Und alles lauschte dem Liede Horands: Kunst und Humanität in Alma Johanna Koenigs Gudrun

Abstract

Since the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Middle High German epic Kudrun (about 1250) has been translated, adapted and retold numerous times by German speaking authors. Among the few women of these is Alma Johanna Koenig (1887–1942), a Jewish-Austrian writer of mostly historical novels and poems, who perished in the Nazi concentration camps in 1942. Koenig's adaptation, Gudrun: Stolz und Treue (1928), is discussed in light of its two dominant values: art and humanity, both of which are symbolized by the magic song of the minstrel Horand. Koenig emphasizes not only the artist's particular responsibility for the education of society, but also the importance of art as a cornerstone of a humanitarian ethics.