The surname "Mann" is widely known in literary circles. This family includes Henry - a novelist, playwright; Eric, Klaus and Golo - writers; finally, the winner of such awards as the Nobel and Antonio Feltrinelli is Thomas.
Mann Thomas, whose brief biography is striking in its richness and inconsistency, will be the subject of consideration.
The master of the epic novel
The German writer belongs to the illustrious literary family. However, it is believed that the most striking and famous representative of it is precisely Thomas Mann.
His biography indicates that until the age of 16 he led a rather carefree life. He was born into a wealthy Lübeck family. However, after the death in 1891 of the head of the family - Johann Heinrich Mann, the city ​​senator - his wife and many children had to live on interest from the sale of family firms and houses.
We can assume that the biography of Thomas Mann has changed dramatically after a tragic event.
Having sold a house in LĂĽbeck, the family moves to a permanent residence in Munich, where Thomas begins to work in an insurance company and sees his future in the journalistic field. The choice of a creative path is explained by the addiction of brother Henry, who already at that time was a writer.
Thomas Mann: the path from birth to military service
However, we ran too far. It is necessary through life to show what kind of person Thomas Mann was. Key dates from his biography will help us with this idea.
On June 6, 1875, a son was born into the wealthy family of Johann Mann, a grain merchant and head of a shipping company, and Julia Mann, nee Da Silva-Bruns. Thomas Mann's mother was a musically gifted representative of a Creole-Brazilian Portuguese family. It was she who educated the future playwright and all his sisters and brothers.
In 1891, his father died. According to his will, the company and the house were sold. The whole family moves to Munich, where Thomas graduated from the Higher Technical School.
The first travel experience took place in 1896. Thomas and his brother Henry traveled together to Italy. After the trip, Thomas Mann became editor of Simplicissimus magazine.
Three years later, in 1899, the biography of Thomas Mann was enriched by military service. The period of service formed and strengthened the writer's worldview. He created a significant novel for his work, "Buddenbrooks."
Thomas Mann: The Way From Marriage to World War I
At the age of 30, a significant event took place that left its mark on the writer’s entire life. The biography of Thomas Mann has now become the story of not one man, but the union of two.
In 1905, he fastened the knot with Katya Princeheim. The daughter of a Munich professor became a faithful companion of the writer until the end of his days. Six children were born from their union, three of them followed in the footsteps of their father, becoming writers, writers.
Soon after the playwright's marriage, the First World War began, which at first the writer warmly accepted, but soon realized the fallacy of political theories. Mann opposed social reform and pacifism. Political disagreements caused disagreements in the family circle: Thomas Mann became an ideological opponent of his own older brother. But, changing his point of view, Thomas realized the need for democratic change, after which he reconciled with Henry.
Search for your country and citizenship. Thomas Mann: biography
At the German training ground for fascist acts, he did not find his refuge. And so, in 1933, they moved to Kusnacht, a Swiss town, together with their family. This step was planned by Thomas Mann himself.
Biography still holds interesting facts about his citizenship to one or another state. It turns out that after 1936 the writer was deprived of German citizenship, became a citizen of Czechoslovakia. However, soon, in 1938, Thomas Mann moved to the United States, where in 1944 he became a citizen of this state. It is known that, having left Germany at the very beginning of the fascist regime (in 1933), he never returned to the "Hitler" country.
From abroad, the writer introduced into the thinking of former German compatriots hostility to fascism, becoming the voice of anti-fascist radio programs.
Thomas Mann also propagated anti-fascist sentiments after the end of the war. The novel "Doctor Faustus", which saw the light in 1947, became a reflection of the author's personal opinion about the era of Nazism. Nazism is a phenomenon that did not occur spontaneously and not by accident, it is a natural and expected stage, to which German history went most of the time.
Thomas Mann (the biography was briefly described by us above) found his reassurance in the quiet Swiss city of Kilchberch. Here in 1952 he moved to a permanent place of residence. His last novel was written here - “The Adventures of the Adventurer Felix Krul”.
It is noteworthy that from the first to the last creative note, Thomas Mann was true to his "I". The Adventures describes the life of a man who paved his way to the top of the career ladder using the unstable orders of the bourgeois world.
Paul Thomas Mann, the second son of Johann and Julia Mann, died on August 12, 1955 in the north-east of Switzerland in the city of Zurich.
The Beginning of the Creative Path: The Buddenbrooks novel
The first publishing experience dates back to the years of study at the gymnasium: thanks to Thomas, the literary-artistic and not childishly philosophical journal Spring Thunderstorm saw the light of day.
Traveling to Italy in 1896 had a good effect on the writer's work. He sent stories written during his travels to publishers in his homeland. S. Fisher proposed creating a collection of them. It was released in 1898 under the title Little Frederman. Some stories from it were written during the time of editorial work in the satirical weekly journal "Simplicissimus".
During the year of military service, the writer further strengthened his opinion regarding the problems that had troubled him for a long time. After serving, in 1901 he released the novel “Buddenbrooks. The story of the death of one family. " It is believed that the work reflects the history of the parental family from the point of view from which Thomas Mann himself saw it. Biography and creativity, fused together, laid the foundation for a wonderful novel, considering narrow family issues through the prism of the social system.
Family novel about social order
The novel "Buddenbrooks. The history of the death of one family ”touched upon universal human and social issues affecting the ordinary family: material and spiritual life, decay and the possibility of degeneration of the bourgeois world. The problems of the creator’s place in society and life were also raised: the doom of a lonely existence, combined with an incredible responsibility to the society that left him.
In the novel, the writer denied the norms of the bourgeois world. Unpleasant for him culture, emerging in the twentieth century, he contrasted the burgher. The collapse of the once warm, settled burgher world for Mann meant the collapse of the whole culture.
Thomas Mann shows that four generations of a family from year to year lose not only material well-being, but also moral values.
There is an opinion that the Buddenbrok as a public type is opposed by the artist. This is true, but it is a mistake to assume that Thomas Mann prefers the latter. Neither burghery nor an artist are held in high esteem by Mann.
Public Recognition: Nobel Prize
The recognition did not come to Thomas Mann right away. It is known that in the year of release, only 100 copies of the Buddenbrooks family novel were purchased. But after 30 years, in 1929, it was thanks to him that the writer forever wrote his name on the list of Nobel laureates.
During his lifetime, the works of Thomas Mann began to be called classical.
After the award, the novel "Buddenbrooks" was released in a million copies.
Since 1933, the biography of Thomas Mann has become the biography of the man young writers have been equated with. Mann traveled around the country and lectured, including excerpts from his own works.
Thomas Mann: biography, creativity - everything is merged together
The second successful creation of Thomas Mann was the work "Tonio Kraeger", published in the collection "Tristan" (1903). In it, the author again demonstrated the contradictions that worried him between the world of creativity and the bourgeois world.
We can say that life and work for Mann were inextricably linked. The novel "Buddenbrooks" was not the only work in which the personal life and opinion of the writer were reflected.
Such is the play "Florence", released in 1907. Her characters speak through the mouth of the writer, voicing his opinion about the modern Thomas bourgeois world.
A similar view of society is inherent in most of his works, but the closest to the play is the novel “Royal Highness”. Thomas Mann wrote that he "preaches humanity."
However, the novel “Magic Mountain” became a turning point, according to the author himself. It reveals the ideological contradictions of the world in which Mann lived and created.
Trustworthy family man and father, fan of same-sex love
Thomas Mann, whose biography is full of contradictions in ideological addictions, is interesting not only for his creative heritage, but also for sexual preferences.
The main contradiction manifested on the love front is the external family idyll and addiction to same-sex love.
The diaries and correspondence unveiled after the writer's death presented Thomas Mann in a frightening light.
It followed from them that the famous writer, Nobel Prize laureate, father of six children, Paul Thomas Mann, had a deep interest in the male representatives. Moreover, this interest was not limited to the intellectual knowledge that Mann Thomas characterized during his lifetime.
A brief biography of the writer does not provide the necessary information, and this prompted the researchers to a detailed study of his life.
Who did Thomas Mann like?
The first signs of a strange love for boys appeared at a young age. Fourteen-year-old Thomas had an unrequited feeling in his classmate - Arnim Marten.
A second unrequited feeling arose two years later. Studying in England, Paul fell in love with the son of a physical education teacher.
The only novel, which, according to researchers, was far from platonic, is a connection with the artist Paul Ehrenberg. Relations continued for 5 years (from 1899 to 1904) and ended after the writer entered into a legal marriage with Katya Princeheim.
Despite his addictions, Thomas Mann longed for a family and children. However, even the strongest love for his wife did not stop him from looking at men. From the diaries of the writer it is known that thoughts about the beauty of the male body did not leave him until the end of his days.
The latest hobby was Franz Westermeier. 75-year-old Thomas Mann fell asleep and woke up with thoughts of a Bavarian waiter. But everything was limited only to dreams.
Screen adaptations of the works of Thomas Mann
Works belonging to the pen of the writer began to be filmed during his lifetime. The number of film adaptations from 1923 to 2008 exceeds 30. And this, taking into account the fact that Thomas Mann’s biography by dates and creative heritage contains only one work adapted for staging or creating a film, the play Florence. By the way, she was not filmed. But "Buddenbrooks" became one of the most popular in terms of film adaptation of the works that Thomas Mann wrote.