Max Brod
Encyclopedia
Max Brod (May 27, 1884, Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

 – December 20, 1968, Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...

) was a German-speaking
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 Czech Jewish
History of the Jews in the Czech Republic
Jews in the Czech Republic are predominantly Ashkenazic Jews, and the current Jewish population is only a fraction of the First republic's Jewish population. As of 2005, there were approximately 4,000 Jews living in the Czech Republic. There are ten small Jewish communities all around the country...

, later Israeli, author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

, composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

, and journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

. Although he was a prolific writer in his own right, he is most famous as the friend and biographer of Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...

. As Kafka's literary executor
Literary executor
A literary executor is a person with decision-making power in respect of a literary estate. According to Wills, Administration and Taxation: a practical guide "A will may appoint different executors to deal with different parts of the estate...

, Brod refused to follow the writer's instructions to burn his life's work, and had them published instead.

Biography

Max Brod was born in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

, then part of the province of Bohemia
Bohemia
Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...

 in Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...

, now the capital of the Czech Republic
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....

. At the age of four, Brod was diagnosed with a severe spinal curvature and spent a year in corrective harness; despite this he would have a hunchback his entire life. A German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

-speaking Jew, he went to the Piarist school together with his life-long friend Felix Weltsch
Felix Weltsch
Felix Weltsch , Dr. jur et phil., was a German-speaking Jewish librarian, philosopher, author, editor, publisher and journalist...

, later attended the Stephans Gymnasium, then studied law at the German Charles-Ferdinand University (which at the time was divided into a German language university and a Czech language
Czech language
Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...

 university; he attended the German one) and graduated in 1907 to work in the civil service. From 1912, he was a pronounced Zionist
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...

 (which he attributed to the influence of Martin Buber
Martin Buber
Martin Buber was an Austrian-born Jewish philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of religious existentialism centered on the distinction between the I-Thou relationship and the I-It relationship....

) and when Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...

 became independent in 1918, he briefly served as vice-president of the Jüdischer Nationalrat. From 1924, already an established writer, he worked as a critic for the Prager Tagblatt.

In 1939, as the Nazis
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...

 took over Prague, Brod and his wife Elsa Taussig fled to Palestine. He settled in Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...

, where he continued to write and worked as a dramaturg for Habimah, later the Israeli national theatre, for 30 years. For a period following the death of his wife in 1942, Brod published very few works. He became very close to a couple named Otto and Esther Hoffe, regularly taking vacations with the two and employing Esther as a secretary for many years; it is often presumed that their relationship had a romantic dimension. He would later pass stewardship of the Kafka materials in his possession to Esther in his will. He was additionally supported by his close companion Felix Weltsch
Felix Weltsch
Felix Weltsch , Dr. jur et phil., was a German-speaking Jewish librarian, philosopher, author, editor, publisher and journalist...

. Their friendship lasted 75 years, from the elementary school of the Piarists in Prague to Weltsch's death in 1964. Brod died on December 20, 1968 in Tel Aviv.

Literary career

Unlike Kafka, Brod rapidly became a prolific, successful published writer who eventually published 83 titles. His first novel and fourth book overall, Schloß Nornepygge (Nornepygge Castle), published in 1908 when he was only 24, was celebrated in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 literary circles as a masterpiece of expressionism
Expressionism
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...

. This and other works made Brod a well-known personality in German-language literature. In 1913, together with Weltsch, he published the work Anschauung und Begriff which made him more famous in Berlin and also in Leipzig, where their publisher Kurt Wolff
Kurt Wolff
Kurt Wolff was a German publisher, editor, writer and journalist.Wolff was born in Bonn, Rhenish Prussia. Together with Ernst Rowohlt he began to work in publishing in Leipzig in 1908. He was the first to promote and publish the authors Franz Kafka and Franz Werfel...

 worked.

He unselfishly promoted other writers and musicians. Among his protégés was Franz Werfel
Franz Werfel
Franz Werfel was an Austrian-Bohemian novelist, playwright, and poet.- Biography :Born in Prague , Werfel was the first of three children of a wealthy manufacturer of gloves and leather goods. His mother, Albine Kussi, was the daughter of a mill owner...

, whom he would later fall out with as Werfel abandoned Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

 for Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

. He would also write at various times both for and against Karl Kraus
Karl Kraus
Karl Kraus was an Austrian writer and journalist, known as a satirist, essayist, aphorist, playwright and poet. He is regarded as one of the foremost German-language satirists of the 20th century, especially for his witty criticism of the press, German culture, and German and Austrian...

, a convert from Judaism to Roman Catholicism. His critical endorsement would be crucial to the popularity of Jaroslav Hašek
Jaroslav Hašek
Jaroslav Hašek was a Czech humorist, satirist, writer and socialist anarchist best known for his novel The Good Soldier Švejk, an unfinished collection of farcical incidents about a soldier in World War I and a satire on the ineptitude of authority figures, which has been translated into sixty...

's The Good Soldier Svejk
The Good Soldier Švejk
The Good Soldier Švejk , also spelled Schweik or Schwejk, is the abbreviated title of a unfinished satirical/dark comedy novel by Jaroslav Hašek. It was illustrated by Josef Lada and George Grosz after Hašek's death...

, and he played a crucial role in the diffusion of Leoš Janáček
Leoš Janácek
Leoš Janáček was a Czech composer, musical theorist, folklorist, publicist and teacher. He was inspired by Moravian and all Slavic folk music to create an original, modern musical style. Until 1895 he devoted himself mainly to folkloristic research and his early musical output was influenced by...

's operas.

Friendship with Kafka

Brod first met Kafka on October 23, 1902, when both were students at Charles University. Brod had given a lecture at the German students' hall on Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher known for his pessimism and philosophical clarity. At age 25, he published his doctoral dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which examined the four separate manifestations of reason in the phenomenal...

. Kafka, one year older, addressed him after the lecture and accompanied him home. "He tended to participate in all the meetings, but up to then we had hardly considered each other," wrote Brod. The quiet Kafka "would have been... hard to notice... even his elegant, usually dark-blue, suits were inconspicuous and reserved like him. At that time, however, something seems to have attracted him to me, he was more open than usual, filling the endless walk home by disagreeing strongly with my all too rough formulations."

From then on, Brod and Kafka met frequently, often even daily, and remained close friends until Kafka's death. Kafka was a frequent guest in Brod's parents' house. There he met his future girlfriend and fiancée Felice Bauer, cousin of Brod's brother-in-law Max Friedmann. After graduating, Brod worked for a time for the post office. The relatively short working hours gave him time to begin a career as an art critic and freelance writer. For similar reasons, Kafka took a job at an insurance agency involved in workmen's accident insurance. Brod, Kafka and Brod's close friend Felix Weltsch
Felix Weltsch
Felix Weltsch , Dr. jur et phil., was a German-speaking Jewish librarian, philosopher, author, editor, publisher and journalist...

 constituted the so-called "Der enge Prager Kreis" or "close Prague circle".

During Kafka's lifetime, Brod tried repeatedly to reassure him of his writing talents, of which Kafka was chronically doubtful. Brod pushed Kafka to publish his work, and it is probably owing to Brod that he began to keep a diary. Brod tried, but failed, to arrange common literary projects. Notwithstanding their inability to write in tandem—which stemmed from clashing literary and personal philosophies—they were able to publish one chapter from an attempted travelogue in May 1912, for which Kafka wrote the introduction. It was published in the journal Herderblätter. Brod prodded his friend to complete the project several years later, but the effort was in vain. Even after Brod's 1913 marriage with Elsa Taussig, he and Kafka remained each other's closest friends and confidants, assisting each other in problems and life crises.

Publication of Kafka's work

On Kafka's death in 1924 Brod was the administrator of the estate
Administration of an estate on death
In English law, Administration of an estate on death arises if the deceased is legally intestate. In United States law, the term Estate Administration is used....

 and preserved his unpublished works from incineration despite what was stipulated in Kafka's will. He defended this course by saying that when Kafka asked him to burn his papers, he told him he would not carry out this wish: "Franz should have appointed another executor if he had been absolutely and finally determined that his instructions should stand." Before even a line of Kafka's most famous work had been made public, Brod had already praised him as "the greatest poet of our time", ranking with Goethe or Tolstoy
Tolstoy
Tolstoy, or Tolstoi is a prominent family of Russian nobility, descending from Andrey Kharitonovich Tolstoy who served under Vasily II of Moscow...

. As Kafka's works were posthumously published (The Trial
The Trial
The Trial is a novel by Franz Kafka, first published in 1925. One of Kafka's best-known works, it tells the story of a man arrested and prosecuted by a remote, inaccessible authority, with the nature of his crime revealed neither to him nor the reader.Like Kafka's other novels, The Trial was never...

arrived in 1925, followed by The Castle in 1926 and Amerika in 1927), this early positive assessment was bolstered by more general critical acclaim.

When Brod fled Prague in 1939, he took with him a suitcase of Kafka's papers, many of them unpublished notes, diaries, sketches, and so forth. Although some of these materials were later edited and published in 6 volumes of collected works, much of them remained unreleased. Upon his death, this trove of materials was passed to Esther Hoffe
Esther Hoffe
Ilse Esther Hoffe was a Jewish woman known for being the secretary and presumed mistress of Max Brod. Upon his death in 1968, she received a large trove of materials relating to Franz Kafka...

, who maintained most of them until her own death in 2007 (one original maunuscript of The Trial was auctioned in 1988 for $2 million). Due to certain ambiguities regarding Brod's wishes, the proper disposition of the materials is now being litigated. On one side is the National Library of Israel, which believes that Brod passed the papers to Esther as an executor of his actual intent to have the papers donated to the institution. On the other side are Esther's daughters, who claim that Brod passed the papers to their mother as a pure inheritance which should be theirs. The sisters have announced their intention to sell the materials to the Museum of Modern Literature
Museum of Modern Literature
The Museum of Modern Literature or LiMo is part of the German Literature Archive in Marbach am Neckar, Germany...

 in Marbach
Marbach
Marbach may refer to: Places in Germany*the town Marbach am Neckar, district Ludwigsburg, Baden-Württemberg*Part of Erbach in Hessen*Part of Gomadingen, Baden-Württemberg...

, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

.

Published works

  • Schloß Nornepygge (Nornepygge Castle, 1908)
  • Weiberwirtschaft (Woman's Work, 1913)
  • Über die Schönheit häßlicher Bilder (On the Beauty of Ugly Pictures, 1913)
  • Die Höhe des Gefühls (The Height of Feeling, 1913)
  • Anschauung und Begriff: Grundzüge eines Systems der Begriffsbildung, 1913 (together with Felix Weltsch
    Felix Weltsch
    Felix Weltsch , Dr. jur et phil., was a German-speaking Jewish librarian, philosopher, author, editor, publisher and journalist...

    )-->
  • Tycho Brahes Weg zu Gott (Tycho Brahe
    Tycho Brahe
    Tycho Brahe , born Tyge Ottesen Brahe, was a Danish nobleman known for his accurate and comprehensive astronomical and planetary observations...

    's Path to God
    1915)
  • Heidentum, Christentum, Judentum: Ein Bekenntnisbuch (Paganism, Christianity, Judaism: A Credo, 1921)
  • Sternenhimmel: Musik- und Theatererlebnisse (1923, reissued as Prager Sternenhimmel)
  • Reubeni, Fürst der Juden (Reubeni, Prince of the Jews, 1925)
  • Zauberreich der Liebe (The Charmed Realm of Love, 1930)
  • Biografie von Heinrich Heine (Biography of Heinrich Heine
    Heinrich Heine
    Christian Johann Heinrich Heine was one of the most significant German poets of the 19th century. He was also a journalist, essayist, and literary critic. He is best known outside Germany for his early lyric poetry, which was set to music in the form of Lieder by composers such as Robert Schumann...

    , 1934)
  • Die Frau, die nicht enttäuscht (The Woman Who Does Not Disappoint, 1934)
  • Novellen aus Böhmen (Novellas from Bohemia, 1936)
  • Rassentheorie und Judentum (Race Theory and Judaism, 1936)
  • Annerl (Annie, 1937)
  • Franz Kafka, eine Biographie (Franz Kafka, a Biography, 1937, later collected in Über Franz Kafka, 1974)
  • Franz Kafkas Glauben und Lehre (Franz Kafka's Thought and Teaching, 1948)
  • Die Musik Israels (The Music of Israel, Tel Aviv, 1951)
  • Beinahe ein Vorzugsschüler, oder pièce touchée: Roman eines unauffälligen Menschen (Almost a Gifted Pupil, 1952)
  • Die Frau, nach der man sich sehnt (The Woman For Whom One Longs, 1953)
  • Rebellische Herzen (Rebellious Hearts, 1957)
  • Verzweiflung und Erlösung im Werke Franz Kafkas (Despair and Redemption in the Works of Franz Kafka, 1959)
  • Beispiel einer deutsch-jüdischen Symbiose (An Example of German-Jewish Symbiosis, 1961)
  • Die verkaufte Braut, translation of the Czech libretto of Prodaná nevěsta (The Bartered Bride
    The Bartered Bride
    The Bartered Bride is a comic opera in three acts by the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana, to a libretto by Karel Sabina. The opera is considered to have made a major contribution towards the development of Czech music. It was composed during the period 1863–66, and first performed at the...

    , a comic opera by Bedřich Smetana
    Bedrich Smetana
    Bedřich Smetana was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style which became closely identified with his country's aspirations to independent statehood. He is thus widely regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music...

    ), and numerous other translations of Czech opera libretti
  • Über Franz Kafka, (Fischer, Frankfurt am Main, 1974)

Music

Brod's musical compositions are little known, even compared to his literary output. They include song
Song
In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...

s, works for piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...

 and incidental music
Incidental music
Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, film or some other form not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as the "film score" or "soundtrack"....

 for his plays. He translated some of Bedřich Smetana
Bedrich Smetana
Bedřich Smetana was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style which became closely identified with his country's aspirations to independent statehood. He is thus widely regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music...

's and Leoš Janáček's operas into German, and wrote the first book on Janáček (first published in Czech in 1924). Authored a study of Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...

, Beispiel einer deutsch-jüdischen Symbiose, in 1961.

Further reading

  • Kayser, Werner, Max Brod, Hans Christians, Hamburg, 1972 (in German)
  • Pazi, Margarita (Ed.): Max Brod 1884-1984. Untersuchungen zu Max Brods literarischen und philosophischen Schriften. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main, 1987 (in German)
  • Lerperger, Renate, Max Brod. Talent nach vielen Seiten (exhibit catalog), Vienna, 1987 (in German)
  • Wessling, Berndt W. Max Brod: Ein Portrait. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart, Berlin, Cologne and Mainz, 1969. New edition: Max Brod: Ein Portrait zum 100. Geburtstag, Bleicher, Gerlingen, 1984 (in German)
  • Bärsch, Claus-Ekkehard, Max Brod im Kampf um das Judentum. Zum Leben und Werk eines deutsch-jüdischen Dichters aus Prag. Passagen Verlag, Wien, 1992.
  • Vassogne, Gaelle, Max Brod in Prag: Identität und Vermittlung, Niemeyer, Conditio Judaica 75, 2009 (in German).
  • The Modern Hebrew Poem Itself
    The Modern Hebrew Poem Itself
    The Modern Hebrew Poem Itself is an anthology of modern Hebrew poetry, presented in the original language, with a transliteration into Roman script, a literal translation into English, and commentaries and explanations....

    (2003), ISBN 0-8143-2485-1
  • Barbora Šrámková: Max Brod und die tschechische Kultur. Arco Verlag, Wuppertal 2010, Arco Wissenschaft Band 17; ISBN 978-3-938375-27-3.

See also

  • Exilliteratur
    Exilliteratur
    German Exilliteratur is the name for a category of books in the German language written by writers of anti-nazi attitude who fled from Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945...

  • List of Bialik Prize recipients
    Bialik Prize
    The Bialik Prize is an annual literary award given by the municipality of Tel Aviv, Israel for significant accomplishments in Hebrew literature. The prize is named in memory of Hayyim Nahman Bialik. There are two separate prizes, one specifically for "Literature", which is in the field of fiction,...

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