ABSTRACT
Born at Pola, a former Austrian naval arsenal, Ginzkey studied in Fiume, Trieste and Graz before becoming an army officer in Salzburg, Braunau and finally Vienna, where he was employed in the Military Geographical Institute. Ginzkey first published poetry (Das heimliche Läuten (1906), which received the Bauernfeld prize; Balladen und neue Lieder (1910); Vom Gastmahl des Lebens (1921)); a verse epic, Die Erschaffung der Eva, appeared in 1941. The poetry is generally derivative and nostalgic. More important are Ginzkey’s novels, although they appear unduly sentimental to many modern readers. Jakobus und die Frauen (1908) tells of the importance of a woman’s love for the timid protagonist (‘des Lebens bestes Wunder geschieht uns von den Frauen’); the painter Lernemann in Geschichte einer stillen Frau (1909) finds in his wife his truest companion. Ginzkey’s best-known novel was Der von der Vogelweide (1912), which paints a plausible picture of the medieval poet; Der Wiesenzaun (1913) is a Novelle with Albrecht Dürer as its hero. Ginzkey published over fifty novels and collections of stories, many of them trivial. In his autobiography Der Heimatsucher (1948) he tells of the fusion of ‘Volk’ and ‘Armee’ in pre-1914 Austria-Hungary: the chapter ‘Die Entdeckung Wiens’ contains a description of soldiers and civilians streaming together across the ‘PraterStern’; the narrator, sitting on the steps of the Tegetthoffdenkmal, perceives a mystical significance. Ginzkey also wrote a work on Mozart (Mozarts unsterbliche Sendung (1942)); his children’s books are still read today (Hatschi Bratschis Luftballon (1904); Florians wundersame Reise über die Tapete (1928); Tani-Wani (1947)). The Ausgewählte Werke (in four volumes) appeared in 1962.
