In Henrik Ibsens Drama Hedda Gabler the protagonist reveals that she “made a little detour to Tyrol on the way home”. The last stop for Hedda and her companion Tesman on the way back from Italy to Norway was Gossensass, even if the place is not explicitly named. In the second act, the dialogue between Hedda and Tesman only says:
– Do you still remember the little village?
– Oh, that under the Brenner Pass. Where we stayed …
– And all the funny summer visitors met …
For Ibsen, Gossensass was more than just an overnight stop. Ibsen stayed at the Grand Hotel for three consecutive summers, from 1882 to 1884 Gröbner. Ibsen’s play was made in the house that burned down after an explosion of ammunition stored there at the end of the Second World War The wild duck. After a five-year interlude, the poet returned. Ibsen spent three more vacations in the spa at the time, each in Gröbner. About his last stay, almost a decade ago, he noted in a letter from 1900: “The summer in Gossensass was the happiest, most beautiful of my whole life.”
When Ibsen stayed at the Grand Hotel, he was already a celebrity. No wonder that he received a lot of homage in Gossensass. There is still a burner below one today Ibsenweg as well as one in the area of the market town Ibsenplatz, and a permanent exhibition in the community hall provides information about the prominent guest’s stays in Gossensass.
During some summers, the publisher Samuel Fischer also stayed in Gröbner. His house had published Ibsen’s works in German, which opened up a huge new readership for the poet from sparsely populated Norway. “The author fisherman” is what German radio author Carsten Hueck calls the publisher whose first catch was actually Ibsen. Ibsen’s drama was the first book ever to be published by S. Fischer Verlag, which was founded in 1886 Rosmersholm.
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There was also booty that fishermen disdained. Ibsen’s compatriot Knut Hamsun was one of them. The two Norwegians were anything but green; It is quite possible that Fischer only did Hamsun’s novels after Ibsen’s intervention Hunger and Mysteries had refused – although excellent German versions by Marie von Borch were already available. The translator had previously translated Ibsen’s works into German. Even when the art dealer Albert Langen, who had met Hamsun in Paris, Fischer received a printing subsidy for the publication of Mysteries offered, he declined. Without further ado, Langen founded his own publishing house. The first work published there was Mysteries.
Ibsen got his fat off, Hamsun got late satisfaction
The main reason for Ibsen’s resentment and Fischer’s disapproval lay in Mysteries himself. In the novel, Hamsun has his protagonist and alter ego Johan Nilsen Nagel dealt vigorously against Ibsen. He accuses the famous author of art for the sake of art that may have an effect on the stage but has nothing to do with real life. Ibsen’s works are exemplary of dead literature, the author is its typical representative: “The Norwegian writer who does not inflate himself and does not put in a pin like a lance is not a Norwegian writer at all,” Hamsun said to Obsen with his nail hitting the head of the hated competitor exactly. In the end, Hamsun indirectly scolds his favorite enemy as a “sausage” and lets his executor add another: “You mentioned Ibsen, Nagel continued just as excited, and without Ibsen’s name being mentioned. In his opinion there was only one poet in Norway and that was not Ibsen. “
Ibsen got his fat off, Hamsun a late satisfaction: When the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded for the first time in 1903, it was not Ibsen who received the coveted award, but compatriot Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson. Hamsun alias Nagel had meant him when he spoke of Norway’s only poet.
It goes without saying that Kaser also found something wrong with Ibsen.
Not far from Gossensaß, in Bressanone, a South Tyrolean poet was born who liked to scratch monuments and spoil himself with dead literature. During a stay in Norway in the summer of 1970, Norbert Conrad Kaser came across the works of Sig Bjørn Obstfelder, the “contemporary of the snobbish ibsen who called him a charlatan & accordingly hated him.” Of course, Kaser also found something wrong with Ibsen. And it’s a shame that Kaser Hamsuns Mysteries apparently never read, otherwise he would probably have pulled more of the leather and possibly more picturesque flashes of ink would have been hurled at Ibsen from his pen.
Back to Gossensass. The leads from the town hall Ibsenweg first burner up and then branches off. Lots of wooden signs point to the small center of Gossensaß Ibsenplatz. After a good half hour and a few doubts about the bearing, the goal is reached. The signs were right. In a clearing between trees there is a plaque: “This forest area was dedicated to the great Norwegian poet by the municipality of Gossensaß on July 21, 1889 in the presence of Henrik Ibsen and the local authority at that time.”
In the past, there may have been a wonderful view of the valley from this place, combined with heavenly tranquility. There isn’t much left of either. Trees that have grown back only allow a view of the tiny Gossensass industrial park, while the Brenner motorway in the immediate vicinity provides subtle background noise. A table and three benches invite you to take a breather. You can definitely stay here for a while, preferably with Hamsuns Mysteries as accompanying reading. Incidentally, the Ibsenphilippika can be found on page 195f of the paperback edition published by List.
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