particular, Beethoven, and composers of past centuries. As mentioned above, Hoffmann deeply revered the work of Mozart. He also signed his articles with a pseudonym: "Johann Kreisler, Kapellmeister." In honor of one of his literary heroes.

Hoffmann's marriage

Considering the biography of Ernst Hoffmann, one cannot but pay attention to his family life. In 1800, after passing the third state examination, he was transferred to Poznan to the position of assessor at the Supreme Court. Here the young man meets his future wife - Michaelina Rohrer-Tzczynska. In 1802, Hoffmann breaks off his engagement with his cousin, Minna Derfer, and, having converted to Catholicism, marries Michaelina. The writer never regretted his decision later. This woman, whom he affectionately calls Misha, supported Hoffmann in everything until the end of her life, was his reliable life partner in difficult times, of which there were many in their lives. It can be said that it became his safe haven, which was so necessary for the tortured soul of a talented person.

Literary heritage

Ernst Hoffmann's first literary work, the short story "Cavalier Gluck", was published in 1809 in the Leipzig Universal Musical Gazette. This was followed by short stories and essays, united by the main character and bearing the general name "Kreislerian", which were later included in the collection "Fantasies in the manner of Callot" (1814-1815).

The period 1814-1822, marked by the return of the writer to jurisprudence, is known as the time of his heyday as a writer. During these years, such works were written as the novel "Elixirs of Satan" (1815), the collection "Night Sketches" (1817), story-tales "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" (1816), "Little Tsakhes, after nickname Zinnober "(1819)," Princess Brambilla "(1820), a collection of short stories" The Serapion Brothers "and the novel" The Beliefs of Murr the Cat "(1819-1821), the novel" Lord of the Fleas "(1822). ).

Illness and death of the writer

In 1818, the state of health of the great German storyteller Hoffmann, whose biography is replete with ups and downs, begins to deteriorate. Day work in court, requiring considerable mental stress, followed by evening meetings with like-minded people in the wine cellar and night vigils, during which Hoffmann tried to write down all the thoughts that came to mind during the day, all the fantasies generated by the brain heated with wine vapors - such a way of life is significant undermined the writer's health. In the spring of 1818, he developed a spinal cord disease.

At the same time, the relations between the writer and the authorities were becoming more complicated. In his later works, Ernst Hoffmann ridicules the police brutality, spies and informers, whose activities were so encouraged by the Prussian government. Hoffmann even seeks the resignation of the Kampez police chief, thereby turning the entire police department against him. In addition, Hoffmann defends some Democrats, whom he is obliged to bring to trial as a matter of duty.

In January 1822, the writer's health deteriorated sharply. The disease reaches a crisis. Hoffmann develops paralysis. A few days later, the police confiscate the manuscript of his story "Lord of the Fleas", in which Kamptz is the prototype of one of the characters. The writer is accused of divulging judicial secrets. Thanks to the intercession of friends, the trial was postponed for several months, and on March 23, Hoffmann, already bedridden, dictates a speech in defense of himself. The investigation was terminated under the conditions of editing the story in accordance with the requirements of the censorship. "Lord of the Fleas" comes out this spring.

The writer's paralysis progresses rapidly and reaches the neck on June 24. Died E.T.A. Hoffmann in Berlin on June 25, 1822, leaving nothing to his wife except debts and manuscripts.

The main features of the work of E.T.A. Hoffmann

The period of Hoffmann's literary work falls on the heyday of German romanticism. In the writer's works, one can trace the main features of the Jena school of romanticism: the implementation of the idea of ​​romantic irony, the recognition of the integrity and versatility of art, the embodiment of the image of the ideal artist. E. Hoffmann also shows the conflict between the romantic utopia and the real world, however, unlike the Jena romantics, his hero is gradually absorbed by the material world. The writer sneers at his romantic characters, striving to find freedom in art.

Musical short stories by Hoffmann

All researchers agree that Hoffmann's biography and his literary work are inseparable from music. This theme can be most clearly seen in the novels of the writer "Cavalier Gluck" and "Kreislerian".

The protagonist of "Chevalier of Gluck" is a virtuoso musician, contemporary of the author, an admirer of the work of the composer Gluck. The hero creates around himself the atmosphere that surrounded "that very" Gluck, in an attempt to get away from the bustle of his contemporary city and the townsfolk, among whom it is fashionable to be considered a "connoisseur of music." Trying to preserve the musical treasures created by the great composer, the unknown Berlin musician seems to be himself becoming his embodiment. One of the main themes of the novel is the tragic loneliness of a creative person.

"Kreisleriana" is a series of essays on different topics, united by a common hero, Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler. Among them there are both satirical and romantic, however, the theme of the musician and his place in society slips through each of them. Sometimes these thoughts are expressed by the character, and sometimes - directly by the author. Johann Kreisler is a recognized literary double of Hoffmann, his embodiment in the musical world.

In conclusion, it can be noted that Ernst Theodor Hoffmann, whose biography and a summary of some of his works are presented in this article, is a vivid example of an extraordinary person, always ready to go against the tide and fight life's adversities for the sake of a higher goal. For him, this goal was an art, whole and indivisible.

Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Amadeus Hoffmann

short biography

Hoffmann was born into the family of a Prussian royal lawyer, but when the boy was three years old, his parents separated, and he was brought up in the house of his maternal grandmother under the influence of his uncle a lawyer, a smart and talented man, but inclined to fantasy and mysticism. Hoffmann early showed remarkable talent for music and drawing. But, not without the influence of his uncle, Hoffmann chose the path of jurisprudence, from which he tried to break out of his entire subsequent life and earn his arts.

In 1800, Hoffmann completed an excellent law course at the University of Königsberg and linked his life with public service. In the same year he left Königsberg and until 1807 he worked in various ranks, in his free time studying music and drawing. Subsequently, his attempts to make a living by art led to poverty and disaster, only after 1813 his business went better after receiving a small inheritance. The position of Kapellmeister in Dresden briefly satisfied his professional ambitions; after 1815 he lost this job and was forced to enter the hated service again, this time in Berlin. However, the new place gave both income and left a lot of time for creativity.

Disgusted with bourgeois "tea" societies, Hoffmann spent most of the evenings, and sometimes part of the night, in the wine cellar. Having upset his nerves with wine and insomnia, Hoffmann came home and sat down to write; the horrors of his imagination sometimes terrified him. And at the legalized hour, Hoffmann was already at work and worked hard.

Hoffmann spends his worldview in a long series of fantastic novels and fairy tales, incomparable in their own way. In them, he skillfully mixes the miraculous of all ages and peoples with personal fiction, now gloomyly painful, now gracefully cheerful and mocking.

At the time, German critics did not have a very high opinion of Hoffmann; there they preferred thoughtful and serious romanticism, without an admixture of sarcasm and satire. Hoffmann was much more popular in other European countries and in North America; in Russia, Belinsky called him “one of the greatest German poets, a painter of the inner world,” and Dostoevsky re-read all of Hoffmann in Russian and in the original language.

At the age of 47, Hoffmann was completely exhausted by his way of life; but even on his deathbed, he retained the power of imagination and wit. He died in Berlin, was buried in the Jerusalem cemetery of Berlin in the Kreuzberg district.

Jacques Offenbach's opera "Hoffmann's Tales" is dedicated to the life of Hoffmann and his works.

Hoffmann and romanticism

As an artist and thinker, Hoffmann is intimately connected with the Jena romantics, with their understanding of art as the only possible source of the transformation of the world. Hoffmann develops many of the ideas of F. Schlegel and Novalis, for example, the doctrine of the universality of art, the concept of romantic irony and the synthesis of arts. Musician and composer, decorator and master of graphic drawing, writer Hoffmann is close to the practical implementation of the idea of ​​the synthesis of arts.

Hoffmann's work in the development of German romanticism represents a stage of a more acute and tragic understanding of reality, rejection of a number of illusions of Jena romantics, and a revision of the relationship between ideal and reality.

Hoffmann's hero tries to break out of the shackles of the world around him through irony, but realizing the impotence of romantic confrontation with real life, the writer himself laughs at his hero. Hoffmann's romantic irony changes its direction, it, unlike the Jena, never creates the illusion of absolute freedom. Hoffmann focuses close attention on the personality of the artist, believing that he is the most free from selfish motives and petty worries.

Interesting Facts

* Hoffmann, in his name Ernest Theodor Wilhelm, changed the last part to Amadeus in honor of his beloved composer Mozart.

* Hoffmann is one of the writers who influenced the work of E.A. Poe and H.F. Lovecraft.

Artworks

* Collection "Fantasies in the manner of Callot" (German. Fantasiestücke in Callot "s Manier), contains
o Essay "Jacques Callot" (German: Jaques Callot)
o Novella "Cavalier Gluck" (German: Ritter Gluck)
o "Kreisleriana" (German Kreisleriana)
o Novella "Don Juan" (German Don Juan)
o "News of the further fate of the dog Berganza" (German: Nachricht von den neuesten Schicksalen des Hundes Berganza)
o "Magnetiser" (German Der Magnetiseur)
o The story "The Golden Pot" (German Der goldene Topf)
o "Adventures on New Year's Eve" (German: Die Abenteuer der Silvesternacht)
o "Princess Blandina" (1814) (German Prinzessin Blandina)
* The novel "Elixirs of Satan" (German: Die Elixiere des Teufels)
* Fairy tale "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" (German Nußknacker und Mausekönig)
* Collection "Night Etudes" (German. Nachtstücke), contains
o "Sand Man" (German Der Sandmann)
o "Vow" (German: Das Gelübde)
o "Ignaz Denner" (German Ignaz Denner)
o "Church of the Jesuits" (German: Die Jesuiterkirche in G.)
o "Majorat" (German: Das Majorat)
o "Empty House" (German: Das öde Haus)
o "Sanctus" (German: Das Sanctus)
o "Heart of Stone" (German: Das steinerne Herz)
* Novella "The Extraordinary Suffering of a Theater Director" (German Seltsame Leiden eines Theater-Direktors)
* The story "Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober" (German Klein Zaches, genannt Zinnober)
* "Player's Happiness" (German Spielerglück)
* Collection "The Serapion brothers" (German Die Serapionsbrüder), contains
o "Falun mines" ((German: Die Bergwerke zu Falun)
o Doge und Dogaresse
o "Master Martin-Bochard and his apprentices" ((German: Meister Martin der Küfner und seine Gesellen)
o Novella "Mademoiselle de Scudery" (German: Das Fräulein von Scudéry)
* "Princess Brambilla" (1820) (German Prinzessin Brambilla)
* The novel (unfinished) "Life views of the cat Murr" (German. Lebensansichten des Katers Murr)
* "Errors" (German Die Irrungen)
* "Secrets" (German Die Geheimnisse)
* "Doubles" (German Die Doppeltgänger)
* Novel "Lord of the Fleas" (German Meister Floh)
* Novella "Corner Window" (German Des Vetters Eckfenster)
* "The ominous guest" (German Der unheimliche Gast)
* Opera "Ondine" (1816).

Screen adaptations

* Nutcracker (cartoon, 1973)
* Walnut Krakatuk, 1977 - film by Leonid Kvinikhidze
* The Nutcracker and the Mouse King (cartoon), 1999
* Nutcracker (cartoon, 2004)
* "Hoffmaniada"

Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann (German Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann). Born January 24, 1776, Königsberg, Kingdom of Prussia - died June 25, 1822, Berlin, Kingdom of Prussia. German romantic writer, composer, artist and lawyer.

Out of respect for Amadeus Mozart in 1805, he changed the name "Wilhelm" to "Amadeus" (Amadeus). He published notes on music under the name Johannes Kreisler.

Hoffmann was born into the family of a baptized Jew, Prussian lawyer Christoph Ludwig Hoffmann (1736-1797).

When the boy was three years old, his parents separated, and he was brought up in the house of his maternal grandmother under the influence of his uncle, a lawyer, an intelligent and talented man, inclined to science fiction and mysticism. Hoffmann early demonstrated an aptitude for music and drawing. But, not without the influence of his uncle, Hoffmann chose the path of jurisprudence, from which he tried to break out of his entire subsequent life and earn art.

1799 - Hoffmann writes the music and lyrics for the three-act singspiel "The Mask".

1800 - In January, Hoffmann unsuccessfully tries to stage his singspiel at the Royal National Theater. On March 27, he takes the third exam in jurisprudence and in May he is appointed to the position of assessor at the Poznań Regional Court. In early summer, Hoffmann travels with Hippel to Potsdam, Leipzig and Dresden, and then arrives in Poznan.

Until 1807 he worked in various ranks, in his free time studying music and drawing.

In 1801, Hoffmann wrote the singspiel "Joke, Cunning and Revenge" on the words that are staged in Poznan. Jean Paul sends the score with his recommendation from Goethe.

In 1802, Hoffmann created caricatures of some persons of the Poznan high society. As a result of the ensuing scandal, Hoffman is transferred as punishment to Plock. In early March, Hoffmann breaks off his engagement with Minna Dörfer and marries the Polish woman Michalina Rohrer-Tzczynska (he affectionately calls her Misha). In the summer, the young couple move to Plock. Here Hoffmann is acutely experiencing his forced isolation, he leads a secluded life, writes church music and works for the piano, studies the theory of composition.

In 1803 - the first literary publication of Hoffmann: the essay "A letter from a monk to his metropolitan friend" was published on September 9 in "Straightforward". Unsuccessful attempt to participate in the Kotzebue competition for the best comedy ("Prize"). Hoffmann is busy with a transfer to one of the western provinces of Prussia.

In 1805, Hoffmann wrote music for Zachary Werner's play The Cross in the Baltic. "Merry Musicians" is staged on stage in Warsaw. On May 31, the Musical Society was founded, and Hoffmann became one of its leaders.

In 1806, Hoffmann was engaged in the design of the Mnischkov Palace, acquired by the Musical Society, and he himself painted many of its premises. At the grand opening of the palace, Hoffmann conducts his symphony in E flat major. On November 28, Warsaw is occupied by the French - the Prussian institutions are closed, and Hoffmann is deprived of his post.

In April 1808, Hoffmann took the position of Kapellmeister at the newly opened theater in Bamberg. At the beginning of May, Hoffmann conceived the idea of ​​"Chevalier Gluck". At this time, he is in dire need. On June 9, Hoffmann leaves Berlin, visits Hampa in Glogau and picks up Misha from Poznan. On September 1, he arrives in Bamberg, and on October 21, he makes an unsuccessful debut as a conductor at the Bamberg Theater. Having retained the title of Kapellmeister, Hoffmann resigns from his duties as a conductor. He earns his living by private lessons and occasional musical compositions for the theater.

In 1810, Hoffmann acted as a composer, decorator, playwright, director and assistant director of the Bamberg Theater, which was in its prime. Creation of the image of Johannes Kreisler - Hoffmann's alter ego ("Musical Suffering of Kapellmeister Kreisler").

In 1812, Hoffmann conceived the opera Ondine and began writing Don Giovanni.

In 1814, Hoffmann completed The Golden Pot. In early May, the first two volumes of Fantasies in the Style of Callot were published. On August 5, Hoffmann completes the opera "Ondine". In September, the Prussian Ministry of Justice offers Hoffmann the position of a government official, initially without a salary, and he agrees. On September 26, Hoffmann arrives in Berlin, where he meets Fouquet, Chamisso, Tieck, Franz Horn, Philip Veit.

All of Hoffmann's attempts to make a living through art led to poverty and disaster. Only after 1813 did things go better after receiving a small inheritance. The position of Kapellmeister in Dresden briefly satisfied his professional ambitions, but after 1815 he lost this position and was forced to enter the hated service again, this time in Berlin. However, the new place gave both income and left a lot of time for creativity.

In 1818, Hoffmann conceived the book "Masters of Singing - a Novel for Friends of Musical Art" (not written). The idea for a collection of stories "The Serapion Brothers" (originally "The Seraphim Brothers") and the opera "The Lover After Death" based on the work of Calderon, the libretto for which is being written by Contessa, emerged.

In the spring of 1818, Hoffman was seriously ill, he came up with the idea of ​​"Little Tsakhes". On November 14, the "Serapion Brothers" circle was established, which includes, in addition to Hoffmann himself, Hitzig, Contessa and Koref.

Disgusted with bourgeois "tea" societies, Hoffmann spent most of the evenings, and sometimes part of the night, in the wine cellar. Having upset his nerves with wine and insomnia, Hoffmann came home and sat down to write. The horrors created by his imagination sometimes frightened him. And at the legalized hour, Hoffmann was already at work and worked hard.

At one time, German criticism did not have a very high opinion of Hoffmann, they preferred thoughtful and serious romanticism, without an admixture of sarcasm and satire. Hoffmann was much more popular in other European countries and in North America. In Russia, he called him “one of the greatest German poets, a painter of the inner world,” and re-read the entire Hoffmann in Russian and in the original language.

In 1822, Hoffmann fell seriously ill. On January 23, by order of the Prussian government, the manuscript and already printed sheets of The Lord of the Fleas, as well as the correspondence between the writer and the publisher, were confiscated. Hoffmann faces charges of ridicule and breach of official secrecy.

On February 23, the sick Hoffmann dictates a speech in his defense. On February 28, he dictates the ending of Lord of the Fleas. On March 26, Hoffmann draws up a will, followed by paralysis.

At the age of 46, Hoffmann was completely exhausted by his lifestyle, but on his deathbed he retained the power of imagination and wit.

In April, the writer dictates the novel Corner Window. The "Lord of the Fleas" is published (in a truncated version). Around June 10, Hoffmann dictates the story "The Enemy" (left unfinished) and the anecdote "Naivety".

On June 24, the paralysis reaches the neck. On June 25 at 11 a.m., Hoffmann dies in Berlin, buried in the Jerusalem cemetery of Berlin in the Kreuzberg district.

The circumstances of Hoffmann's biography are played out in the opera by Jacques Offenbach "Hoffmann's Tales" and the poem "Hoffmann's Night" by M. Bazhan.

Personal life of Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann:

1798 - Hoffmann's engagement to his cousin Minna Dörfer.

In July 1805, the daughter of Cecilia is born - the first and only child of Hoffmann.

In January 1807 Minna and Cecilia left for Poznan to visit their relatives. Hoffman settles in the attic of the Mnishkov Palace, which became the residence of Daru, and is seriously ill. His move to Vienna is disrupted, and Hoffmann goes to Berlin, to Hitzig, on whose help he really counts. In mid-August, his daughter Cecilia dies in Poznan.

In 1811, Hoffmann gives singing lessons to Julia Mark and falls in love with his student. She is unaware of the teacher's feelings. Relatives arrange the engagement of Julia and Hoffman is on the verge of insanity and is thinking about double suicide.

Hoffmann's bibliography:

The collection of short stories "Fantasies in the manner of Callot" (German Fantasiestücke in Callot "s Manier) (1814);
"Jacques Callot" (German Jaques Callot);
"Cavalier Gluck" (German: Ritter Glück);
"Kreisleriana (I)" (German Kreisleriana);
Don Juan (German Don Juan);
“News of the Further Fates of the Dog of Berganza” (German: Nachricht von den neuesten Schicksalen des Hundes Berganza);
"Magnetiser" (German Der Magnetiseur);
The Golden Pot (Der goldene Topf);
Adventure on New Year's Eve (German: Die Abenteuer der Silvesternacht);
"Kreisleriana (II)" (German Kreisleriana);
The play-fairy tale "Princess Blandina" (German Prinzessin Blandina) (1814);
The novel "Elixirs of Satan" (German Die Elixiere des Teufels) (1815);
The Nutcracker and the Mouse King (German Nußknacker und Mausekönig) (1816);
Collection of short stories "Night Etudes" (German. Nachtstücke) (1817);
"The Sand Man" (German Der Sandmann);
"Vow" (German: Das Gelübde);
Ignaz Denner (German Ignaz Denner);
"Church of the Jesuits in G." (German Die Jesuiterkirche in G.);
"Majorat" (German: Das Majorat);
"Empty House" (German: Das öde Haus);
"Sanctus" (German Das Sanctus);
Heart of Stone (Das steinerne Herz);
The essay "The Extraordinary Suffering of a Theater Director" (German: Seltsame Leiden eines Theater-Direktors) (1818);
Novel-fairy tale "Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober" (German Klein Zaches, genannt Zinnober) (1819);
Novel-fairy tale "Princess Brambilla" (German Prinzessin Brambilla) (1820);
The collection of short stories Die Serapionsbrüder (1819-21);
The Hermit Serapion (Der Einsiedler Serapion);
"Counselor Krespel" (German Rat Krespel);
"Fermata" (German Die Fermate);
Poet and Composer (Der Dichter und der Komponist);
"Episode from the life of three friends" (German: Ein Fragment aus dem Leben dreier Freunde);
Arturov's Hall (Der Artushof);
Falun Mines (German Die Bergwerke zu Falun);
The Nutcracker and the Mouse King (German Nußknacker und Mausekönig);
"Competition of Singers" (German Der Kampf der Sänger);
Ghost Story (German: Eine Spukgeschichte);
"Automata" (German Die Automate);
Doge und Dogaresse (German);
"Old and New Sacred Music" (German: Alte und neue Kirchenmusik);
Meister Martin der Küfner und seine Gesellen and his apprentices;
"Unknown Child" (German: Das fremde Kind);
“Information from the life of a famous person” (German: Nachricht aus dem Leben eines bekannten Mannes);
“Choosing a Bride” (German Die Brautwahl);
The Ominous Guest (Der unheimliche Gast);
Mademoiselle de Scudery (German: Das Fräulein von Scudéry);
"Player's Happiness" (German Spielerglück);
"Baron von B." (German Der Baron von B.);
Signor Formica;
Zacharias Werner (German Zacharias Werner);
"Visions" (German: Erscheinungen);
The Interdependence of Events (Der Zusammenhang der Dinge);
"Vampirism" (German Vampirismus);
"Aesthetic Tea Party" (German: Die ästhetische Teegesellschaft);
"The Royal Bride" (German Die Königsbraut);
The novel "The Worldly Views of the Cat Murr" (German: Lebensansichten des Katers Murr) (1819-21);
The novel "Lord of the Fleas" (German Meister Floh) (1822);
Late novellas (1819-1822): "Haimatochare" (German: Haimatochare);
"Marquise de la Pivardiere" (German Die Marquise de la Pivardiere);
"Doubles" (German Die Doppeltgänger);
"The Robbers" (German Die Räuber);
"Errors" (German: Die Irrungen);
"Secrets" (German Die Geheimnisse);
"Fiery Spirit" (German Der Elementargeist);
Datura fastuosa (German: Datura fastuosa);
"Master Johannes Wacht" (German Meister Johannes Wacht);
"Enemy" (German Der Feind (Fragment));
"Recovery" (German Die Genesung);
"Corner Window" (German Des Vetters Eckfenster)

Screen adaptations of Hoffmann's works:

Nutcracker (cartoon, 1973);
Walnut Krakatuk, 1977 - film by Leonid Kvinikhidze;
The Old Wizard's Mistake (film), 1983;
The Nutcracker and the Mouse King (cartoon), 1999;
Nutcracker (cartoon, 2004);
"Hoffmaniada";
The Nutcracker and the Rat King (3D film), 2010

Musical works by Hoffmann:

singspiel "Merry Musicians" (German Die lustigen Musikanten) (libretto: Clemens Brentano) (1804);
music to the tragedy of Zacharias Werner "Cross on the Baltic Sea" (German: Bühnenmusik zu Zacharias Werners Trauerspiel Das Kreuz an der Ostsee) (1805);
sonatas for piano: A-Dur, f-moll, F-Dur, f-moll, cis-moll (1805-1808);
the ballet "Harlequin" (German Arlequin) (1808);
Miserere b-moll (1809);
Grand Trio for Piano, Violin and Cello (German Grand Trio E-Dur) (1809);
melodrama “Dirna. Indian melodrama in 3 acts ”(German: Dirna) (libretto: Julius von Soden) (1809);
the opera Aurora (German: Aurora) (libretto: Franz von Holbein) (1812);
opera "Undine" (German. Undine) (libretto: Friedrich de la Mott Fouquet) (1816)

To the 240th anniversary of the birth

Standing at the grave of Hoffmann in the Jerusalem cemetery in the center of Berlin, I was amazed that on a modest monument he is presented primarily as an adviser to the court of appeal, a lawyer, and only then as a poet, musician and artist. However, he himself admitted: "On weekdays I am a lawyer and perhaps only a bit of a musician, on Sunday afternoon I paint, and in the evenings until late at night I am a very witty writer." All his life he is a great part-worker.

The third on the monument was the baptismal name Wilhelm. Meanwhile, he himself replaced it with the name of the adored Mozart - Amadeus. Replaced for a reason. After all, he divided humanity into two unequal parts: "One consists only of good people, but bad musicians or not musicians at all, while the other consists of true musicians." You don't need to take this literally: the lack of an ear for music is not the main sin. "Good people", philistines, devote themselves to the interests of the wallet, which leads to irreversible perversions of humanity. According to Thomas Mann, they cast a wide shadow. Philistines become, musicians are born. The part to which Hoffmann belonged is the people of the spirit, not the belly - musicians, poets, artists. "Good people" often do not understand them, despise them, laugh at them. Hoffmann realizes that his heroes have nowhere to run, to live among the philistines is their cross. And he himself carried it to the grave. And his life was short by today's standards (1776-1822)

Biography Pages

The blows of fate accompanied Hoffmann from birth to death. He was born in Königsberg, where the "narrow-faced" Kant was a professor at that time. His parents quickly separated, and from the age of 4 until the university he lived in the house of his uncle, a successful lawyer, but a swaggering and pedantic man. An orphan with living parents! The boy grew up withdrawn, which was facilitated by his small stature and the appearance of a freak. With outward laxity and buffoonery, his nature was extremely vulnerable. Exalted psyche will determine a lot in his work. Nature endowed him with the sharpest mind and observation. The soul of a child, adolescent, vainly thirsting for love and affection, did not harden, but, wounded, suffered An indicative confession: "My youth is like a desiccated desert, without flowers and shade."

He considered his university studies in jurisprudence as an annoying obligation, for he truly loved only music. The bureaucratic service in Glogau, Berlin, Poznan, and especially in the provincial Plock, was a burden. But nevertheless, happiness smiled in Poznan: he married the charming Polish woman Michalina. The bear, although alien to his creative searches and spiritual needs, will become his faithful friend and support to the end. He will fall in love more than once, but always without reciprocity. The torment of unrequited love he will capture in many works.

At 28, Hoffmann is a government official in Prussian-occupied Warsaw. Here composing abilities, singing talent and conductor's talent were revealed. Two of his singspils were successfully delivered. “Muses still lead me through life as patron saints and patrons; I surrender to them entirely, ”he writes to a friend. But he does not neglect service either.

Napoleon's invasion of Prussia, the chaos and the awkwardness of the war years put an end to the short-lived prosperity. A wandering, financially unsettled, sometimes hungry life began: Bamberg, Leipzig, Dresden ... A two-year-old daughter died, his wife became seriously ill, and he himself fell ill with a nervous fever. He took on any job: a home teacher of music and singing, a music dealer, a bandmaster, a decorator, a theater director, a reviewer of the "General Musical Newspaper" ... And in the eyes of philistine philistines, this small, plain, beggar and powerless man is a beggar at the door burgher salons, pea jester. Meanwhile, in Bamberg he showed himself as a man of the theater, anticipating the principles of both Stanislavsky and Meyerhold. Here he developed as a universal artist that romantics dreamed of.

Hoffmann in Berlin

In the fall of 1814, Hoffmann, with the help of a friend, got a place in the criminal court in Berlin. For the first time in many years of wandering, he had the hope of finding a permanent home. In Berlin, he found himself at the center of literary life. Here they made acquaintances with Ludwig Thieck, Adalbert von Chamisso, Clemens Brentano, Friedrich Fouquet de la Motte, author of the story "Undine", artist Philippe Feit (son of Dorothea Mendelssohn). Once a week, friends who named their community after the hermit Serapion gathered at a coffee shop on Unter den Linden (Serapionsabende). We stayed up late. Hoffmann read them his latest works, they caused a lively reaction, they did not want to disperse. Interests overlapped. Hoffmann began to write music for Fouquet's story, he agreed to become a librettist, and in August 1816 the romantic opera "Ondine" was staged at the Royal Berlin Theater. There were 14 performances, but a year later the theater burned down. The fire destroyed the wonderful decorations, which, according to Hoffmann's sketches, were made by Karl Schinkel himself, a renowned artist and court architect, who at the beginning of the 19th century. built almost half of Berlin. And since I studied at the Moscow Pedagogical Institute with Tamara Schinkel, a direct descendant of the great master, I also feel involved in Hoffmann's "Undine".

Over time, music lessons faded into the background. Hoffmann, as it were, conveyed his musical vocation to his beloved hero, his alter ego, Johann Kreisler, who carries with him a high musical theme from piece to piece. Hoffmann was a music enthusiast, calling it "the proto-language of nature."

Eminently Homo Ludens (playing man), Hoffmann, in Shakespearean fashion, perceived the whole world as a theater. His close friend was the famous actor Ludwig Devrient, with whom he met in the tavern of Lutter and Wegner, where they spent violent evenings, indulging in libations and inspired humorous improvisations. Both were convinced that they had doubles and amazed the regulars with the art of reincarnation. These gatherings cemented his fame as a half-insane alcoholic. Alas, in fact, in the end, he became a drunkard and behaved eccentrically and pretentiously, but the further, the clearer it became that in June 1822 in Berlin the greatest magician and sorcerer of German literature died in agony and lack of money from a dry spinal cord.

Hoffmann's literary legacy

Hoffmann himself saw his vocation in music, but gained fame as a writer. It all started with "Fantasies in the manner of Callot" (1814-15), then followed by "Night Tales" (1817), four-volume short stories "The Serapion Brothers" (1819-20), a kind of romantic "Decameron". Hoffmann wrote a number of large stories and two novels - the so-called "black", or Gothic novel "Elixirs of Satan" (1815-16) about the monk Medard, in which two creatures sit, one of them is an evil genius, and the unfinished "Everyday views of a cat Murrah "(1820-22). In addition, fairy tales were composed. The most famous of them is the Christmas one - "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King". As the New Year approaches, the ballet "The Nutcracker" is shown in theaters and on television. Tchaikovsky's music is on everyone's lips, but only a few know that the ballet was written based on the tale of Hoffmann.

About the collection "Fantasies in the manner of Callot"

The 17th century French artist Jacques Callot is known for his grotesque drawings and etchings, in which reality appears in a fantastic guise. The ugly figures on his graphic sheets, depicting carnival scenes or theatrical performances, frightened and attracted. Callot's manner impressed Hoffmann and gave a certain artistic impetus.

The central work of the collection is the short story "The Golden Pot", which has a subtitle - "A Tale from New Times". Fabulous incidents happen in the modern writer Dresden, where next to the ordinary world there is a secret world of sorcerers, wizards and evil witches. However, as it turns out, they lead a double existence, some of them perfectly combine magic and sorcery with serving in the archives and public places. Such is the grumpy archivist Lindhorst - the lord of the Salamanders, such is the wicked old witch Rauer, who sells at the city gates, the daughter of turnip and dragon feather. It was her basket of apples that the protagonist, student Anselm, accidentally knocked over, and all his misadventures went from this little thing.

Each chapter of the tale is named by the author "vigil", which in Latin means night watch. Night motives are generally characteristic of romantics, but here the twilight lighting enhances the mystery. The student Anselm is a muddler, from the breed of those who, if a sandwich falls, then certainly butter down, but he also believes in miracles. He is the bearer of poetic feeling. At the same time, he hopes to take a proper place in society, to become a gofrat (court counselor), especially since the daughter of the con-rector Paulman Veronica, whom he cares for, has firmly decided in life: she will become the wife of a gofrat and will show off in the morning in the window in an elegant toilet surprisingly to passers-by dandies. But by chance, Anselm touched the world of the wonderful: suddenly, in the foliage of a tree, he saw three amazing golden-green snakes with sapphire eyes, saw and - disappeared. "He felt that in the depths of his being something unknown was stirring and causing him that blissful and agonizing grief, which promises a different, higher being to man."

Hoffman leads his hero through many trials before he ends up in the magical Atlantis, where he connects with the daughter of the powerful lord of the Salamanders (aka the archivist Lindhorst) - the blue-eyed snake Serpentine. In the finale, everyone takes on a particular look. The case ends with a double wedding, because Veronica finds her corrugated - this is the former rival of Anselm Geerbrand.

Yu. K. Olesha in his notes about Hoffman that arose while reading the "Golden Pot", asks the question: "Who was he, this crazy man, the only writer of his kind in world literature, with raised eyebrows, a thin nose bent down, with hair forever standing on end? " Perhaps an acquaintance with his work will help answer this question. I would venture to call him the last romantic and the founder of fantastic realism.

"Sand Man" from the collection "Night Stories"

The title of the collection "Night Stories" is not accidental. By and large, all of Hoffmann's things can be called "nocturnal", for he is a poet of dark spheres, in which a person is still connected with secret forces, a poet of abysses, gaps, from which a double, a ghost, or a vampire emerges. He makes it clear to the reader that he has been in the kingdom of shadows, even when he clothe his fantasies in a daring and cheerful form.

The Sandman, which he has repeatedly reworked, is an undoubted masterpiece. In this story, the struggle between despair and hope, between darkness and light acquires particular tension. Hoffman is convinced that the human personality is not something permanent, but a fragile one, capable of transforming, bifurcating. This is the protagonist of the story, student Nathanael, endowed with a poetic gift.

As a child, he was frightened by the sand man: if you do not fall asleep, the sandman will come, throw sand in your eyes, and then take your eyes away. Already becoming an adult, Nathaniel cannot get rid of fear. It seems to him that the puppet master Coppelius is a sandman, and the Coppola salesman, who sells glasses and magnifying glasses, is the same Coppelius, i.e. the same sand man. Nathaniel is clearly on the verge of mental illness. In vain, Nathaniel's fiancée Clara, a simple and sensible girl, tries to heal him. She rightly says that the terrible and terrible that Nathanael constantly talks about happened in his soul, and the outside world has little to do with it. His poems with their gloomy mysticism are boring to her. The romantically exalted Nathanael does not heed her, he is ready to see her as a wretched bourgeois woman. It is not surprising that the young man falls in love with a mechanical doll, which Professor Spalanzani, with the help of Coppelius, made for 20 years and, having passed it off as his daughter Ottilia, introduced it to the high society of a provincial town. Nathaniel did not realize that the subject of his sighs was a cunning mechanism. But absolutely everyone was deceived. The clockwork doll attended secular meetings, sang and danced as if alive, and everyone admired her beauty and education, although apart from "oh!" and "ah!" she didn't say anything. And in her Nathanael saw a "kindred spirit." What is this if not a mockery of the youthful quixoticism of the romantic hero?

Nathaniel goes to propose to Ottilia and finds a terrible scene: the quarreling professor and the puppet master tear the Ottilia doll apart before his eyes. The young man goes mad and, having climbed the bell tower, rushes down from there.

Apparently, reality itself seemed to Hoffmann to be nonsense, a nightmare. Wanting to say that people are soulless, he turns his heroes into automata, but the worst thing is that no one notices this. The incident with Ottilia and Nathaniel worried the townspeople. How to be? How do you know if a neighbor is a dummy? How, finally, can you prove that you yourself are not a puppet? Everyone tried to behave as unusual as possible in order to avoid suspicion. The whole story took on the character of a nightmarish phantasmagoria.

"Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober" (1819) - one of the most grotesque works of Hoffmann. This tale partly echoes the "Golden Pot". Its plot is quite simple. Thanks to three wonderful golden hairs, the freak Tsakhes, the son of an unfortunate peasant woman, turns out to be wiser, more beautiful, more worthy of all in the eyes of those around him. With lightning speed, he becomes the first minister, receives the hand of the beautiful Candida, until the wizard exposes the vile freak.

"Crazy fairy tale", "the most humorous of all I have written," - this is how the author said about it. This is his manner - to clothe the most serious things in the veils of humor. After all, we are talking about a blinded, dumbfounded society that takes "an icicle, a rag for an important person" and creates an idol out of him. By the way, this was also the case in Gogol's "The Inspector General". Hoffmann creates a splendid satire on the "enlightened despotism" of Prince Paphnutius. “This is not only a purely romantic parable about the eternal philistine hostility of poetry (“ Drive all fairies! ”- this is the first order of the authorities. - GI), but also the satirical quintessence of German squalor with its claims to great power and ineradicable small-scale manners police education, with servility and oppression of subjects ”(A. Karelsky).

In a dwarf state, where "enlightenment has burst out," his program is outlined by the prince's valet. He proposes "to cut down forests, make the river navigable, grow potatoes, improve rural schools, plant acacias and poplars, teach youth to sing morning and evening prayers in two voices, build highways and plant smallpox." Some of these "educational actions" did take place in Prussia, Frederick II, who played the role of an enlightened monarch. The enlightenment here was held under the motto: "Drive out all dissidents!"

Among the dissidents is the student Balthazar. He is from the breed of true musicians, and therefore suffers among the philistines, i.e. "good people". "In the wonderful voices of the forest, Balthazar heard an inconsolable complaint of nature, and it seemed that he himself should dissolve in this complaint, and his whole existence is a feeling of the deepest irresistible pain."

According to the laws of the genre, the tale ends with a happy ending. Through theatrical effects like fireworks, Hoffmann allows the "gifted with inner music" student Balthazar, in love with Candida, to defeat Tsakhes. The wizard-savior, who taught Balthazar to pluck three golden hairs from Tsakhes, after which the veil fell from everyone's eyes, makes a wedding gift to the newlyweds. This is a house with a plot where excellent cabbage grows, in the kitchen "the pots never boil over", in the dining room the porcelain does not break, in the living room the carpets do not get dirty, in other words, quite bourgeois comfort reigns here. This is how romantic irony comes into play. We met with her in the fairy tale "The Golden Pot", where the golden pot was received at the end of the day by the lovers. This iconic vessel-symbol replaced the blue flower of Novalis, in the light of this comparison, the ruthlessness of Hoffmann's irony became even more obvious.

About "Worldly views of the cat Murr"

The book was conceived as a final one, all themes and features of Hoffmann's manner were intertwined in it. Here tragedy is combined with grotesque, although they are opposite to each other. The composition itself contributed to this: the biographical notes of the learned cat are layered with pages from the diary of the brilliant composer Johann Kreisler, which Murr used instead of blotting paper. This is how the unlucky publisher printed the manuscript, marking the "inclusions" of the ingenious Kreisler as "Mac. l. " (waste sheets). Who needs the suffering and sorrow of Hoffmann's favorite, his alter ego? What are they good for? Is that to dry the graphomaniac exercises of the learned cat!

Johann Kreisler, the child of poor and ignorant parents, who knows the need and all the vicissitudes of fate, is an itinerant musician and enthusiast. This is a favorite of Hoffmann, he acts in many of his works. Anything that has weight in society is alien to the enthusiast, therefore misunderstanding and tragic loneliness await him. In music and love, Kreisler is carried far, far into the bright worlds known to him alone. But the crazier for him is the return from this height to the earth, to the vanity and filth of a small town, to the circle of base interests and petty passions. Unbalanced nature, constantly torn apart by doubts in people, in the world, in their own creativity. From ecstatic ecstasy, he easily goes to irritability or to complete misanthropy for the most insignificant reason. The fake chord gives him a fit of despair. “Kreisler is ridiculous, almost ridiculous, he constantly shocks respectability. This lack of contact with the world reflects a complete rejection of the surrounding life, its stupidity, ignorance, thoughtlessness and vulgarity ... Kreisler rebelles alone against the whole world, and he is doomed. His rebellious spirit perishes in mental illness ”(I. Garin).

But it is not he, but the learned cat Murr who claims to be the romantic "son of the century." And the novel is being written on his behalf. Before us is not just a two-tiered book: "Kreisleriana" and the animal epic "Murriana". New here is the Murr line. Murr is not just a philistine. He tries to appear as an enthusiast, a dreamer. A romantic genius in the form of a cat is a funny idea. Listen to his romantic tirades: “... I know for sure: my homeland is an attic !. The climate of the motherland, its manners, customs - how inextinguishable are these impressions ... Why is there such a lofty way of thinking in me, such an irresistible striving to higher spheres? Where does such a rare gift come from in an instant, such brave and brilliant leaps worthy of envy? Oh, sweet longing fills my chest! Longing for my native attic rises in me in a powerful wave! I dedicate these tears to you, oh beautiful homeland ... ”What is this if not a murderous parody of the romantic empyrean of Jena romantics, but even more of the Germanophilia of Heidelberg ?!

The writer created a grandiose parody of the romantic worldview itself, recording the symptoms of the crisis of romanticism. It is the interlacing, the unity of two lines, the collision of parody with a high romantic style that gives rise to something new, unique.

"What a truly mature humor, what a force of reality, what anger, what types and portraits and what a thirst for beauty, what a bright ideal!" Dostoevsky appreciated "The Murra Cat" in such a way, but this is a worthy assessment of Hoffmann's work as a whole.

Hoffmann's double world: a riot of fantasy and "vanity of life"

Each true artist embodies his time and the situation of a person in this time in the artistic language of the era. The artistic language of Hoffmann's time is romanticism. The gap between dream and reality forms the basis of the romantic worldview. "The darkness of low truths is dearer to me / We are elevated by deceit" - these words of Pushkin can be put as an epigraph to the works of German romantics. But if the predecessors, erecting their castles in the air, were carried away from the earthly in the idealized Middle Ages or in the romanticized Hellas, then Hoffmann bravely plunged into the modern reality of Germany. At the same time, he, like no one before him, was able to express anxiety, instability, fracture of the era and of the person himself. According to Hoffmann, not only society is divided into parts, each person, his consciousness is split, torn apart. Personality loses its certainty, integrity, hence the motive of duality and madness, so characteristic of Hoffmann. The world is unstable and the human personality is disintegrating. The struggle between despair and hope, between darkness and light is waged in almost all of his works. Not to give the dark forces a place in your soul - that's what worries the writer.

Upon careful reading, even in the most fantastic works of Hoffmann, such as "The Golden Pot", "The Sandman", one can find very deep observations of real life. He himself admitted: "I have too much of a sense of reality." Expressing not so much the harmony of the world as the dissonance of life, Hoffmann conveyed it with the help of romantic irony and grotesque. His works are full of all kinds of spirits and ghosts, incredible things happen: the cat composes poetry, the minister drowns in a chamber pot, the Dresden archivist has a brother - a dragon, and his daughter - snakes, and so on and so on, nevertheless, he wrote about modernity, about the consequences of the revolution, about the era of Napoleonic troubles, which turned a lot in the sleepy way of three hundred German states-principalities.

He noticed that things began to dominate a person, life is mechanized, automata, soulless dolls take over the person, the individual is drowning in the standard. He pondered over the mysterious phenomenon of the transformation of all values ​​into exchange value, perceived the new power of money.

What allows the insignificant Tsakhes to turn into the powerful Minister Zinnober? The three golden hairs that the compassionate fairy has endowed him with have miraculous powers. This is by no means Balzac's understanding of the merciless laws of modern times. Balzac was a doctor of social sciences, and Hoffmann was a visionary, whom science fiction helped to expose the prose of life and build brilliant guesses about the future. It is significant that the tales, where he gave free rein to unrestrained imagination, have subtitles - "Tales from new times." He not only judged modern reality as the spiritless kingdom of "prose", he made it the subject of depiction. "Intoxicated by fantasies, Hoffmann," as the outstanding Germanist Albert Karelsky wrote about him, "is, in fact, discouragingly sober."

Leaving this life, in his last story "The Corner Window", Hoffmann shared his secret: “What good do you think I'm getting better? Far from it ... But this window is a consolation for me: here life again appeared to me in all its diversity, and I feel how close to me its never-ending vanity is. "

Hoffmann's Berlin house with a corner window and his grave in the Jerusalem cemetery were "presented" to me by Mina Polyanskaya and Boris Antipov from the breed of enthusiasts so revered by our hero of the day.

Hoffman in Russia

Hoffmann's shadow favorably overshadowed Russian culture in the 19th century, which was described in detail and convincingly by philologists A. Botnikova and my fellow graduate student Juliet Chavchanidze, who followed the relationship between Gogol and Hoffman. Belinsky also wondered why Europe does not put the "genius" Hoffmann next to Shakespeare and Goethe. Prince Odoevsky was called "Russian Hoffman". Herzen admired him. A passionate admirer of Hoffmann, Dostoevsky wrote about "The Cat Murr": "What a truly mature humor, what a force of reality, what anger, what types and portraits and what a thirst for beauty, what a bright ideal!" This is a worthy assessment of Hoffmann's work as a whole.

In the twentieth century, the influence of Hoffmann was experienced by Kuzmin, Kharms, Remizov, Nabokov, Bulgakov. Mayakovsky did not mention his name in vain in poetry. It was not by chance that Akhmatova chose him as a guide: "In the evenings / darkness deepens, / Let Hoffman be with me / Comes to the corner."

In 1921, in Petrograd at the House of Arts, a community of writers emerged who named themselves in honor of Hoffmann - the Serapion brothers. It includes Zoshchenko, Vs. Ivanov, Kaverin, Luntz, Fedin, Tikhonov. They also met weekly to read and discuss their writings. Soon they incurred reproaches from proletarian writers for formalism, which "backfired" in 1946 in the Resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) on the magazines "Neva" and "Leningrad". Zoshchenko and Akhmatova were defamed and ostracized, condemning Zoshchenko and Akhmatova to civilian deaths, but Hoffman also fell under the "distribution": he was called "the founder of salon decadence and mysticism." For the fate of Hoffmann in Soviet Russia, the ignorant judgment of Zhdanov's "partaigenosse" had sad consequences: they stopped publishing and studying. The three-volume edition of his selected works came out only in 1962 in the publishing house "Khudozhestvennaya literatura" with a circulation of one hundred thousand and immediately became a rarity. Hoffmann remained on suspicion for a long time, and only in 2000 a 6-volume collection of his works was published.

The film by Andrei Tarkovsky, which he intended to shoot, could become a wonderful monument to the eccentric genius. Did not have time. There was only his marvelous script - "Hoffmaniade".

In June 2016, the International Literary Festival-Competition "Russian Hoffman" started in Kaliningrad, in which representatives of 13 countries participate. Within its framework, an exhibition in Moscow at the Library of Foreign Literature named after V.I. Rudomino “Meetings with Hoffman. Russian circle ". In September the full-length puppet film “Hoffmaniada. The Temptation of Young Anselm ", in which the plots of the fairy tales" The Golden Pot "," Little Tsakhes "," The Sand Man "and pages of the author's biography are masterly intertwined. This is the most ambitious project of "Soyuzmultfilm", 100 dolls are involved, the director Stanislav Sokolov filmed it for 15 years. The main artist of the painting is Mikhail Shemyakin. 2 parts of the film were shown at the festival in Kaliningrad. We are waiting and anticipating a meeting with the revived Hoffmann.

Greta Ionkis

Literary life Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann(Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann) was short: in 1814 the first book of his stories, Fantasies in the manner of Callot, was published, enthusiastically received by the German reading public, and in 1822 the writer, who had suffered from a serious illness for a long time, was gone. By this time, Hoffmann was read and revered not only in Germany; in the 1920s and 1930s, his short stories, fairy tales, and novels were translated in France, in England; in 1822, the Library for Reading magazine published in Russian a novel by Hoffmann, The Maid of Scuderi. The posthumous fame of this remarkable writer for a long time outlived him, and although there were periods of decline (especially in Hoffmann's homeland, Germany), today, one hundred and sixty years after his death, a wave of interest in Hoffmann has risen again, he has become one again of the most widely read German authors of the XIX century, his works are published and republished, and the scientific Hoffmannian is replenished with new works. None of the German romantic writers, among whom Hoffmann belonged, has received such a truly world-wide recognition.

The story of Hoffmann's life is the story of an incessant struggle for a piece of bread, for finding oneself in art, for one's dignity as a person and an artist. His works are full of echoes of this struggle.

Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann, who later changed his third name to Amadeus, in honor of his beloved composer Mozart, was born in 1776 in Konigsberg, in the family of a lawyer. His parents separated when he was in his third year. Hoffmann grew up in a mother's family, under the care of his uncle, Otto Wilhelm Dörfer, also a lawyer. In the Dörfer house, everyone played a little bit of music, they began to teach music to Hoffmann, for which they invited the cathedral organist Podbelsky. The boy showed extraordinary abilities and soon began to compose small pieces of music; he studied drawing, and also not without success. However, with the young Hoffmann's obvious inclination to art, the family, where all the men were lawyers, chose the same profession for him in advance. At school, and then at the university, where Hoffmann entered in 1792, he became friends with Theodor Hippel, the nephew of the then famous humorist writer Theodor Gottlieb Hippel - communication with him did not pass without leaving a trace for Hoffmann. After graduating from the university and after a short practice in the court of the city of Glogau (Glogow), Hoffmann went to Berlin, where he successfully passed the exam for the rank of assessor and was assigned to Poznan. Subsequently, he will prove himself as an excellent musician - composer, conductor, singer, as a talented artist - draftsman and decorator, as an outstanding writer; but he was also a knowledgeable and efficient lawyer. Possessing a tremendous capacity for work, this amazing man did not treat any of his activities carelessly and did nothing half-heartedly. In 1802, a scandal erupted in Poznan: Hoffmann drew a caricature of a Prussian general, a rude soldier who despised civilians; he complained to the king. Hoffmann was transferred, or rather exiled, to Plock, a small Polish town, which in 1793 ceded to Prussia. Shortly before leaving, he married Michalina Trzczyńska-Rohrer, who was to share with him all the hardships of his unsettled, wandering life. The monotonous existence in Plock, a remote province far from art, oppresses Hoffmann. He writes in his diary: “The muse has disappeared. Archival dust obscures every prospect of the future in front of me. " And yet the years spent in Plock were not wasted: Hoffmann reads a lot - his cousin sends him magazines and books from Berlin; he got his hands on Wigleb's book, "Teaching Natural Magic and All Sorts of Amusement and Useful Tricks," which was popular in those years, from where he would get some ideas for his future stories; his first literary experiments date back to this time.

In 1804, Hoffmann managed to transfer to Warsaw. Here he devotes all his leisure time to music, gets closer to the theater, achieves the production of several of his musical stage works, and paints the concert hall with frescoes. The beginning of his friendship with Julius Eduard Gitzig, a lawyer and lover of literature, dates back to the Warsaw period of Hoffmann's life. Gitzig - the future biographer of Hoffmann - introduces him to the works of romantics, with their aesthetic theories. On November 28, 1806, Warsaw is occupied by Napoleonic troops, the Prussian administration is disbanded, - Hoffmann is free and can devote himself to art, but is deprived of a livelihood. He is forced to send his wife and one-year-old daughter to Poznan, to his relatives, because he has nothing to support them. He himself goes to Berlin, but even there he is interrupted only by odd jobs, until he receives an offer to take the place of Kapellmeister at the Bamberg Theater.

The years spent by Hoffmann in the ancient Bavarian city of Bamberg (1808 - 1813) are the heyday of his musical, creative and musical pedagogical activity. At this time, he began his collaboration with the Leipzig "Universal Musical Gazette", where he published articles on music and published his first "musical novella" "Cavalier Gluck" (1809). The stay in Bamberg was marked by one of the deepest and most tragic experiences of Hoffmann - the hopeless love for his young student Julia Mark. Julia was pretty, artistic and had a charming voice. In the images of the singers, which Hoffmann would later create, her features will be seen. The calculating consul Mark married his daughter to a wealthy Hamburg merchant. Julia's marriage and her departure from Bamberg were a heavy blow for Hoffmann. In a few years he will write Elixirs of the Devil; the scene where the sinful monk Medard unexpectedly witnesses the tonsure of his passionately beloved Aurelia, the description of his torment at the thought that his beloved is parted from him forever, will remain one of the most heartfelt and tragic pages of world literature. In the difficult days of parting with Julia, the novel "Don Juan" emerged from the pen of Hoffmann. The image of the "mad musician", conductor and composer Johannes Kreisler, the second "I" of Hoffmann himself, the confidant of the thoughts and feelings dearest to him, - the image that will accompany Hoffmann throughout his literary career, was also born in Bamberg, where Hoffmann learned all bitterness of the fate of the artist, forced to serve the ancestral and monetary nobility. He conceived a book of stories called Fantasies in the Style of Callot, which the Bamberg wine and bookseller Kunz volunteered to publish. An outstanding draftsman himself, Hoffmann highly appreciated the caustic and graceful drawings - the "capriccio" of the 17th century French graphic artist Jacques Callot, and since his own stories were also very caustic and bizarre, he was attracted by the idea of ​​likening them to the creations of a French master.

The next stations on the life path of Hoffmann are Dresden, Leipzig and again Berlin. He accepts the offer of the impresario of the Seconda opera house, whose troupe played alternately in Leipzig and Dresden, to take the place of conductor, and in the spring of 1813 leaves Bamberg. Now Hoffmann devotes more and more energy and time to literature. In a letter to Kunz dated August 19, 1813, he writes: “It is not surprising that in our gloomy, ill-fated time, when a person barely interrupts from day to day and still has to rejoice, writing carried me so much - it seems to me that it was a wonderful kingdom that is born from my inner world and, having acquired flesh, separates me from the outer world. "

In the outer world, which closely surrounded Hoffmann, at that time the war was still raging: the remnants of the Napoleonic army defeated in Russia fought fiercely in Saxony. “Hoffmann witnessed the bloody battles on the banks of the Elbe and the siege of Dresden. He leaves for Leipzig and, trying to get rid of the difficult impressions, writes "The Golden Pot - A Tale from New Times." Work with Seconda was not going smoothly, once Hoffmann quarreled with him during the performance and was refused a place. He asks Hippel, who became a major Prussian official, to seek him a position in the Ministry of Justice and in the fall of 1814 he moved to Berlin. In the Prussian capital, Hoffmann spends the last years of his life, unusually fruitful for his literary work. Here he formed a circle of friends and associates, among them writers - Friedrich de la Mott Fouquet, Adelbert Chamisso, actor Ludwig Devrient. One after another came out his books: the novel "Elixirs of the Devil" (1816), the collection "Night Stories" (1817), the story-fairy tale "Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober" (1819), "The Serapion Brothers" - a cycle of stories united, like "The Decameron" by Boccaccio, with a plot frame (1819 - 1821), the unfinished novel "The Worldly Views of Murr the Cat, coupled with fragments of the biography of Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler, accidentally survived in scrap sheets" (1822 - 1821) )

The political reaction that reigned in Europe after 1814 darkened the last years of the writer's life. Appointed to a special commission that investigated the cases of the so-called demagogues - students involved in political unrest, and other opposition-minded individuals, Hoffmann could not reconcile himself with the "impudent violation of laws" that took place during the investigation. He had a clash with the police director Kampez, and he was removed from the commission. Hoffmann settled with Kamptz in his own way: he immortalized him in the story "Lord of the Fleas" in a caricatured image of Privy Councilor Knarrpanti. Having learned in what form Hoffmann portrayed him, Kamptz tried to prevent the publication of the story. Moreover: Hoffmann was brought to trial for insulting a commission appointed by the king. Only a doctor's certificate that Hoffmann was seriously ill halted further persecution.

Hoffmann was indeed seriously ill. The spinal cord injury led to rapidly developing paralysis. In one of the last stories - "The Corner Window" - in the person of a cousin who "lost the use of legs" and can only watch life through the window, Hoffmann described himself. He died on June 24, 1822.