JOHANN CHRISTOPH

FRIEDRICH VON
SCHILLER
PREPARED BY MARCHENKOV D. 
 THE GERMAN DRAMATIST, POET, AND HISTORIAN
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER (1759-
1805) RANKS AS ONE OF THE GREATEST OF GERMAN
LITERARY FIGURES. HE WAS A FOUNDER OF MODERN
GERMAN LITERATURE.

        Friedrich von Schiller was born at Marbach,

Württemberg, on Nov. 10, 1759. His father, Johann
Kaspar Schiller, was an army captain in the service of
Duke Karl Eugen of Württemberg. His mother,
Elisabeth Dorothea, the daughter of a Marbach
innkeeper, was a gentle and religious person. Schiller
had four sisters, one older and three younger.
As a boy, Schiller, under the influence of Philipp Ulrich Moser, a parson,
wanted to become a preacher. He attended the duke's military academy,
the Karlsschule, near Stuttgart for two years. After the academy was
moved to Stuttgart, Schiller endured five more years of harsh discipline
there. He studied medicine because that was the domineering duke's
will. In spite of frequent illnesses, fevers, stomach upsets, and
headaches, he wrote his final dissertation on the interrelationship
between man's spiritual and physical natures. At the same time he was
writing his first play, Die Räuber, which was published in 1781. It ranks as
one of the literary monuments of the German Sturm und Drang (Буря і
натиск) period.
EARLY WORKS
In December 1780 Schiller was appointed
medical officer to a regiment stationed in
Stuttgart at a pitiably low salary. A loan
toward the publication of Die Räuber
marked the beginning of a succession of
agonizing debts that characterized Schiller's
early career. In 1782 Die Räuber received its
first stage performance, in Mannheim. It
brought him both public acclaim and the
wrath of the duke, who forbade him to write
anything except medical treatises. That
same year Schiller published the Laura-
Odenin his Anthologie auf das Jahr 1782. The
inspiration for these poems was a 30-year-
old widow, Dorothea Vischer, who had three
children. She had rented a simple ground-
floor room to Schiller and another
lieutenant.
       Meantime, Schiller's conflict with the
Duke of Württemberg forced him to
flee Stuttgart in September 1782. A
period of great deprivation and
uncertainty followed until Schiller
became dramatist at the Mannheim
theater in September 1783.
       In 1784 Schiller completed Die
Schaubühne als moralische Anstalt
betrachtet, which appeared in his
Rheinische Thalia, a literary journal,
in 1785. The second issue of
Thaliacontained Schiller's hymn An
die Freude, which later inspired
Ludwig van Beethoven to create his
magnificent Ninth Symphony in D
Minor. In the third issue of Thalia
Schiller published part of Don Carlos.
During this period Christian Gottfried
Körner generously offered Schiller
financial help and hospitality,
becoming his patron and friend.
       In 1787 Schiller paid a visit to his friend Frau von Kalb in Weimar,
the residence of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who at that
time was traveling in Italy. The two great German poets met
the following year in the house of Frau von Lengefeld (later to
be Schiller's mother-in-law) in Rudolstadt. They had met once
before, in December 1779, when Duke Karl August of Weimar
and Goethe had come to the Karlsschule in Stuttgart to award
the annual student prizes. Schiller had received three silver
medals.
       In 1788 he published "Geschichte des Abfalls der vereinigten
Niederlande", a history of the revolt of the Netherlands against
Spain. These works assured Schiller's fame and social position.
Together with Goethe's support they gained him a
professorship of history at the University of Jena in 1789. 
       Early in 1790 Schiller married Charlotte von Lengefeld, a gifted
writer. In February 1803 he was created a nobleman.
 In 1799 he returned to Weimar, where he began to publish
several literary magazines with the money of patrons.
Becoming a close friend of Goethe, Schiller founded the
Weimar Theater with him, which became the leading
theater in Germany. The poet remained in Weimar until his
death.
 In 1799-1800 he wrote the play "Mary Stuart", the plot of
which occupied him for almost two decades. In the work he
showed the brightest political tragedy, capturing the image
of a distant era, torn apart by the strongest political
contradictions. The play was a great success among
contemporaries. Schiller finished it with the feeling that he
now "mastered the craft of the playwright."
 The last years of Schiller's life were overshadowed by
severe, protracted illnesses. After a severe cold, all the old
ailments became aggravated. The poet suffered from
chronic pneumonia. He died on May 9, 1805 at the age of
45 from tuberculosis.
 Schiller's writings were enthusiastically received not only in Germany, but also in other European countries. Some considered
Schiller a poet of freedom, others - a stronghold of bourgeois morality. Accessible language tools and apt dialogues have turned
many of Schiller's lines into catch phrases. The centenary of Schiller's birth was celebrated not only in Europe, but also in the USA.
The works of Friedrich Schiller were learned by heart, since the 19th century they have been included in school textbooks. The world
famous "Ode to Joy", the music to which was written by Ludwig van Beethoven, which in 1993 became the anthem of the European
Union.
 The most famous ballads of Schiller, written by him in the framework of the “year of ballads” (1797) are the Cup (Der Taucher), the
Glove (Der Handschuh), the Polycratic ring (Der Ring des Polykrates) and the Willow Cranes (Die Kraniche des Ibykus).
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