Albin Zollinger
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Albin Zollinger
Zollinger, Albin (Zurich, 1895-1941, Zurich), spent formative boyhood years in Argentina before training to be a schoolteacher, which he remained for the rest of his life. His intellectual gifts were evident in the political and critical journalism he wrote during the 1930s as a champion of democratic values, while his collections of poems (Gedichte, 1933; Sternfrühe, 1936; Stille des Herbstes and Haus des Lebens, 1939) earned him a lasting reputation as the major Swiss poet of his generation. Two early and often autobiographical novels prepared the way for Die große Unruhe (1939), an ambitious Zeitroman set partly in Vienna, Berlin and Paris, which focuses on the efforts made by its restive protagonist, Urban von Tscharner, to escape from the parochial pettiness and claustrophobia of Switzerland in the 1930s. Its strongly autobiographical flavour is also a feature of Zollinger's last two novels, Pfannenstiel. Die Geschichte eines Bildhauers (Zurich, 1940) and its posthumously published sequel Bohnenblust oder Die Erzieher (1941), to which three figures are central: Martin Stapfer, an artist almost destroyed by personal unhappiness and critical incomprehension, who regains the inner strength to rebuild his life when his country is threatened by war, Bohnenblust, a contented village schoolmaster, and Walter Byland, an author unable to achieve peace and happiness. Like his near contemporary Meinrad Inglin, Zollinger is concerned with the interplay of stability and change in times of external threat and internal unrest. His major novels, though uneven in quality, vividly reflect the mood which engulfed Switzerland in the years leading up to the 1939-45 War. He was a sharp critic of his country, yet by 1940 it had come to represent for him the last area in Europe where true German values survived. Max Frisch was one of his most devoted admirers.
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Albin Zollinger
Albin Zollinger (* January 24, 1895 in Zürich; † November 7, 1941 in Zürich) was a Swiss writer.
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Life
Albin Zollinger was the son of a precision mechanic and grew up in Rüti, Zürich and Argentina, where his parents unsuccessfully tried to establish a secure existence for the family. He attended the teacher’s seminar in Küsnacht and eventually, after a series of job changes, got a permanent position in Oerlikon, which he held until his death. His first novel was published in 1921.
All of Zollinger's works, his novels, narratives, poems, essays, articles, reviews, and letters, were written alongside his work as a teacher, his military service, his public engagements in the Swiss Writer’s Association, and his work as an editor for “Die Zeit” and later “Nation”, and despite a family crisis and depression (his marriage was divorced after a few years).
His preferred place to write was in the Zürich's cafés, where he travelled from Oerlikon by tram after school. During the 1930s, his little marble table at the Café "Terrasse" achieved some local fame. There he met other Zürich writers, e.g. professor of literature Fritz Ernst, literary reviewer Bernhard Diebold, his friend Traugott Vogel or Rudolf Jakob Humm. Three weeks before his death at the age of 46, Zollinger met the young Max Frisch on the Pfannenstiel. Frisch mentioned the meeting in his diary (“Tagebuch 1946-1949“).
Albin Zollinger is buried in an honorary grave at the “Nordheim” cemetery in Oerlikon. A square in Oerlikon was named after him in 1980. Albin Zollinger’s literary legacy is administrated by the Zentralbibliothek Zürich.
List of works
- Die Gärten des Königs, novel, 1921 (literally: „The King's Gardens“)
- Der halbe Mensch, novel, 1929 (literally: „The Half Man“)
- Gedichte, 1933 („Poems“)
- Sternfrühe, poems, 1936 (literally: „Bright and Early“)
- Stille des Herbstes, poems, 1939 (literally: „Silence of Fall“)
- Haus des Lebens, poems, 1939 (literally: „House of Life“)
- Die große Unruhe, novel, 1939 (literally: „The Big Unrest“)
- Pfannenstiel. Die Geschichte eines Bildhauers, novel, 1940 (literally: „Pfannenstiel. The Story of a Sculptor“). Suhrkamp-Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main 1990. ISBN 3-518-40280-3
- Bohnenblust oder Die Erzieher, novel, 1941 (literally: „Bohnenblust or The Educators“)
- Der Fröschlacher Kuckuck. Leben und Taten einer Stadt in zwanzig Abenteuern, 1941 (literally: „The cuckoo of Fröschlach. Life and deeds of a city in twenty adventures“)
Further reading
- Isabelle Chopin: Albin Zollinger. Entre politique et poésie (1933-1939). Bern u.a.: Lang 2000. (= Contacts; Sér. 3, Etudes et documents; 50) ISBN 3-906758-15-X
- Maria Adèle Hafner: Die Gestalt des Lehrers in Albin Zollingers Romanen "Pfannenstiel" und "Bohnenblust" und in E. Y. Meyers Roman "Die Rückfahrt". Zürich: Bokos 1995.
- Thorbjörn Lengborn: Schriftsteller und Gesellschaft in der Schweiz. Eine Studie zur Behandlung der Gesellschaftsproblematik bei Zollinger, Frisch und Dürrenmatt. Frankfurt: Athenäum-Verl. 1972. ISBN 3-7610-9259-8
- Ingrid Scheffler: Albin Zollinger, Max Frisch und Friedrich Dürrenmatt als Publizisten und ihr Verhältnis zu den Medien. Frankfurt am Main u.a.: Lang 1986. (= Beiträge zur Literatur und Literaturwissenschaft des 20. Jahrhunderts; 7) ISBN 3-8204-9134-1
External links
Albin Zollinger in the German National Library catalogue (German)
- Texts of Albin Zollinger (Projekt Gutenberg-DE)
- Albin Zollinger In: Datenbank Projekt Historic Novel. University of Innsbruck.
- A short biography on Albin Zollinger
- Poems by Albin Zollinger
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Oxford Companion to German Literature
The Oxford Companion to German Literature. Copyright © 1976, 1986, 1997, 2005 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
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