Stefan Zweig (1881-1941), the Austrian writer, and Thomas Mann were introduced to Rabindranath Tagore in the summer of 1921. True to their temperament, their reactions to Tagore were quite opposite to each other. Zweig, the suave cosmopolitan and altruistic humanitarian, had visited India in the winter of 1908/09. Read more
“Being a publisher is not a profession, it’s a passion, an obsession.” This line from a letter written by Kurt Wolff could well have been the motto of his entire life. He was one of the most extraordinary personalities of German publishing in the 20th century. Wolff’s career spanned fifty years of publishing experience and brought together in his person the classical ethos of the 19th century as well as the dynamic, feverish search for new areas of experience characteristic of the 20th century. Read more
Rabindranath Tagore, the Indian poet, and Count Hermann Keyserling, the German philosopher, met on three different occasions: in Calcutta (1912), in London (1913) and again in Darmstadt/Germany (1921). During Tagore’s highly publicized trip through Germany in May/June 1921, Keyserling projected himself as Tagore’s friend and guide. Read more
“If I were asked who was the greatest poet India has produced, including the greatest of ancient India, Kalidasa, my firm answer would be: ‘Tagore’ … It is tragic, however, that his greatness as a poet will never be generally acknowledged, like the greatness of Goethe, Hugo or Tolstoy.”[1] Read more
The Scottish Centre of Tagore Studies launched their website on the 12th of May 2015. On the same occasion, Martin Kaempchen and Imre Bangha launched their book “One Hundred Years of Rabindranath Tagore’s Global Reception.” Read more