Balances of a Dual Spirit – Karl Emil Franzos 1848-1904. Lecture by Oskar Ansull

In the second half of the 19th century, the writer, journalist, and first editor of the works of Georg Büchner, who hailed from Eastern Galicia, tried to balance his Jewish-German identity, aiming to be both at once in a kind of cultural synthesis. The young Walter Benjamin was only partially convinced that this was even possible. For Franzos, who considers himself a late Enlightenment thinker, the core issues were art, science, education, and "civilization," rather than Germanization. This is an accusation that has been leveled against him, who died in Berlin in 1904, even to this day. It serves as an impressive testament to the fragile merging of German-Jewish culture. A special reading for the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of National Socialism (January 27, 2026), but also a remembrance of the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, the region where Karl Emil Franzos was born and raised. Speaker: Oskar Ansull lives as an author and editor in Berlin-Pankow.