Volker Braun is a German

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...

 writer. His works include Provokation für mich (Provocation for Me) -- a collection of poems written between 1959 and 1964 and published in 1965, a play, Die Kipper (The Dumpers) (1972; written 1962-1965), and Das ungezwungne Leben Kasts (The Unrestrained Life of Kast) (1972).

Life

Volker Braun, who worked in mining and civil engineering after the Abitur

Abitur

Abitur is a designation used in Germany, Finland and Estonia for final exams that pupils take at the end of their secondary education, usually after 12 or 13 years of schooling, see also for Germany Abitur after twelve years.The Zeugnis der Allgemeinen Hochschulreife, often referred to as...

 before he studied philosophy in Leipzig

Leipzig

Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...

, occupied himself with the contradictions and hopes in a socialist state. A member of the SED

Socialist Unity Party of Germany

The Socialist Unity Party of Germany was the governing party of the German Democratic Republic from its formation on 7 October 1949 until the elections of March 1990. The SED was a communist political party with a Marxist-Leninist ideology...

 since 1960, he succeeded in publishing his prose and poetry due to the application of his tactical skill.

His work included spoken poems, theater pieces, novels and stories.

At first his work reflected a critical enthusiasm for the build up of socialism. From 1965 to 1967, Braun worked as an artistic director at the Berliner Ensemble

Berliner Ensemble

The Berliner Ensemble is a German theatre company established by playwright Bertolt Brecht and his wife, Helene Weigel in January 1949 in East Berlin...

 from Helene Weigel's

Helene Weigel

Helene Weigel was a distinguished German actress. She was the second wife of Bertolt Brecht, and together they had a son Stefan Brecht and daughter Barbara Brecht-Schall .The daughter of a Jewish lawyer, she became a Communist Party member from 1930 and Artistic Director of the...

 invitation. After the events of the Prague Spring

Prague Spring

The Prague Spring was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during the era of its domination by the Soviet Union after World War II...

, he occupied himself pulling together criticism of the life in Socialism

Socialism

Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...

 and the possibility of reform. After that, he would be watched over strongly by the Stasi

Stasi

The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), commonly known as the Stasi (abbreviation , literally State Security), was the official state security service of East Germany. The MfS was headquartered...

. Since 1976, Braun worked at the Deutschen Theater Berlin (German Theater Berlin) and belonged to the artists who signed the petitions against Wolf Biermann's expatriation in 1976. From 1979 he was active again in the Berliner Ensemble. He left the Writer's Union of East Germany in 1982. They expanded while the livelihood of the East German arising Work did not give a picture of an increasingly depressed Life. The actors move resigned in an immovable association. Nevertheless, he received the Lessing Prize of East Germany in 1981 and the National Prize of East Germany

National Prize of East Germany

The National Prize of the German Democratic Republic was an award of the German Democratic Republic given out in three different classes for scientific, artistic, and other meritorious achievement...

 in 1988.

During the Wende

Die Wende

marks the complete process of the change from socialism and planned economy to market economy and capitalism in East Germany around the years 1989 and 1990. It encompasses several processes and events which later have become synonymous with the overall process...

, Braun belonged to the supporters of an independent "third way" for East Germany. After the reunification, Braun occupied himself with critiques of the foundations for the failure of East Germany. In this connection stood also his cooperation with that of Wolfgang Fritz Haug

Wolfgang Fritz Haug

Wolfgang Fritz Haug was from 1979 till his retirement in 2001 professor of philosophy at the Free University Berlin, where he had also studied romance languages and religious studies and taken his PhD .Haug coined the term commodity aestheticism...

 surrendered the western-Marxist periodical "Das Argument".

1986 Braun would awarded the Bremer Literature Prize and 1992 he got the excellence of the Schiller Memorial Prize

Schiller Memorial Prize

The Schiller Memorial Prize is a literature prize of the State ofBaden-Württemberg. It is presently endowed with 25,000 Euros and has been awarded since 1955 on Friedrich Schiller's birthday, 10 November. The prize acknowledges outstanding work in the field of German literature or intellectual...

. He was awarded a stipend of the Villa Massimo

Villa Massimo

Villa Massimo, short for Deutsche Akademie Rom Villa Massimo , is a German art institute in Rome, established in 1910 and located in the Villa Massimo....

 and a guest of the University of Wales in 1994. In 1996, he received the Deutschen Kritikerpreis (German Critic Prize), became a member of the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung

Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung

The Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung was founded on August 28, 1949—the 200th birthday of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe—in Paulskirche in Frankfurt...

, the Sächsischen Akademie der Künste (Saxon Academy of the Arts) and held Poet-lecturer at the University of Heidelberg. He received the Erwin Schrittmatter Prize in 1998 and the Georg Büchner Prize

Georg Büchner Prize

The Georg Büchner Prize is the most important literary prize of Germany. It was created in 1923 in memory of Georg Büchner and was only given to artists who came from or were closely tied to Büchner's home of Hesse...

 in 2000. From 1999 to 2000, he was the Brother Grimm professor at the University of Kassel

University of Kassel

The University of Kassel, founded in 1970, is one of the newer universities in the state of Hesse. The university is in Kassel, and as of September 2010 has about 18,113 students...

. He would be elected to the Director of the Literature Section of the Akademie der Künste

Akademie der Künste

The Akademie der Künste, Berlin is an arts institution in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in 1696 by Elector Frederick III of Brandenburg as the Prussian Academy of Arts, an academic institution where members could meet and discuss and share ideas...

 in 2006. In 2008, he received the 2007 ver.di-Literature Prize 2007 for his story, "Das Mittagsmahl" (The Midday Meal).

Volker Braun lives in Berlin.

Selected works

• Die Kipper (The Dumpers), Drama (1965)
• Provokation für mich (Provocation for Me), Poem (1965)
• Vorläufiges (Provisional), Poem (1966)
• Kriegs Erklärung (War's Explanation) (1967)
• Lenins Tod (Lenin's Death), Drama (1970)
• Wir und nicht sie (We and not Them), Poem (1970)
• Die Kipper (The Dumpers), Drama (1972)
• Gedichte (Poems) (1972)
• Gegen die symmetrische Welt (Against the Systematic World), Poem (1974)
• Es genügt nicht die einfache Wahrheit (It does not satisfy the Simple Truth) (1975)
• Unvollendete Geschichte (Incomplete History/Unfinished Narrative) (1977)
• Training des aufrechten Gangs (Training of the Upright Gang), Poem (1979)
• '„Hinze-Kunze-Roman (Every Tom, Dick and Harry Novel), Novel (1985)
• Verheerende Folgen mangelnden Anscheins innerbetrieblicher Demokratie. Schriften (Disastrous Results mangled Appearances in-house Democracy. Writings) (1988)
• Der große Frieden (The Great Peace)
• Der Wendehals (The Wende Neck) (1995)
• Lustgarten Preußen (Delight Garden of Prussia) (1996)
• Wir befinden uns soweit wohl. Wir sind erst einmal am Ende (We feel ourselves so far whole. We are only once on the End.) (1998)
• Tumulus, Poetry Collection (1999)
• Das Wirklichgewollte (The Real Artificial) (2000)
• Das unbesetzte Gebiet (The Untaken Area), Historical Story (2004)
• Das Mittagsmahl (The Midday Meal), Story (2007)

Literature

• Edition Text and Criticism: Volker Braun, 1977
• Jay Rosellini, Volker Braun, 1983
• Christine Cosentino, Wolfgang Ertl: Zur Lyrik Volker Brauns (To the Poet Volker Braun), 1984
• Katrin Bothe: Die imaginierte Natur des Sozialismus. Eine Biographie des Schreibens und der Texte Volker Brauns 1959-1974 (The Imaginative Nature of the Socialist. A Biography of the Writings and Texts of Volker Braun 1959-1974), Würzburg 1997
• Fritz J. Raddatz: Broken Lives (German). Die Zeit, 44/2000
• Rolf Jucker (Hg.): Volker Braun in perspective, Amsterdam/New York, 2004

Film

• „Zur Person: Volker Braun“ (To the Person: Volker Braun), Reportage, 50 Min., Author: Günter Gaus (1991)

External links

• Literary Encyclopedia page on Volker Braun
• Works by and on Volker Braun in the Catalog of the German National Library
  German National Library
  The German National Library is the central archival library and national bibliographic centre for the Federal Republic of Germany...
  
  
• Link list of the FU Berlin on Volker Braun