200th anniversary of Georg Büchner’s birth
To commemorate Georg Büchner’s birthday, his home town tells us that the German thinker and poet is as up-to-date today as he was 200 years ago.
He is a man of the hour: literary genius Georg Büchner, born 200 years ago, is as modern as he was when he was alive – a fact that is demonstrated by many exhibitions and productions in this commemorative year. They include the BüchnerBühne (BüchnerStage) theatre project in the south Hessian home of the writer and social revolutionary: “Freedom! Equality! Fraternity – A Reminder to Europe” is based on Büchner’s play “Danton’s Death” (1835). Based on this drama about the French Revolution, the cradle of the European ideal of freedom, teams of actors from France, Germany and Poland are working on scenes that simultaneously represent lines of research into the roots of a pan-European culture. The project is supported by the European Commission and the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media, among others. After the premiere in Germany it will also be presented in the neighbouring countries. At a time of economic and monetary crises, this series of performances aims to initiate a discourse on the cultural foundations of a sustainable European identity and to remind people about Büchner as an early European and humanist.
This part of the project is being led by the BüchnerBühne, a team assembled by theatre maker Christian Suhr, who worked for years as an actor at the Deutsches Theater and the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm in Berlin. In 2008 he founded a gem in the provinces: a rural theatre in Georg Büchner’s home region, the south of the state of Hesse. People here in Riedstadt, 40 kilometres south of Frankfurt-am-Main, feel highly indebted to Georg Büchner’s work. The house where he was born is here, in the district of Goddelau. It’s the last original venue in Germany with a permanent exhibition recalling the life of the poet, revolutionary and scientist. He was born here on 17 October 1813 as the first child of a doctor, Ernst Büchner, and his wife Caroline. Here lie the roots of a genius who was once called the “poet of the creature” by Büchner Prize-winner Paul Celan.
200th birthday of Georg Büchner 17 October
