Hugo Salus

Hugo Salus (3 August 1866 – 4 February 1929) was a German-Czech medical doctor, writer and poet.

Life Salus was born in Česká Lípa, Bohemia, Austrian Empire on 3 August 1866. He studied medicine in Prague and established a practice in gynaecology there from 1895 onwards. Apart from his professional activities as a doctor, he published numerous volumes of poetry and short stories, and was one of the more important exponents of German-Jewish literature in the Prague of his day, moving in a circle which included younger figures of the stature of Franz Kafka, Max Brod, Franz Werfel, Egon Erwin Kisch, Oskar Baum, Johannes Urzidil, Paul Kornfeld, Ernst Weiss and Kamil Hoffmann. Several of his works were illustrated by Heinrich Vogeler, while Arnold Schoenberg set two of his poems to music. A prolific author, he soon became 'the acknowledged arbiter of Prague literary taste', and "the most respected Bohemian poet writing in German" at the time. An early friend and mentor of Rainer Maria Rilke, his verse had some influence on Rilke's early lyric style.

To some of his fellow Jewish intellectuals, he was regarded as an unadulterated "assimilationist," whose attachment to Zionism was little more than a matter of embracing a fashionable trend (Mode-Zionismus). Lothar Kahn, on the other hand, says that while Salus was described by Max Brod as an unqualified assimilationist, "this may be an exaggeration, Salus did hope, all else failing, for full Jewish absorption into the host society." Kahn notes that "Salus made use of Jewish folkways and observances in his poetry, plays, and occasional fiction."

Salus died in Prague on 4 February 1929, aged 62.

Works (a selection)

Poems Gedichte. 1898 Neue Gedichte. 1899 Ehefrühling. 1900 Reigen. 1900 Christa. Ein Evangelium der Schönheit. 1902 Ernte. 1903 Neue Garben. 1904 Die Blumenschale. 1908 Glockenklang. 1911 Das neue Buch. 1919 Klarer Klang. 1922 Helle Träume. 1924 Die Harfe Gottes. 1928

Prose

Novellen des Lyrikers. 1903 Das blaue Fenster. 1906 Trostbüchlein für Kinderlose. 1909 Andersen-Kalender 1910 (12 Fairy tales) Schwache Helden. 1910 Die Hochzeitsnacht. Die schwarzen Fahen. 1913 Seelen und Sinne. 1913 Nachdenkliche Geschichten. 1914 Der Heimatstein und andere Erzählungen. 1915 Sommerabend. 1916 Die schöne Barbara. 1919 Freund Kafkus. 1919 Der Beschau. Eine Ghettogeschichte. 1920 Der Jungfernpreis. 1921 Vergangenheit. 1921

Theatre Susanna im Bade. 1901 Römische Komödie. 1909

Secondary literature Wertheimer, Paul: Hugo Salus, Prague 1902. Tinkl, Lotte: Neuromantische Elemente bei Hugo Salus und Franz Herold, Diss. Vienna, 1949. Franzel, Emil, 'Hugo Salus. Ein Stück versunkenes Prag,' in Sudetendeutscher Kulturalmanach, 7 (1969). Kletzander, Hermann, Hugo Salus und der Jugendstil, Diss. Salzburg 1977.

Theopold, Wilhelm, Doktor und Poet dazu. Dichterärzte aus fünf Jahrhunderten, 2nd impression, Mainz 1987.