August von Kotzebue y la Guerra de la Independencia española

Abstract

August Von Kotzebue and the Spanish Independence War

The Peninsular War left its mark on the work of the writer August von Kotzebue, who is still remembered as the author of more than two hundred comedies, rather than for his work as a journalist and historian. As was the case for many of his contemporaries, the struggle of the Spaniards against the French served von Kotzebue as a reference model, and thus encouraged the Germans to break away from France. From the pages of his magazine “Die Biene”, a clear example of anti-French press, the author resorted to the Spanish conflict to offer his readers a different perspective. This work of rectification continued with “Russisch-Deutsches Volks-Blatt”, a campaign newspaper (1813), and “Politische Flugblätter” (1814). When, in 1819, von Kotzebue was murdered by a radical student who wanted to avenge the writer’s attacks against University liberalism, the German theatre lost one of its most successful authors, a true mass phenomenon in the first third of the 19th century.

Received: 26-08-2015

Admitted: 11-10-2016