Edzard Schaper
Edzard Schaper was a German writer born in 1908 in Ostrowo, near the Polish border. He was the youngest of eleven children and had a varied early life that included studying music and working in theaters and opera in Stuttgart. Schaper's literary career began with novels written before he turned twenty, though he later distanced himself from those works. His life took a significant turn after marrying Alice Pergelbaum, a German from Estonia, leading him to live and write as a freelance correspondent in Estonia until World War II forced the family to flee to Finland, then Sweden, before settling in Brig, Switzerland.
Schaper's writing often explored religious themes, particularly in his early novels like "Die Insel Tütarsaar" and "Die sterbende Kirche," which reflect his experiences and interests in faith amidst the backdrop of political upheaval. He became increasingly invested in Christian topics post-war, although his later works became less overtly religious. Schaper's literary contributions, particularly his explorations of refugee experiences and the complexities of faith, garnered him recognition, including the Berlin Fontane Prize. He passed away in 1984, leaving behind a body of work that continues to be of interest to scholars and readers alike.
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Edzard Schaper
Writer
- Born: September 30, 1908
- Birthplace: Ostrowo, Germany (now Ostrów Wielkopolski, Poland)
- Died: January 29, 1984
- Place of death: Switzerland
Biography
Edzard Schaper was born in 1908 in Ostrowo, then in Germany on the Polish border (now Ostrów Wielkopolski, Poland). He was the youngest of eleven children. His father was in the military and fought in World War I. Afterward, the family moved to Glogau in Silesia, and then in 1920 to Hannover. Here Schaper attended high school and began serious musical study. After graduating from high school, he worked in theaters and at the opera in Stuttgart. He had also written two novels before he was twenty, both published, though he later repudiated them.
In 1927, Schaper left Stuttgart for the Danish island of Christiansö, spending three years there working on a novel on the composer George Frederic Handel before abandoning it to return to Germany. In 1931, when he was in Berlin, Schaper met Alice Pergelbaum. She was a German living in Estonia. After their marriage, Schaper went to live in that country, working as a freelance writer and news correspondent. The couple had two girls. In 1939, Hitler ordered all Germans in the Baltic countries to resettle in Germany, but the Schapers refused, finally being forced to flee to Finland and then Sweden. After World War II, the family finally settled in Brig, Switzerland. Although he was brought up Lutheran, Schaper’s stay in Estonia attracted him to Russian Orthodoxy. In 1951, he became a Roman Catholic.
Schaper’s best-known novels are specifically religious. The first of these is Die Insel Tütarsaar (1933), set on an island, where a married man estranged from his family finds a renewal of his faith and can return to it. Die sterbende Kirche (the dying church) followed in 1935, centering on a small Russian Orthodox church in Estonia. Although the church building collapses, there are signs of hope in converts from communism. At the time, Christians were coming under great pressure from the Nazis, and so the novel was well-received by them. This was followed by several short stories and novella, including “Die Arche, die Schiffbruch erlitt” (the ark that suffered shipwreck) about a circus that sank at sea, with the humans surviving. Symbolically, the ark represents the church, surviving despite the loss of all its trappings and externals.
Der Henker (the executioner) was published in 1940. It concerns a group of Estonian peasants in revolt against their Russian landlord in the early 1900’s. The Baltic setting was unusual for a German writer, though his main themes had to do with refugees and the border areas that could be political or spiritual, depending on the interpretation. Der letzte Advent (the last advent, 1949) was a sequel to Die sterbende Kirche, where a surviving priest secretly ministers to Russian Christians during the communist persecution.
Further novels with Christian themes followed after the war, together with many radio talks, essays and plays for radio and television. In the immediate postwar period, Schaper took a renewed interest in Christian topics. However, his fiction became less explicitly Christian by the 1970’s, although the quality of his writing did not diminish. Indeed, Am Abend der Zeit (on the evening of time), set in Poland just before World War I, is reckoned one of his best novels.
Schaper became relatively unknown after his last book. He died in 1984. He was awarded several distinctions, including the Berlin Fontane Prize in 1958 and an honorary doctorate from the University of Freiburg.