Salomo Friedlaender Explained

Salomo Friedlaender
Birth Date:4 May 1871
Birth Place:Gollantsch, German Empire
Death Date:9 September 1946
Death Place:Paris, France
Occupation:Philosopher, poet, satirist and author
Nationality:German

Salomo Friedlaender (4 May 1871  - 9 September 1946) was a German-Jewish[1] philosopher, poet, satirist and author of grotesque and fantastic literature. He published his literary work under the pseudonym Mynona, which is the German word for "anonymous" spelled backward. He is known for his philosophical ideas on dualism drawing on Immanuel Kant, and his avant garde poetry and fiction. Almost none of his work has been translated into English.[2]

Life

In 1894 he graduated from Gymnasium in Freiburg im Breisgau.[3] Between 1894 and 1902, Friedlaender studied medicine, philosophy, German literature, archaeology, and art history in Munich, Berlin, and Jena. He wrote his dissertation on Arthur Schopenhauer and Kant. He approached the contemporary problems of his day through the lens of Kantian philosophy, in the footsteps of his teacher, the neo-Kantian Ernst Marcus. His most philosophical work, Die schoepferische Indifferenz (1918), Friedlaender built upon Kant's ideas to move beyond the classical dualism of subject and object in a purified, absolute self.

In 1906, Friedlaender moved to Berlin and began to publish literary writing under the pseudonym Mynona. He wrote several novels and countless poems and grotesques which were widely published in Expressionist periodicals such as Der Sturm and Die Aktion. He was part of the Berlin expressionist circle of Herwarth Walden, Else Lasker-Schueler, and Samuel Lublinski and an attraction at their public readings.[4] [5]

In 1933, he fled to Paris to escape the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany. In Paris, he wrote about confronting the will to annihilation of the Nazis by answering torture with laughter.

He was refused assistance to emigrate to the United States during World War II.

Work

Almost none of Friedlander's work has been translated into English. In 2014, an English translation of The Creator was published by Wakefield Press alongside a translation of "A Wearisome Wedding Night: A Grotesque."[6]

Literature

Philosophy

External links

Friedlaender/ Mynona's individualist anarchist activism is documented here (full book).

Krajewski, Bruce (2024). "Friedlaender Fever" Blog of the American Philosophical Association.

Notes and References

  1. Vivian Liska, "Messianic Endgames in German-Jewish Expressionist Literature" in Europa! Europa?: The Avant-Garde, Modernism and the Fate of a Continent, Walter de Gruyter (2009), p. 344
  2. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/mynona "Mynona"
  3. Grossherzoglisches Gymnasium zu Freiburg i. B. Jahres-Bericht für das Schuljahr 1894/95, Freiburg i. B. 1895, p. 17.
  4. Post, Chad W. (Oct. 31, 2014). "Weekend Reading: "The Creator" by Mynona a.k.a. Salomo Friedlaender. Three Percent / University of Rochester / Open Letter Books. Accessed April 2017.
  5. Will Schofield (2012). "Here's a Bio of Mynona" Writers No One Reads. Accessed April 2017.
  6. News: Dirda. Michael. Book review: 'The Creator' by Mynona, author of 'Kant for Kids'. The Washington Post. 5 September 2017.

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