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November 4, 1890

 

Alfred Henschke (November 4, 1890 to August 14, 1928), is the real name of the German writer, Klabund. He married often and wrote a lot. One of his novels, titled Peter The Czar, is a story about the Czar of Russia, told as if it were Norse mythology. For instance in one scene, during a visit to the peasants in a public house, Peter describes the ship which bore him to their fire and tavern.


The Sokol, is both his fallow stallion, and a ship that has the "power...of a steer, her speed that of a greyhound. She has eyes at her prow like eagle's eyes. Her eyebrows are of black sable. "

The Czar, stranger, magician, "sat at the chimney fire and warmed his hands. A white he-cat leaped upon the table and stared at him." The stranger takes pity on the proprietor and promises to take a locket to his dead daughter in heaven.  An English translation of Peter the Czar appeared in 1925. Klabund was also interested in the literature of the East.

Better known are his works like the 1925 play Der Kreidekreis (The Chalk Circle), which Brecht would later adapt. During the 1920s his poems and songs were very popular in the cabarets of Berlin. Klabund was weak, his entire life, and died young.


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